112 



SUPPOSED UNIVERSALITY 



[Ch. VI. 



an. 



Black Sea. As the Caspian covers an area about equal to 

 that of Spain, and as its shores are in general low and flat 

 there must be many thousand square miles of country less 

 than 83 feet above the level of that inland sea, and conse- 

 quently depressed below the Black Sea and Mediterrane 

 This area includes the site of the populous city of Astrakhan 

 and other towns. Into this region the ocean would pour its 

 waters, if the land now intervening between the Black Sea 

 (or rather the Sea of Azof) and the Caspian should subside. 

 Yet, even if this event should occur, it is most probable that 

 the submergence of the whole region would not be accom- 

 plished simultaneously, but by a series of minor floods, the 

 sinking of the barrier being gradual.* The shores of the 

 Dead Sea have lately been ascertained by a party of our 

 Royal Engineers to be about 1,300 English feet below the 

 level of the Mediterranean, or about four feet less than 1,300 

 on an average. f In this case, towns built on hills nearly 

 1,300 feet high might be submerged by such a change of level 

 in the barrier as would open a communication between the 

 Mediterranean and the valley of the Jordan. 



Supposed universality of ancient deposits. — The next fallacy 

 which has helped to perpetuate the doctrine that the opera- 

 tions of water were on a different and grander scale in ancient 

 times, is founded on the indefinite areas over which homo- 

 geneous deposits were supposed to extend. Kb modern sedi- 

 mentary strata, it was said, equally identical in mineral 

 character and fossil contents, can be traced continuously from 

 one quarter of the globe to another. But the first propagators 

 of these opinions were very slightly acquainted with the 



* It has been suspected ever since Eoy. Geograph. Soc. vol. viii. p. 135.) 



the middle of the last century, that Sir E. Murchison, however, concludes, 



the Caspian was lower than the ocean, in 1845. from the best Eussian autho- 



it being known that in Astrakhan the rities, that the depression of the Cas- 



mercury in the barometer generally 

 stands above thirty inches. In 1836, 

 the Eussian government directed the 

 Academy of St. Petersburg to send an 

 expedition to determine the relative 

 level of the Caspian and Black Seas 

 by a trigonometrical survey. It was 

 found that the Caspian was 101 Eus- 



pian is only 83 feet 6 inches. 



f Sir Henry James, who planned this 

 survey, which was executed by Capt. 

 Wilson, E.E., informs me that on the 

 12th of March, 1865, the difference of 

 level was 1,292 feet. The maximum 

 depression occurring in the dry season 

 amounts to 1,298 feet, the minimum 



sian, or 108 English, feet lower than the as ascertained by the drifted seaweed 

 Black Sea. (For authorities, see Journ. on the shores, being only 1,289*5 feet. 





