180 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 



of the Mediterranean so beneficently favourable to the inter- 

 course of nations, and the progressive extension of the 

 knowledge of the world, are the neighbourhood of the 

 peninsula of Asia Minor, projecting from the eastern conti- 

 nent } the numerous islands of the J3gean ( 155 ) which have 

 formed a bridge for the passage of civilisation; and the 

 fissure between Arabia, Egypt, and Abyssinia, by which the* 

 great Indian ocean, under the name of the Arabian Gulf 

 or lied Sea, advances so as to be only divided by a nar- 

 row isthmus from the Delta of the Nile, and from the 

 south-eastern coast of the Mediterranean. By means of 

 these geographical relations, the influence of the sea, as the 

 " uniting element," shewed itself in the increasing power of 

 the Phoenicians, and subsequently also in that of the Hellenic 

 nations, and in the rapid enlargement of the circle of ideas. 

 Civilisation in its earlier seats, in Egypt, on the Euphrates 

 and the Tigris, in the Indian Pentapotamia, and in China, 

 had been confined to the rich alluvial lands watered by wide 

 rivers ; but it was otherwise in Phoenicia and in Hellas. 

 The early impulse to maritime undertakings, which shewed 

 itself in the lively and mobile minds of the Greeks and 

 especially of the Ionic branch, found a rich and varied field 

 in the remarkable forms of the Mediterranean, and in its 

 position relatively to the oceans to the south and west. 



The Red Sea, formed by the entrance of the Indian Ocean 

 through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, belongs to a class of 

 great physical phaenomena which modern geology has made 

 known to us. The European continent has its principal 

 axis in a north-east and south-west line; but, almost at 

 right angles to this direction, there exists a system of fissures, 

 which have given occasion, in some cases, to the entrance 



