12 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
SoClUTKa A5D 
Plato 
Mrni or 
iTum 
, i, a.lly U- \\ > at the idea of the philosophers and poets, that the earth was surrounded 
, : , \ Hi. ocean; h himself went too far in the opposite direction, by affirm- 
tl.at 'hr ocean did not extend to the north of Europe and Asia. He says: — 
i : frain from laughing a little at all those who undertake to describe the 
land without any facts to guide them, for example, who represent the 
ii ’ it the entire world in its course, who make it round as if drawn with 
,i | i rf . nmp isses.” 1 He rejects the notion that the earth has the form of a disc, and 
r . •!. (M.e n is a river; he combats this theory everywhere. No person, he argues, 
.1 to say whether Europe was bounded by the sea to the north and east, but 
11 known that it was bathed by the Atlantic to the west as Asia was by the 
m s to the south. Departing from this prudent reserve, he states that there 
. manner of doubt that Africa is a peninsula attached to the continent by the 
,-thmus of Suez, and surrounded at the south by the ocean. He evidently accepts 
v w 'tin true one, because he believed what had been affirmed with reference 
t< -is ol Necho around the continent of Africa. 2 With Herodotus, then, the 
; nd tin Erythraean Sea were one ocean, which must be regarded as one of 
■ imp' rtant advances in a knowledge of the ocean basins. This is not the only 
uh! it ion Thl- Greek writer has made to our notions of physical geography. He points 
it i he i -j ilar tide in the Persian Gulf, a phenomenon which did not fail to strike the 
d- unaccustomed as they were to any flux or reflux of the sea on their own coasts. 
II ..!-■• discusses the formation of alluvium at the entrance of the Nile, and the size and 
configuration of the three continents. 
In nr -ingle passage 3 Herodotus employs the word Atlantic to designate the sea to 
t 1 v -• ! n • ir appears evident from the incidental manner in which the word is used, 
' t! i. iv. . ■ re met with for the first time, must have been well known at the period. 
< Pi "tin r hand, we do not find in his writings a special name for the Mediterranean. 4 
I • -i of Socrates and Plato 0 concerning the habitable world do not touch directly 
• oui a’ljeei, ' \rept with reference to the myth of Atlantis, concerning which it is 
c r ) t" '.ay few words, as this conception has not been without influence on 
intimately connected with oceanography. In this mythical story, Plato 7 supposes 
: it extent of land situated in the external sea to have disappeared in one day and 
■ :. beneath tl : waters of the ocean. Since that time, he adds, the Atlantic Sea 
■d to be navigable, its waters having become muddy and charged with clay 
'!• r.\' d fr in the engulfed land. Everything appears to show that, according to the 
i "J Plato, this narration was a pure fiction; yet in succeeding centuries many 
a ' ; ' ■ m ni, id'- to interpret this story by reference to geological phenomena, 
1 Herodotus, ir. 36. 
1 Hcrwlotu*, i. 30S. 
* Born About 469 u.c 
* Born 429 u.c. 
2 Herodotus, iv. 42 (see page 4 ante). 
4 See Bunbury, op. cit., vol. i. p. 221, note. 
7 Plato, Timaius, c. B. 6 ; Critias, c. 3. 8. 
