THE PRODROMUS 269 



writers; as the ages passed, moreover, they felt constrained to 

 celebrate the deeds of distinguished men, not the wonders of 

 Nature. Nevertheless the records, which ancient writers men- 

 tion, of those who wrote the history of the changes which 

 occurred in various places, we do not possess. But since the 

 authors whose writings have been preserved report as marvels 

 almost every year, earthquakes, fires bursting forth from the 

 earth, overflowings of rivers and seas, it is easily apparent that 

 in four thousand years ^ many and various changes have taken 

 place. 



Far astray, therefore, do they wander, who criticize the many 

 errors in the writings of the ancients, because they find there 

 various things inconsistent with the geography of to-day. I 

 should be unwilling to put credence in the mythical accounts of 

 the ancients; but there are in them also many things to which 

 I would not gainsay belief. For in those accounts I fiind many 

 things of which the falsity rather than the truth seems doubtful to 

 me. Such are the separation of the Mediterranean Sea^ from the 

 western ocean ; the passage from the Mediterranean into the 

 Red Sea ; and the submersion of the island Atlantis.^ The 

 description of various places in the journeys of Bacchus, Trip- 

 tolemus, Ulysses, yEneas, and of others, may be true, although 

 P. 76. it does not correspond with present day facts. Of the many 

 changes which have taken place over the whole extent of 

 Tuscany embraced between the Arno and the Tiber, I shall 

 adduce evident proofs in the Dissertation itself ; and although 

 the time, in which the individual changes occurred, cannot be 

 determined, I shall nevertheless adduce those arguments from 

 the history of Italy, in order that no doubt may be left in the 

 mind of anyone. 



And this is the succinct, not to say disordered, account of the 



1 In order to account for the evolution of earth features within the time limit imposed by 

 his belief in Usher's chronology of creation, Steno is compelled to adopt a theory of violent 

 catastrophes in nature. 



2 See p. 210, note i. 



^ Plato, Timaeus, 25, c, d : ' But later, when violent earthquakes and deluges occurred, in 

 a single day and night of misfortune, all your military power in a body sank into the earth, and 

 in a like manner the island Atlantis sank and disappeared in the sea. For this reason the sea 

 in that region is even now impassable and impenetrable because a shoal of mud (reading 

 Kapra /Spax^oi instead of /Sa^e'og) forms a barrier which was caused by the sinking island.' 

 Compare also Critias, 108 E, ff. 



