302 GOSSIP THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 



'' The a."\cient writers maintained, that the temple' and oracle of 

 Ammon never would have become so famous, if the only approach 

 to them had always been over vast and dangerous deserts. They 

 insisted that the Oases had all originally been islands in the earlier 

 and more widely extended Mediterranean. In this remote period, 

 according to them, there existed as yet no communication between 

 the Pontus Euxinus and Mediterranean Sea, nor between the latter 

 and the Atlantic. The isthmus connecting Arabia with Egypt was 

 under water, and Eratosthenes believed that Menelaus had sailed 

 over this narrow passage, which is now the Isthmus of Suez. When 

 the waters of the Euxine forced a passage into the Mediterranean, 

 the great influx of water opened another outlet for itself through 

 what were called by the ancients the Pillars of Hercules — Spain and 

 Africa having been previously joined. In this tremendous convul 

 eion the ancient land of Lectonia is thought to have been inundated 

 and to have sunk in the sea, leaving merely the islands of the Archi- 

 pelago its mountain tops, to attest its former existence. According 

 to Diodorus Siculus, the inhabitants of Samothrace had a tradition 

 that a great part of their island, as well as of Asia, was ravaged 

 and laid under water by this inundation, and that in passing near 

 their island fragments of temples were frequently rescued from the 

 waves." 



If the belief of Eratosthenes previously quoted, were realized, a 

 passage would have been open to the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. 

 ** The Ethiopians pretended to have planted the first colonies in 

 Egypt, soon after that country had emerged from the waters of the 

 Mediterranean, by which it was traditionally reported to have been 

 covered. Tradition also refers to a northern passage to the ocean. 

 The belief for a long time prevailed that there was a communication 

 between the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azof) and the Oceanus or earth- 

 encompassing stream. The Argonauts were thought to have passed 

 up the Phasis into the Palus Maeotis, thence up the Tanais, from 

 the head of which they transported the Argo over land to a river 

 that fell into the main ocean, and thence directing their course to 

 the west to have come to the British Isles and the Atlantic, and to 

 have reached at last the Columns of Hercules." These traditions 

 which have very little historic value, may however point to a time 



