THE HUMAN SPECIES. 53 



the most remarkable. Its present outlet at the Bos- 

 phorus, dating probably not much anterior to the Greek 

 heroic age, was clearly a consequence of increased pres- 

 sure, produced by the waters of the inland seas, already 

 noticed, increasing their weight towards the south, in 

 proportion as the north was hove up; and both the 

 Ouralian and Sarmatian arms were cut off from their 

 communications with the ocean; but were not to be 

 converted into marshes and deserts, until drained oif 

 by a new outlet, and when the sun could act with power 

 in the process of absorption. Then it was that the 

 emphatical expressions of " the kings of the isles," and 

 " isles of the west," which designate Europe in the 

 oldest human records, were correct in the strictest 

 sense ; and, until the progressive results had been long 

 in operation, man was not able to reach Europe in the 

 strength of numbers, but only by families or small 

 clans of wanderers, in canoes or rafts, on the northern 

 ice, or at the isthmus of Thrace, before it was rent 

 asunder by a volcanic percussion, and the local deluges 

 of Hellenic mythology took place. 



Russia, west of the Oural chain, exhibits a counter 

 direction of the water courses, which forms a kind of 

 table land in the Vologda province, flowing towards the 

 Caspian and the Euxine, and having only inferior rivers 

 turned towards the pole. Hills or small mountain clus- 

 ters, commence already to rear their heads, amid the 

 marshes and lakes bordering on the Arctic shore, through 

 the whole province of Archangel, becoming more ele* 

 vated westward, after the interval occasioned by the 



