120 COSMOS. 



nesus, not far from the Promontory of Malea, Further west- 

 ward is the Ionian Sea., the Syrtic basin, in which hes Malta. 

 The western extremity of Sicily here approaches within forty- 

 eight geographical miles of the coast of Africa. The sudden 

 appearance and short continuance of the upheaved volcanic 

 island of Ferdinandea in 1831, to the southwest of the calca- 

 reous rocks of Sciacca, seem to indicate an effort of nature to 

 reclose the Syrtic basin between Cape Grantola, Adventure 

 Bank, examined by Captain Smyth, Pantellaria, and the Af- 

 rican 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 sur- 

 rounds 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 subse- 

 quent 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 "un- 

 known land." The Phocieans ojiened the Tyrrhenian basin 

 west of Sicily, and Tartessian mariners reached the Pillars 

 of Hercules. 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 ad- 

 vantage of being more richly and variously articulated than 

 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 neighboring islands and the opposite 



* Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. i., p. 67. The two remarkable pas- 

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

 Polybius five points of laud in which Europe terminates. The first- 

 mentioned of these writers names the projecting point which extends 

 to the Pillars of Hercules, on which Iberia is situated ; next, that which 

 terminates 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 be- 

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

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

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

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



