THEORY OF THE EARTH. 131 



which the rivers had prepared for them, and which 

 they are continually augmenting. 



If the size which Herodotus attributes to the 

 Sea of Asoph, which he makes equal to the Eux- 

 ine #, had been less vaguely indicated, and if we 

 knew precisely what he meant by the Gerrhus f , 

 we should there find strong additional proofs of 

 the changes produced by rivers, and the rapidity 

 with which they are made ; for the alluvial depo- 

 sitions of rivers alone have, since the time of He- 

 rodotus, that is to say, in the course of two thou- 

 sand and two or three hundred years, reduced 

 the Sea of Asoph $ to its present comparatively 

 small size, shut up the course of the Gerrhus, or 

 that branch of the Dnieper which had formerly 

 joined the Hypacyris, and discharged its waters a- 

 long with that river into the gulf called Carcinites, 



* Melpom. Ixxxvi. t Ibid. Ivi. 



J This supposed diminution of the Black Sea and Sea of 

 Asoph, has also been attributed to the rupture of the Bos- 

 phorus, which had taken place at the pretended period of 

 the deluge of Deucalion ; and yet, in order to establish the 

 fact itself, recourse is had to successive diminutions of the 

 extent attributed to these seas by Herodotus, Strabo, and 

 others. But it is very obvious, that, if this diminution had 

 arisen from the rupture of the Bosphorus, it would neces- 

 sarily have been completed long before the time of Herodo- 

 tus, and even at the period at which Deucalion is supposed 

 to have lived. 



