82 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



northern shore of the Mediterranean an advantage over the 

 southern or Lybian shore, which according to Strabo was 

 remarked by Eratosthenes. The three great peninsulas, the 

 Iberian, the Italian, and the Hellenic, with their sinuous 

 and deeply indented shores, form, in combination with the 

 neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and 

 isthmuses. The configuration of the continent and the 

 islands, the latter either severed from the main or volcani- 

 cally elevated in lines, as if over long fissures, early led to 

 geognostical views respecting eruptions, terrestrial revo- 

 lutions, and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into 

 those which were lower. The Euxine, the Dardanelles, the 

 Straits of Gades, and the Mediterranean with its many 

 islands, were well fitted to give rise to the view of such a 

 system of sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably 

 wrote in Christian times, wove antique legends into his 

 song ; he describes the breaking up of the ancient Lyktonia 

 into several islands, when ' the dark-haired Poseidon, being 

 wroth with Father Kronion, smote Lyktonia with the golden 

 trident/ Similar phantasies, which indeed may often 

 have arisen from imperfect knowledge of geographical 

 circumstances, proceeded from the Alexandrian school, 

 where erudition abounded, and a strong predilection 

 was felt for antique legends. It is not necessary to de- 

 termine here whether the myth of the Atlantis broken into 

 fragments should be regarded as a distant and western 

 reflex of that of Lyktonia (as I think I have elsewhere 

 shewn to be probable), or whether, as Otfried Miiller con- 

 siders, " the destruction of Lyktonia (Leuconia) refers to 



