THE HUMAN SPECIES. 145 



ISO along the sea-coast, from west to east, became a fertile 

 land, where inundation extended ; pasturage where it is acces- 

 sible only in part, and desert or marsh in all the rest.*- 



On the Syrian coast, the Mediterranean current is first 

 repelled by the rocky soil of Palestine, and turned northward, 

 undermining, in its passage, the sea-wall, formed of enormous 

 stones, at the port of Caesarea ; but, further on, completing, with 

 the sands of Egypt, Alexander's work, at the isthmus of Tyre. 

 Next, at the Calpian Gulf, the foot of Cilician Taurus again 

 turns the current, which, now forced in a direction to the west, 

 is broken into several devious branches by Cyprus, Rhodes, 

 Crete, the Egean Islands, Sicily, the Peloponnesus, and Italy; 

 but still not so entirely but that it is again recognized in the 

 Tyrhenian Sea, and thence sweeping the deposits of the Rhone 

 along the coast of Gaul, and finally allowing the unevaporated 

 portions to pass out at Calpe, or to resume again a new circular 

 course.! 



* "It is inferred, from geological data, that the Red Sea, in former 

 times, penetrated to the basin of the bitter lake, and there left high-water 

 marks, distinguishable at the present day ; flowing from thence to Lake 

 Mensaleh, thus entirely separating the land of Africa from that of Asia." 

 But Captain Veitch adduces strong reasons against trusting to the opera- 

 tions of nature to excavate for herself a channel, again, in that way, and 

 shows, also, why it would not be expedient to form a navigable channel 

 of still water, with locks, between the two seas, or dependent on the 

 Nile. This statement, drawn from actual survey, leaves no doubt of the 

 primaeval separation of the two continents, viewed geologically ; and the 

 expected condition of dead water, instead of a current in the channel, 

 should a communication be reopened, is supported by the fact, that a 

 simple process of nature was sufficient to close it. 



+ It is the enormous evaporation, and the very scanty supply of river- 

 water in the Mediterranean, that causes its waters to be deemed even 

 more salt than the ocean. The direction of its currents is traced by the 

 species of fishes, periodically entering the straits, from the west cr tst of 

 Africa, and in those that remain permanently, either in shore, in sound- 

 ings, or beyond them. 



13 



