THE DESEETS OF AFRICA AND ASIA. 365 



the numerous alternate immersions and emersions positively ascertained 

 in the littoral regions of almost all the countries surrounding the Mediter- 

 ranean. On the African shores this phenomenon is particularly striking, 

 as much by its intensity as by the variety of its manifestations, the 

 movement of the rising and the sinking of the soil occurring alternately 

 on the same littoral line, in localities not far distant the one from the 

 others. Gerhard Rohlfs, the well-known African explorer, has ascertained 

 the sinking of the whole shore of Tripoli to the Gulf of Great Syrtis, 

 and, according to him, this sinking is so conspicuous that he was 

 perfectly able to appreciate it during his repeated visits to the country. 

 He quotes very remarkable instances of this phenomenon and says : ' I 

 do not think that anywhere on our globe such a rapid sinking of the soil 

 has ever been observed.' 



Now, a quite opposite movement of the soil occurs in the neighbouring 

 Tunisian shores. Here M. Barth has discovered near the modern town 

 of Gabes ruins of a much older one, which he identifies with the ancient 

 city Tascape, a city situated, according to the Greek and Roman writers, 

 on the sea-shore, which is no more the case with the modern Gabes. 

 Sir Granville Temple has observed traces of an ancient gulf penetrating 

 from Gabes in the interior of the continent, and connected with the lake 

 or Chott el Fedjedj (the ancient Tritonis lacus), a connection which has 

 been interrupted by the rising of the tract, which, under the shape of 

 an isthmus, now separates the Gulf of Gabes from the lake. Nearer 

 Tunis we find the bay of Porto Farina, which, two centuries ago, was 

 considered as an excellent port, 30 to 50 feet deep, so that in the year 

 1655 Admiral Blake could very comfortably anchor there, with his naval 

 force, composed of nine men of war. At present, the Porto Farina has 

 hardly a depth of 2 feet, and the time is not far oS" when the whole bay 

 will be joined to the continent. Again, the celebrated city of Utica, 

 which, under the Carthaginians, possessed a splendid port, is now converted 

 into a large sandy plain, and the ruins of the once littoral city are more 

 than twelve miles distant from the sea. There are few places in the 

 world which oflTer a more melancholy contrast between the present and 

 the past than this sandy, perfectly shadeless plain, which I crossed under 

 the scorching African June sun, without meeting a single living creature, 

 and which recalled similar impressions in the classic regions of Asia 

 Minor, where not only man, but also Nature, has for so many centuries 

 practised the work of destruction. But if Nature destroys she equally 

 creates, and in a topographical sense Asia Minor offers, on that account, 

 the most striking examples. During the ten years I devoted to the 

 exploration of that magnificent country, I was able — the ancient geo- 

 graphers and historians in my hand — to ascertain the modifications which 

 the surface of this country has undergone, only since the Christian era. 

 Those modifications are so considerable, that taking into account the 

 increase of solid land, produced only by the formation of large river 

 deltas, and the filling up of seas and gulfs, it can be said, without 

 exaggeration, that the surface of Asia Minor has conquered, during this 

 comparatively short time, the amount of a little province, a kind of 

 conquest which is still rapidly continuing, so that one day may be realised 

 the prophecy of Strabo, who, eighteen centuries ago, declared that the 

 time shall come when the shores of Cilicia may reach the island of Cyprus, 

 an event likely to give great trouble to diplomatists, if Buch functionaries 

 are then still existing. 



