482 COSMOS. 



the southern or Libyan shore, and this was, according to 

 Strabo, noticed already by Eratosthenes.^ Here we find three 

 peninsulas, the Iberian, the Italian and the Hellenic, which 

 owing to their various and deeply indented contour, form 

 together with the neighbouring islands and the opposite 

 coasts, many straits and isthmuses. Such a configuration of con- 

 tinents and of islands that have been partly severed, and partly 

 upheaved by volcanic agency in rows or in far projecting fis- 

 sures, early led to geognostic views regarding eruptions, ter- 

 restrial revolutions, and outpourings of the swollen higher 

 seas into those below them. The Euxine, the Dardanelles, 

 the straits of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its numerous 

 islands, were well fitted to draw attention to such a system of 

 sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably lived in Chris- 

 tian times, has interwoven old mythical narrations in his 

 composition. He sings of the division of the ancient Lyktonia 

 into separate islands, " when the dark-haired Poseidon, in 

 anger with Father Kronion, struck Lyktonia with the golden 

 trident." Similar fancies, which may often certainly have 

 sprung from an imperfect knowledge of geographical relations, 

 were frequently elaborated in the erudite Alexandrian school, 

 which was so partial to everything connected with antiquity. 

 Whether the myth of the breaking up of Atlantis be a vague 

 and western reflection of that of Lyktonia, as I have elsewhere 

 shown to be probable, or whether according to Otfried Muller 

 " the destruction of Lyktonia (Leukonia), refers to the Samo- 

 Thracian legend of a great flood which changed the form of 

 that district/'f is a question that it is unnecessary here to 

 decide. 



* Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. i. p. 67. The two remarkable passages 

 of Strabo, are as follows : " Eratosthenes enumerates three, and Poly- 

 bins five points of land in which Europe terminates. The first-men- 

 tioned of these writers names the projecting point which extends to the 

 ' Pillars of Hercules, on which Iberia is situated ; next, that which ter- 

 minates at the Sicilian Straits, to which Italy belongs; and, thirdly, that 

 which extends to Malea, and comprises all the nations between the 

 Adriatic, the Euxine, and the Tanais." (lib. ii. p. 109.) "We begin 

 with Europe because it is of irregular form, and is the quarter most 

 favourable to the mental and social ennoblement of men. It is habitable 

 in all parts except some districts near the Tanais, which are not peopled 

 on account of the cold." (lib. ii. p. 126.) 



t Ukert, Geogr. der GriecJien und Romer, th. i. abth. 2, s. 345-348, 

 and th. ii. abth. 1, s. 194; Joannes v. Muller, Werke } lod, i. s. 38; Hum- 



