PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 481 



The .agean is bounded to the south by the curved line formed 

 by the Carian coast of Asia Minor, and the islands of Rhodes, 

 Crete, and Cerigo, and terminating at the Peloponnesus, not 

 far from the Promontory of Malea. Further westward is 

 the Ionian Sea, the Syrtic basin, in which lies Malta. The 

 western extremity of Sicily here approaches within forty-eight 

 geographical miles of the coast of Africa. The sudden appear- 

 ance and short continuance of the upheaved volcanic Island of 

 Ferdinandea in 1 83 1 , to the south-west of the calcareous rocks of 

 Sciacca, seem to indicate an effort of nature, to reclose the 

 Syrtic basin, between Cape Grantola, Adventure Bank, ex- 

 amined by Captain Smyth, Pantellaria, and the African Cape 

 Bon, and thus to divide it from the third western basin, the 

 Tyrrhenian. This last sea receives the ocean which enters 

 the Pillars of Hercules from the west, and surrounds Sardinia, 

 the Balearic islands, and the small volcanic group of the 

 Spanish Columbratae. 



This triple constriction of the Mediterranean has exercised 

 a great influence on the earliest limitations, and the subsequent 

 extension of Phoenician and Greek voyages of discovery. The 

 latter were long limited to the Egean and Syrtic Seas. In 

 the Homeric times the continent of Italy was still an " unknown 

 land." The Phocasans opened the Tyrrhenian basin west of 

 Sicily, and Tartessian mariners reached the Pillars of Her- 

 cules. It must not be forgotten that Carthage was founded 

 at the boundary of the Tyrrhenian and Syrtic basins. The 

 physical configuration of the coast line influenced the course 

 of events, the direction of nautical undertakings, and the 

 changes in the dominion of the sea; and the latter reacted 

 again on the enlargement of the sphere of ideas. 



The northern shore of the Mediterranean possesses the 

 advantage of being more richly and variously articulated than 



aulSeme siede, t. i. pp. 86-38. See also Otfried Muller, in the Gottin* 

 gische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1838, bd. i. s. 376. The most western basin, 

 which I name generally, the Tyrrhenian, includes, according to Strabo, 

 the Iberian, Ligurian, and Sardinian Seas. The Syrtic basin, east of 

 Sicily, includes the Ausonian or Siculian, the Libyan, and the Ionian 

 Seas. The southern and south-western part of the Egean Sea was called 

 Cretic, Saronic, and Myrtoic. The remarkable passage in Aristot. de 

 Mundo, cap. iii. (p. 393, Bekk.), refers only to the bay-like configuration 

 of the coasts of the Mediterranean, and its effect on the ocean flowing 

 into it. 



