B L A 



553 



BLA 



Black, tinent, would hare stood higher than it does at pre- 



v~ ' sent. 



5. We cannot conclude this article, without men- 

 tioning a circumstance regarding Dr Black, which 

 does not appear to be generally known. We relate 

 it on the authority of the late Benjamin Bell, Esq., 

 surgeon in Edinburgh, who had it, as he informed 

 the writer of this article, from the late Sir George 

 Clerk of Pennycuick, a particular friend of Dr 

 Black, and an eye-witness to the circumstance. 

 When Mr Cavendish, in 1766, ascertained the spe- 

 cific gravity of hydrogen gas, it occurred to Dr 

 Black, that it might be employed to raise weights in 

 the atmosphere. He procured the alantois of a calf, 

 filled it with hydrogen gas, and found, that the bag, 

 thus filled, was lighter than air, and would rise to 

 the ceiling of the room. He invited a number' of 

 his friends to supper, and told them, that he had a 

 curiosity to shew them. When the company met, 



he produced his prepared alantois, and, to the sur- 

 prise of all present, it ascended, and remained at- 

 tached to the ceiling of the room. At first, they 

 supposed that a fine thread had been attached to it, 

 and that some person in the room above had drawn 

 it by that means to the ceiling. But an actual in- 

 spection convinced them, that this solution was er- 

 roneous. Dr Black then explained to them the way 

 in which it was filled, and pointed out the useful 

 purposes to which such contrivances might be ap- 

 plied. If this statement be correct, and, from the 

 source of the information, there seems reason to rely 

 upon it, Dr 31ack was in reality the discoverer of the 

 air-balloons ; and he made the discovery nearly fif- 

 teen years before the idea suggested itself to M. 

 Montgolfier. Unfortunately, all the gentlemen men- 

 tioned by Mr Bell, as having been present at the ex- 

 hibition, are now dead ; so that it is impossible to 

 authenticate it by any more direct testimony, (c) 



Black. 



BLACK SEA. 



Black The Black Sea, formerly called the Euxine * Sea, 

 3ea * is an immense inland sea, situated between Europe 

 ' and Asia, and connected with the Mediterranean by 



the Straits of Constantinople. 



By comparing the accounts of this sea, as given by 

 ancient authors, with the limits assigned to it by re- 

 cent observations, it appears unquestionable, that it 

 has sustained a most singular diminution, in conse- 

 quence of some great subterranean convulsion. 



From the topographical descriptions of the Black 

 Sea, as collected by Valerius Flaccus, from the an- 

 cient accounts of the voyages of the Argonauts, it 

 appears, that the gulfs and bays of this lake were ex- 

 tremely deep ; and that, in conjunction with the 

 Palus Meotidis, it extended far towards the north, 

 and almost equalled the Mediterranean in magnitude. 

 In the time of Homer, according to Strabo and Eus- 

 tathius, the Euxine Sea was regarded as the greatest 

 of all the inland seas ; and received the name of *-ot, 

 n account of its superior magnitude. Herodotus 

 makes the length of the Euxine Sea, from the Cya- 

 nean Isles (now the Pavorante) to the river Phasus, 

 11,100 stadia, or nearly 17 degrees and a half. Proco- 

 pius reckons the distance from Chalcedon to the Pha- 

 sus at 50 days journey, for a good walker, which, 

 at the rate of nine leagues a-day, will make the dis- 

 tance equal to 18 degrees ; a result which coincides 

 remarkably with that of Herodotus. As the utmost 

 extent of this sea, however, in the best modern 

 charts, does not exceed 12 degrees and a half, we 

 are entitled to conclude, that it formerly covered the 

 low grounds which stretch towards the base of the 

 mountains of Caucasus. 



The north and west coast of this sea seem to have 

 undergone very remarkable changes. The line of its 

 greatest width has undoubtedly varied ; and the im- 



mense volume of waters which is rolled from Asia 

 and Europe into this capacious reservoir, seem to 

 have completely changed the outline of its coast, and 

 filled up the deep gulfs which indented its shores. 

 The southern coast, which consists chiefly of calca- 

 reous rocks, upon which the sea reposes, to a great 

 depth, has suffered but few changes, excepting at 

 the mouths of the rivers ; and hence the geographi- 

 cal descriptions of this part of the Black Sea, as gi- 

 ven by ancient authors, are more easily reconciled 

 with modern observations. 



From these indications of extensive changes, as 

 well as from the testimony of ancient authors, it 

 would appear, that the Sea of Aral and the Caspian 

 Sea once formed an immense lake, joined by a strait 

 to the Palus Meotis and Euxine Sea ; and that this 

 huge collection of water was separated from the Me- 

 diterranean by a narrow isthmus, formed by the Cy- 

 anean Isles. An eruption of these volcanic islands 

 is supposed to have formed an outlet for the exube- 

 rant waters of the Euxine, which rolled its torrent 

 with irresistible impetuosity into the Propontis, and 

 afterwards into the Mediterranean, and deluged the 

 low plains of Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, Egypt, 

 and Libya. The effects of this dreadful inundation 

 are recorded in the monuments, the traditions, the 

 poetry, the history, and the chronology of these an- 

 cient nations. The Samathracians, according to Dio- 

 dorus (lib. v. cap. 47.,) ascribed this deluge to the 

 opening of the mouth of the Bosphorus. Their fish- 

 ermen dragged out, in their nets, the capitals of co- 

 lumns that belonged to the cities which had been 

 submerged ; and, in the time of Diodorus, they of- 

 fered sacrifices upon altars erected on the line which 

 formed the limits of the inundation, lster, an an-, 

 cient author quoted by Eustathius, mentions some 



' The term Euxine is derived from *!, inhospitable, the epithet given by the ancients to this sea. Hence Ovid, 



Ovir, lib. jv. Trist. Eleg. iv. 



Black 

 Sea. 



0L. III. PART III. 



Frigida me cohibent F.uxini littmra Ponti 

 Dicttcs ab antiquit Axinvs illcfuit 



4 A 



