PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 119 



southern or Lybian shore, which, according to Strabo, was 

 remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas, ( 153 ) 

 the Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their sinuous 

 and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the 

 neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and 

 isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and of the 

 islands, the latter either severed from the main or volcani- 

 cally elevated in lines, as if over long fissures, early led to 

 geognostical views respecting eruptions, terrestrial revolu- 

 tions, and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into those 

 which were lower. The Euxine, the Dardanelles, the Straits 

 of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its many islands, were 

 well fitted to give rise to the view of such a system of 

 sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably wrote in 

 Christian times, wove antique legends into his song; he 

 describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia into 

 several islands, when "the dark-haired Poseidon, being 

 wroth with Father Kronion, smote Lyktonia with the golden 

 trident." Similar phantasies, which, indeed, may often have 

 arisen from imperfect knowledge of geographical circum- 

 stances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school, where 

 erudition abounded, and a strong predilection was felt for 

 antique legends. It is not necessary to determine here 

 whether the myth of the Atlantis broken into fragments, 

 should be regarded as a distant and western reflex of that of 

 Lyktonia (as I think I have elsewhere shewn to be probable), 

 or whether, as Otfried Miiller considers, " the destruction of 

 Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to the Samothracian tradition of a 

 great flood, which had changed the form of that district." ( 154 ) 

 But, as has already been often remarked, the circumstance 

 which have most of all rendered the geographical position 



