TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
smaller aperture, towards the Bosporus. The ciiap. 
Asiatic side of the Strait is distinguished by W ' . 
appearances similar to those already described ; 
with this difference, that, opposite to the island, 
a little to the east of the Anatolian light-house, a 
range of basaltic pillars may be discerned, stand- 
ing upon a base inclined towards the sea ; 
and when examined with a telescope, exhi- 
biting very regular prismatic forms. From all 0r, ‘s !n of 
the preceding observations, and after due cian Hot- 
consideration of events recorded in history, (I) * * * V ° rV> ' 
as compared with the phenomena of Nature, 
it is, perhaps, more than probable, that the 
bursting of the Thracian Bosporus, the deluge 
mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, and the draining 
of the waters once uniting the Black Sea to the 
Caspian, were all the consequence of an earth- 
quake caused by subterraneous fires, which 
were not extinct at the time of the passage 
of the Argonauts, and whose effects are still 
visible '. 
(I) Plato, in the third book of the Laws, mentions three foods, as 
having happened in Greece ■ These appear to be, I . That of Lycaon, 
recorded by the Arundel Marbles, less than a century prior to the 
Trojan War. 2. That of Deucalion, who lived about three centuries 
and a half before this tvar, according to the Arundel Marbles. 3. That 
Ogyges : this, according to Julius Solinus and others, happened 
600 years before that of Deucalion, and consequently about 1000 
before the war of Troy. 
2 F 2 
