Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/93

 CHAP. in. 4. INTRODUCTION. 79 rivers flowing into the Euxine both from the north and east, and so filling it up with mud, whilst the others preserve their depth. This is the cause of the remarkable sweetness of the Euxine Sea, and of the currents which regularly set towards the deepest part. He gives it as his opinion, that should the rivers continue to flow in the same direction, the Euxine will in time be filled up [by the deposits], since already the left side of the sea is little else than shallows, as also Salmydessus, 1 and the shoals at the mouth of the Ister, and the desert of Scythia, 2 which the sailors call the Breasts. Probably too the temple of Ammon was originally close to the sea, though now, by the con- tinual deposit of the waters, it is quite inland : and he con- jectures that it was owing to its being so near the sea that it be- came so celebrated and illustrious, and that it never would have enjoyed the credit it now possesses had it always been equally remote from the sea. Egypt too [he says] was formerly covered by sea as far_as the jmarshes nearJPelusium, 3 Mount Castus,"* and the Lake'^irHomsT Everi~at the~present time, when salt is being "Hug in Egypt, the beds are found under layers > 6l r sand andmingled with fossil shells, as if this district liacl ibrnferly been unoer"water, and as if the whole region about Casium and Gerrha 6 had been shallows reaching to the Arabian Gulf. The sea afterwards receding left the land un- covered, and the Lake Sirbonis remained, which having after- wards forced itself a passage, became a marsh. In like manner the borders of the Lake Moeris resemble a sea-beach rather than the banks of a river] Every one will admit that formerly at various periods a great portion of the mainland has been covered and again left bare by the sea. Likewise that the land now covered by the sea is not all on the same level, any more than that whereon we dwell ; which is now 1 Now Midjeh, in Roumelia, on the borders of the Black Sea. Strabo alludes rather to the banks surrounding Salmydessus than to the town itself. 2 The part of Bulgaria next the sea, between Varna and the Danube, now Dobrudzie. vLXineh. * El-Kas. 5 Lake Sebaket-Bardoil. 6 Probably the present Maseli. Most likely the place was so named from the ytppa, or wattled huts, of the troops stationed there to prevent the ingress of foreign armies into Egypt.