AN ANCIENT SEA. 330 



former presence of the sea. Pallas (vol. x.) thinks 

 that the salt lakes of the steppes of Russia and Tar- 

 tary are ancieDt gulfs, the mouths of which have 

 been choked up with sanrl, and which have subse- 

 quently been considerably reduced by evaporation. 



Originally, says Dureau de la Malle, the Mediter- 

 ranean was a lake of small extent, fed by the Nile, the 

 Rhone, the Po, and many other less considerable rivers. 

 The ocean, making an irruption into it, inundated 

 a part of the low sandy coasts of Spain, of Barbary, 

 and the plains of Provence and Languedoc, and 

 of course flooded the coasts of Egypt and Asia Minor, 

 where it has penetrated to the foot of the mountains 

 and hills. 



After that period the Mediterranean, losing much 

 more by evaporation than it gained from its rivers 

 and the Straits of Gibraltar, then very narrow, gra- 

 dually contracted. But it was enlarged again, when, 

 owing to the volcanic eruption of the Cyanei Scopuli, 

 the channel of the Bosphorus, and the plains in 

 its neighbourhood, had opened a passage to the 

 Euxine, the Caspian, and the Lake of Aral, and 

 they were united in one sea, at least as large as 

 the present Mediterranean. All the low plains of 

 recent formation were covered with water afresh ; 

 but the sea again retired until an equilibrium was 

 established, and it lost by evaporation what it 



