ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 79 



of nature have been treated of in a special work by Dureau 

 de la Malle, and all the information possessed on the subject 

 has been collected in Carl von HofFs important work, enti- 

 tled Geschichte der natiirlichen Veranderungen der Erd- 

 oberflache, Th. i. 1822, S. 105-162; and in Creuzer's 

 Symbolik, 2te Aufl. Th. ii. S. 285, 318, and 361. A 

 reflex, as it were, of the traditions of Samothrace appears 

 in the " Sluice theory" of Strato of Lampsacus, according 

 to which the swelling of the waters of the Euxine first 

 opened the passage of the Dardanelles, and afterwards caused 

 the outlet through the pillars of Hercules. Strabo has 

 preserved to us in the first book of his Geography, among 

 critical extracts from the works of Eratosthenes, a remark- 

 able fragment of the lost writings of Strato, presenting 

 views which extend to almost the entire circumference of 

 he Mediterranean. 



" Strato of Lampsacus/' says Strabo (Lib. i. p. 49 and 

 50, Casaub.), " is even more disposed than the Lydian Xan- 

 thus," (who had described impressions of shells at a 

 distance from the sea) " to expound the causes of the things 

 which we see. He asserts that the Euxine had formerly 

 no outlet at Byzantium, but the sea becoming swollen by 

 the rivers which ran into it, had by its pressure opened the 

 passage through which the waters flow into the Propontis 

 and the Hellespont. He also says that the same thing has 

 happened to our Sea (the Mediterranean) ;" " for here, too, 

 when the sea had become swoUen by the rivers, (which in 

 flowing into it had left dry their marshy banks), it forced for 

 itself a passage through the isthmus of land connecting the 



