DEFILE OF TEMPE. 357 
Dovedale in Derhyshire ; but it is upon a much chap. 
grander scale; for Olympus upon the left, and v" ' ;-' ' 
Ossa upon the right, form the two sides of the 
pass. Owing to some tremendous revolution in Origin of 
the Defile. 
the lace oi nature, these two mountains were 
separated from each other, having been origi- 
nally one and the same entire mass; and in 
the bottom of the cleft formed by their division, 
flows the PeneUs. If ever the waters of the 
Black Sea shall be so far drained and evaporated 
as to leave only a river flowing through the 
Canal of Constantinople, then the Thracian Bos- 
porus will become what Tempe is now. That a 
sea, like the Euxine, once covering the whole of 
Thessaly, was drained by the opening of this 
chasm between Olympus and Ossa, is not only 
evident, from the position of the strata on either 
side of it, but the fact has always been so 
traditionally transmitted, as to become a theme 
of poetical allusion, if not a portion of recorded 
history-. A powerful torrent, occupying in 
(2) Tiie passages subjoined, fram Herod»lus, Luean, and j^limi, will 
shew how prevalent this opinion was among the Antients : it had always 
been a tradition in Thessaly. The whole of the 129th chapter of the 
Seventh Book of Herodotus is taken up with this subject, from which we 
can only insert an extract. 
TJjy Ti &iff<TaXiYiv Xoyos iffr) rovaXaiet ii>ai Xifivy/V, x, r. X avroi 
fciv vi/y QiiTtaXii (^«.tri Xlscri^'iciiia, ireijjffai rnf KvXuva, 3/ «J fin o Tljivnif. 
oiKora, Xiyovri;, oirrif yap rofil^ti Xloviiiiona r>)» yJJv flint, ku) ra eitfrtara 
u-)ra 
