eady
mentioned, the valley of the adjacent delta of the Nile was a gulf of
the sea in miocene times. But there is not a particle of evidence that
the change of relative level which admitted the waters of the Indian
Ocean between Arabia and Africa, took place any faster than that which
is now going on in Greenland and Scandinavia, and which has left their
inhabitants undisturbed. Even more remarkable changes were effected,
towards the end of, or since, the glacial epoch, over the region now
occupied by the Levantine Mediterranean and the AEgean Sea. The eastern
coast region of Asia Minor, the western of Greece, and many of the
intermediate islands, exhibit thick masses of stratified deposits
of later tertiary age and of purely lacustrine characters; and it is
remarkable that, on the south side of the island of Crete, such masses
present steep cliffs facing the sea, so that the southern boundary of
the lake in which they were formed must have been situated where the sea
now flows. Indeed, there are valid reasons for the supposition that the
dry land once extended far to the west of the present Levantine coast,
and not improbably forced the Nile to seek an outlet to the north-east
of its present delta--a possibility of no small importance in relation
to certain puzzling facts in the geographical distribution of animals
in this region. At any rate, continuous land joined Asia Minor with
the Balkan peninsula; and its surface bore deep fresh-water lakes,
apparently disconnected with the Ponto-Aralian sea. This state of things
lasted long enough to allow of the formation of the thick lacustrine
strata to which I have referred. I am not aware that there is the
smallest ground for the assumption that the AEgean land was broken up in
consequence of any of the "catastrophes" which are so commonly invoked.
[12] For anything that appears to the contrary, the narrow, steep-sided,
straits between the islands of the AEgean archipelago may have been
originally brought about by ordinary atmospheric and stream action;
and may then have been filled from the Mediterranean, during a slow
submergence proceeding from the south northwards. The strait of the
Dardanelles is bounded by undisturbed pleistocene strata forty feet
thick, through which, to all appearance, the present passage has been
quietly cut.

That Olympus and Ossa were torn asunder and the waters of the Thessalian
basin poured forth, is a very ancient notion, and an often cited
"