236 THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 



equal or comparable to it in these physical peculiarities. 

 Dante, whose descriptions of nature are often as exact as 

 they are always sublime, speaks of it as 



La maggior valle in che 1' acqua si spanda, 

 Fuor di quel mar che la terra inghirlanda.* 



Those, moreover, even least tutored in modern geology and 

 the great phenomena with which it deals, will see that mighty 

 movements and changes must have occurred here during 

 ages far anterior to human record or human existence on 

 earth. We shall hereafter refer to some present proofs of 

 these remote events (whether slow or paroxysmal in kind) in 

 the volcanoes and earthquakes which still so singularly affect 

 the basin of the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, a superficial 

 view will show us this sea exchanging its waters with those 

 of the Atlantic at one extremity ; at the other, nearly 2,000 

 miles distant, dissevered but by a low and narrow isthmus 

 from those which belong to the Indian Ocean. Throughout 

 the whole of this distance it divides Europe from Africa, phy- 

 sically and socially the two most dissimilar portions of the 

 globe ; the ( discordanti liti, 9 as Dante calls them, in the 

 very passage from which we have just quoted. The con- 

 tinent of Asia closes its eastern extremity ; and the Asiatic 

 line of coast, including that of the Black Sea, which may be 

 regarded as its inner basin, stretches nearly 2,500 miles in 

 length. The total circumference of the Mediterranean, fol- 

 lowing the line of its great gulfs, is estimated at upwards of 

 13,000 miles. Its area, including the Black Sea and the two 

 Seas of Azof and Marmora, is stated by Admiral Smyth to 

 be 1,149,287 square statute miles.f These are magnificent 



* Paradise, canto ix. 82. 



t In some other works a much lower statement is given of the superficial 

 extent of the Mediterranean ; but this may probably depend on the omission of 

 the Black Sea and its subordinate basins, and on the use of the geographical 

 instead of the square statute mile : possibly, also, on a deduction made for the 

 surface occupied by islands. 



