264 H. W. Pearson — Oscillations of Sea-lecel. 



and wbich was undermined by the sea in 1644, can also be used to 

 show the low- water stage at its time of erection (51 a.b.), as it was 

 then a mile from the sea. Pliny counted twenty-three islands 

 between the Texel and the Eider. Now only sixteen, and those 

 greatly diminished in size ("Principles," 9th ed., p. 329). "Pliny 

 states that the city of Apologos (at the head of Persian Gulf) was 

 originally only ten miles from the sea, but that in his time the 

 existing place was so much as 120 miles from it" (McCrindle, 

 "The Com. and Nav. of the Erythraean Sea," p. 104). Jersey 

 was probably part of the Continent in Caesar's time and still later 

 (Peacock, "Vast Sinkings of Land," p. 13). 



Data as to High-Water Period of about 250 b.o. 



The two piers of the port of Phalasarna, a city of late Hellenic 

 date, are now 22 feet above their original level (Prestwich, "Tra- 

 dition of the Flood," p. 57). The Gulf of Poitou (France) 2,000 

 years ago was 18 to 20 miles wide, now but a small bay known 

 as the creeks of Aiguillon (Eeclus, "The Earth," p. 541). Bay of 

 Tunis, once a deep and open harbour, now has only 6 or 7 feet of 

 water. Shaw identifies at a point now inland, but which must 

 anciently have been on the seashore, the ' Port ' (now village of 

 El Mersa) as the ancient harbour of Carthage (Smith's Diet. 

 Greek and Eoman Geog., pp. 531-2). It is certain beyond 

 question that the high-water stage shown above for the Bay of 

 Tunis and harbour of Carthage was in existence during the period 

 of the three Punic wars, or from 264 to 146 b.o. Aleria or Alalia 

 (a city of Corsica), a seaport in Eoman times, captured by the 

 Eoman fleet 259 b.c, is now above half a mile from the coast 

 (ibid., p. 94). At the time of Herodotus (died 425 B.C.) the 

 mountain of Lade was an island ; at the present time it forms part 

 of the mainland ("The Earth," p. 542). 



Admiral Smyth shows in "The Mediterranean," p. 73, that this 

 island of Lade sheltered the Athenian fleet a.c. 412 or 341 B.C., 

 and alleges as the cause of junction between the islands and the 

 mainland the silting action of the Meander Eiver. On the other 

 hand, Eeclus ("The Earth," p. 542) denies the competence of 

 silting to explain the changed topography of the shores of Asia 

 Minor, and says, "It must therefore be in consequence of a slow 

 upheaval of the earth's crust that the ruins of Troy, Smyrna, 

 Ephesus, and Miletus have gradually become more distant from 

 the coast and appear to be receding still further inland." Tyre 

 was an island up to the time of Alexander's siege (322 B.C.). The 

 present harbour is not so large as it once was. The other ancient 

 harbour has disappeared (Encyc. Brit., vol. xxiii, p. 711). 



The town of Putai (China), said to have been on the coast twenty- 

 one centuries ago, is now over forty miles away (" The Earth and 

 its Inhabitants," Asia, vol. ii, p. 104). In twenty-two centuries the 

 Ehone delta has run out 26 kilometres into the sea (Geological 

 Eecord, 1875, p. 82). The coastline of Tunis has increased outwards 

 nearly 100 square miles in area since the third century B.C. This 



