

* 



r 





i 



^ 



•: 



vl[ 





nil 



■ 



)mej 



! pi 



I 



Land 



up 10 ?" 



.:.-•, IT 





Ch. II.] 



SPECULATIONS OF STRABO. 



23 



>/ 



—As we learn much of the tenets of the 



Egyptian and Oriental schools in the writings of the Greeks, 



m 



known to ns in the works of the Augustan and later ages. 

 Strabo, in particular, enters largely, in the second book of 

 his Geography, into the opinions of Eratosthenes and other 

 Greeks on one of the most difficult problems in geology, viz. 

 by what cause marine shells came to be plentifully buried in 

 the earth at such great elevations and distances from the sea. 

 He notices, amongst others, the explanation of Xanthus the 



more 



JJ Y VJ.J-C4JXA, ITliU ULUJ.\-v v.J.i.1^^ „.-w 



sive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as 



time many 



failed during a season of drought. 



7 



Treating this conjecture 

 with merited disregard, Strabo passes on to the hypothesis 

 of Strato, the natural philosopher, who had observed that 

 the quantity of mud brought down by rivers into the Euxine 

 was so great, that its bed must be gradually raised, while the 

 rivers still continue to pour in an undiminished quantity of 

 water. He, therefore, conceived that, originally, when the 

 Euxine was an inland sea, its level had by this means become 

 so much elevated that it burst its barrier near Byzantium, 

 and formed a communication with the Propontis ; and this 

 partial drainage, he supposed, had already converted the left 



mars 



be choked up with soil. 



Mediter- 

 Columns 



Hercule 



of sea-shells in Africa, near the Temple of Jupiter Amnion, 



mig 

 had 



But Strabo rejects this theory, as insufficient to account 

 for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the 



Syrum Mar oni tarn, cap. 7. et 8. ad 

 calcem Chronici Orientali. Parisiis, e 



Typ. Kegia, 1685, fol. ^ ; 



I have given the punctuation as in the 

 Paris edition, there being no comma 

 after quinque ; but, at the suggestion of 

 M. de Schlegel, I have referred the 



years, and not to the number of pairs 

 of each species created at one time, as I 

 had done in the two first editions. 



Fortis inferred that twenty-five new 

 species only were created at a time ; a 

 construction which the passage will 

 not admit. Mem. sur l'Hist. Nat. de 



number twenty-five to the period of l'ltalie, vol. i. p. 202. 



