THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 229 



more specific record of a particular class of natural pheno- 

 mena ; and in discussing the subject we carried our limitation 

 yet farther, by taking the Atlantic as the special exponent 

 of those features which belong to the ocean domain of the 

 globe. We have now before us a volume on the Mediter- 

 ranean Sea ; the first English work, as we believe, expressly 

 devoted to this subject. Its coasts and islands have been 

 separately noted and described by travellers, geographers, 

 and historians of all countries and ages. But no one had 

 treated, singly and especially, of the Sea washing round and 

 amidst these lands, and reflecting their wonderful history of 

 thirty centuries on its waters. We possessed no work deline- 

 ating its peculiar physical features ; its outline, dimensions, 

 depth, currents, winds, and other hydrographical and nautical 

 conditions ; the configuration of its coasts, its islands, volca- 

 noes, and the rivers which pour themselves into its great basin. 



This, then, was one of the voids of which we have spoken ; 

 and it continued such, until the progress of all scientific 

 knowledge and the rapid spread of human intercourse by 

 sea and land, made it needful that a physical history of the 

 Mediterranean should be written ; an obj ect well and ably 

 fulfilled by Admiral Smyth in the work before us. Some 

 time has now elapsed since its publication ; but intervening 

 events have enhanced the interest of the subject; and we 

 willingly receive his volume as the first instalment of what 

 is due to the general history of the Mediterranean Sea. 



In a mere technical sense, the Mediterranean may be 

 described as a gulf or inland branch of the Atlantic ; but in 

 itself this Sea has a more wonderful individuality than any 

 other on the globe. This is true as to its physical features, 

 singly considered ; still more eminently true as respects 

 those relations to human history which render it an inter- 

 preter of the records of past ages, and of the ancient 

 empires which have flourished on its shores. On no equal 



