Chap. 88.] ELEVATION OF LANDS. 117 



surfaced Tor the land is not merely produced "by what is 

 brought down, the rivers, as the islands called Echinades are 

 formed by the river Achelous, and the greater part of Egypt 

 by the Me, where, according to Homer, it was a day and a 

 night's journey from the main land to the island of Pharos^ ; 

 but, in some cases, by the receding of the sea, as, according 

 to the same author, was the case with the Circaean isles^. 

 The same thing also happened in the harbour of Ambracia, 

 for a space of 10,000 paces, and was also said to have taken 

 place lor 6000 at the Piraeus of Athens'*, and likewise at 

 Ephesus, where formerly the sea washed the walls of the 

 temple of Diana. Indeed, if we may believe Herodotus", the 

 sea came beyond Memphis, as far as the mountains of Ethi- 

 opia, and also from the plains of Arabia. The sea also sur- 

 rounded Ilium and the whole of Teuthrania, and covered the 

 plain through which the Maeander flows ''. 



CHAP. 88. (86.) — THE MODE IN WHICH ISLANDS BISE UP. 



Land is sometimes formed in a different manner, rising 

 suddenly out of the sea, as if nature was compensating the 

 earth for its losses', restoring in one place what she had 

 swallowed up in another. 



1 This phsenomenon is distinctly referred to by Seneca, Nat. Qnsest. 

 vi. 21. It presents us with one of those cases, where the scientific de- 

 ductions of the modems have been anticipated by the speculations of the 

 Rncients. 



2 Odyss. ir. 354-357 ; see also Arist. Meteor. L 14 ; Lucan, x. 509-511 ; 

 Seneca, Nat. Qusest. vi. 26 ; Herodotus, ii. 4, 5 ; and Strabo, L 59. 



•* These form, at this day, the Monte Circello, which, it is remarked, 

 rises up hke an island, out of the Pontine marshes. It seems, however, 

 difficult to conceive how Qny action of the sea could have formed these 

 marshes. 



■• See Strabo, L 58. ^ ii. 5. et alibi. 



^ The plain in which this river flows, forming the windings from which 

 it derives its name, appears to have been originally an inlet of the sea, 

 which was gradually fUled up with alluvial matter. 



7 " Paria secum faciente natura." Tliis appears to have been a collo- 

 quial or idiomatic expression among the Romans. See Hardouin ia 

 Lemaire, i. 412. 



