HISTORY OF MEXICO. 113 



retreating from the (hores, has lengthened the land in 

 fome places ; and advancing in others, has diminiflied it: 

 it has feparated fome territories which were formerly 

 united, and formed new ftraits and gulfs. We have 

 examples of all thefe revolutions in the part century. Si- 

 cily was united to the continent of Naples, as Eubea, 

 now the Black Sea, to Bceotia. Diodorus, Strabo, and 

 other ancient authors, fay the fame thing of Spain and 

 Africa, and affirm that by a violent irruption of the 

 ocean upon the land between the mountains Abyla and 

 Calpe, that communication was broken, and the Medi- 

 terranean fea was formed. Among the people of Cey- 

 lon there is a tradition, that a fimilar irruption of the fea 

 feparated their ifland from the peninfula of India. The 

 fame thing is believed by thofe of Malabar, with refpect 

 to the ifles of Malvidia, and by the Malayans with re- 

 fpecl: to Sumatra. It is certain, fays the count de BufFon, 

 that in Ceylon the earth has loft thirty or forty leagues, 

 which the fea has taken from it; on the contrary, Ton- 

 gres, a place of the Low Countries, has gained thirty 

 leagues of land from the fea. The northern part of 

 Egypt owes its exiftence to inundations of the Nile 

 The earth which this river has brought from the inland 

 countries of Africa, and depofited in its inundations, has 

 formed a foil of more than twenty-five cubits of depth. In 



like 



Vol. III. 



(b^ Faro or Farion, an ifland of Egypt, which, according to what Homer 

 mentions in his Odyffey, was diftant one day and one night's fail from the 

 northern land of Egypt, was fo near to it in the times of the celebrated Cleo- 

 patra, that it was hardly feven furlongs off : for fo much was the length of 

 the bridge which that queen ordered to be made for the Rhodians, in order to 

 facilitate the communication between that ifland and the continent. Herodo- 

 tus, Ariftotle, Seneca , Pliny, and other ancient authors, make mention of this 

 remarkable augmentation of the territory of Egypt. 



