Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/143

Rh of the rivers, makes no allusion to it. We cannot doubt, then, that it did exist, and yet we can now find no traces of it; and we must either therefore suppose that the weight of water has been sufficient at some time or other to disperse this accumulation altogether, which it had before assisted to form, or that the !and at the mouth of the river has so increased since Polybius and Strabo wrote, that what was in their days a bank, at a distance of thirty-five or forty miles, upon a very moderate computation for a day's sail, has now become an integral part of the continent of Europe. In the account of Captain J. Smith's voyage from Varna to the Crimea, before quoted from Purchas, he gives us a lively picture of the process by which such an event was then going on, though it does not appear exactly where. He saw what appeared like high black rocks, but which were, in fact, only trees, weeds, and mud, brought down the river, 'of which as they sailed they saw many without sight of land, seeming like high rocks or low islands, which are only great flats of osier-quagmire, where infinite heaps of trees do stick, and by their weight, time, and multitudes, though the boughs rot, the bodies they say have made many of these osier-flats firm land in many places.' This is from an eye-witness; and whoever looks upon the great map of the Russian dominions belonging to this society will see, that while the coast north and south of the Danube seems to show what was the original line throughout, there is a very considerable projection beyond that line all about the mouths of the river, which would appear to favour the latter supposition; but in the absence of the authority of any modern geographer or traveller who has visited the spot, it is difficult to form any certain opinion upon the subject; and we must again class the accurate solution of this question among our desiderata.

Dr. Clarke, though willing to appear conversant with the ancient authors, makes no allusion to the former existence of this bank. In one passage of his work he considers the discharge of water from the Danube as small; but, in another, he finds its colour and freshness extending above three leagues out to sea; and says again, that at one league the water was fit for use, and at five leagues and a half very little brackish; indications, one would imagine, that should have made him expunge from his work the former opinion of the smallness of the discharge of fresh water from this great drain of Europe.

On the 20th of November, the Blonde arrived at Varna, which we have have before said to be the ancient Odessus of this latitude; and which was another offspring of Miletus, so fruitful in colonies. She there found excellent anchorage in nine fathoms water, in a gulph easy of access, and yet sheltered from every quarter but the east and south-east; from which, however, the wind is there said never to blow home. But there was no more opportunity for observation here than at other places; and on the 23d, she proceeded on