PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 509 



times, was finally associated with the mouth of the Phasis 

 (Rion), and with Colchis, a seat of ancient civilisation, instead 

 of with the uncertain and remote land of Aea. The expedi- 

 tions of the Milesians and their numerous colonial cities on 

 the Euxine, enabled them to obtain a more exact knowledge 

 of the eastern and northern limits of that sea; and thus 

 gave a more definite outline to the geographical portion of the 

 myth. A number of important new views was thus simul- 

 taneously opened. The Caspian had long been known 

 only on its western coast; and even HecataDus regarded this 

 shore as the western boundary of the encircling Eastern 

 Ocean.* 4 The father of history was the first who taught that 

 the Caspian Sea was a basin closed on all sides, a fact which, 

 after him, was again contested, for six centuries, until the 

 time of Ptolemy. 



At the north-eastern extremity of the Black Sea a wide 

 field was also opened to ethnology. Astonishment was 

 felt at the multiplicity of languages amongst the different 

 races,f and the necessity for skilful interpreters (the first 



concerning the return of the Argonauts through the Phasis into the 

 Eastern Ocean, and across the " double " Triton Lake, formed either by 

 the conjectured bifurcation of the Ister, or by volcanic earthquakes 

 (Asie centrale, t. i. p. 179; t. iii. pp. 135-137; Otfr. Miiller, Minyer, 

 s. 357), are especially important in arriving at a knowledge of the earli- 

 est views regarding the form of the continents. The geographical phan- 

 tasies of Peisandros, Timagetus, and Apollonius of Rhodes, were continued 

 until late in the middle ages, and showed themselves sometimes as bewil- 

 dering and deterring obstacles, and sometimes as stimulating incitements 

 to actual discoveries. This reaction of antiquity on later times, when men 

 suffered themselves to be led more by opinions than by actual observa- 

 tions, has not been hitherto sufficiently considered in the history of 

 geography. My object here is not merely to present bibliographical 

 Bources from the literature of different nations, for the elucidation of 

 the facts advanced in the text, but also to introduce into these notes, 

 which permit of greater freedom, such abundant materials for reflection 

 as I have been able to derive from my own experience and from long 

 continued literary studies. 



* Hecatcei, Fragm.. ed. Klausen, pp. 39, 92, 98, and 119. See also my 

 investigations on the history of the geography of the Caspian Sea, from 

 Herodotus down to the Arabian El-Istachri, Edrisi, and Ibn-el- Vardi, 

 on the Sea of Aral, and on the bifurcation of the Oxus and the Araxes, 

 in my Asie centrale, t. ii. pp. 162-297. 



t Cramer, de Studiis quce veteres ad aliarum gentium contulerint 

 linguas, 1844, pp. 8 and 17. The ancient Colchians appear to have 



