Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/103

 CHAP. in. 16. INTRODUCTION. 89 waves. Besides, he adds, in this case the Euxine would in certain places have been connected with the Adriatic, since in the vicinity of the Euxine, [near to its source,] 1 the Ister is divided in its course, and flows into either sea, owing to the peculiarities of the ground. 2 To this we object, that the Ister does not take its rise at all in the vicinity of the Euxine, but, on the contrary, beyond the mountains of the Adriatic; neither does it flow into both the seas, but into the Euxine alone, and only becomes divided just above its mouths. This latter, however, was an error into which he fell in common with many of his predecessors. They supposed that there was another river in addition to the former Ister, bearing the same name, which emptied itself into the Adriatic, and from which the country of Istria, through which it flowed, gained that appellation. It was by this river they believed Jason returned on his voyage from Colchis. 16. In order to lessen surprise at such changes as we have mentioned as causes of the inundations and other similar phenomena which are supposed to have produced Sicily, the islands of JEolus, 3 and the Pithecussas, it may be as well to compare with these others of a similar nature, which either now are, or else have been observed in other localities. A large array of such facts placed at once before the eye would serve to allay our astonishment ; while that which is uncommon startles our perception, and manifests our general ignorance of the occurrences which take place in nature and physical ex- istence. For instance, supposing any one should narrate the circumstances concerning Thera and the Therasian JEslands, situafecTin the strait between Crete and the Cyrenaic, 4 Thera being itself the metropolis of Cyrene ; or those [in connexion 1 We have thought it necessary, with the French translators, to insert these words, since although they are found in no MS. of Strabo, the ar- gument which follows is clearly unintelligible without them. 2 Hipparchus, believing that the Danube emptied itself by one mouth into the Euxine, and by another into the Adriatic Gulf, imagined that if the waters of the Mediterranean were raised in the manner proposed by Eratosthenes, the valley through which that river flows would have been submerged, and so formed a kind of strait by which the Euxine would have been connected to the Adriatic Gulf. 3 The Lipari Islands. the islands of Thera and Therasia were situated in the ^gaean Sea, near V to the island of Nanfio. **
 * There is some mistake here. Strabo himself elsewhere tells us that /