THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 237 



v 



dimensions; and rendered more striking by its profound 

 depth, of which we shall presently speak, and by the lofty 

 mountain-chains which form its coasts, or rise as islands 

 from amidst its waters. 



The name of Mediterranean does not belong to the ancient 

 history of this sea, and is not found in the earlier geographers 

 either of Greece or Rome. To the people of Palestine it was 

 emphatically ' The Sea,' or the < Great Sea.' To the Greeks 

 and Romans it was the Sea within the columns, the Mare 

 Internum ; Nostrum Mare ; or still more frequently described 

 in history and poetry under the various local names derived 

 from adjoining people or coasts. The word Mediterranean 

 is not found, we believe, before the third or fourth century, 

 appropriate though it be in the sense of a general description. 

 Other names of common currency may still be heard among 

 the motley traders in this sea ; but they are not recognised in 

 our maps, and it is not needful to enumerate them. Those, 

 on the other hand, connected with its great natural divisions, 

 as the Adriatic, the Archipelago, &c., are necessary in them- 

 selves, and sanctioned by long and familiar historical use. 



These divisions are of considerable interest in the physical 

 history of the Mediterranean. As many as seven have been 

 suggested and denned ; but we may content ourselves with 

 denoting one, which is instantly obvious to the sight as 

 breaking the Sea into two great, though unequal, basins; 

 and not less strikingly marked by certain natural features, 

 which coincide with and illustrate the simple geographical 

 fact. This is the partition made by the long peninsula of 

 Italy, the island of Sicily, and the projection of the African 

 continent at Cape Bon; leaving a passage barely eighty miles 

 in width between the western and eastern basins of the 

 Mediterranean. The fact thus obvious to the eye is physi- 

 cally expressed by the lofty ridge of the Apennines stretching 

 along Italy to its very extremity, and re-appearing in the 



