[7] _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1893. [8] Herodotus, vii. 129. [9] Diod. Sic., iv. 18. See also Lucan, _Pharsalia_, vi. 345. [10] Diod. Sic., iv. 18, who allows his readers to choose which version of the legend they prefer. [11] See Strabo, x. 458. Diodorus also (iv. 35), giving a similar interpretation of the legends, tells us how Hercules hollowed out a new bed for the Achelous, thereby reclaiming a vast tract of exceedingly fertile land. [12] Diod. Sic., iv. 18. [13] Fouqué, _Santorin et ses Eruptions_, chap. iii. [14] _Carm._ I., iv. 7. [15] See this subject fully discussed by Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. i. [16] Book vii. 129, see _ante_ p. 37. [17] Book ix. 429. [18] See Grimm's _Deutsche Mythologie_, i. 502. [19] _Tour in the Hebrides_, p. 346. III Landscape and Literature[20] The several races of mankind are marked off from each other by certain bodily and mental differences which, there can be no doubt, have been largely determined by the diverse geographical conditions of the surface of the globe. We may be disposed to put aside the first origin of these racial differences, as a problem which may for ever remain insoluble. Yet we cannot refuse to admit that in the disposition of land and sea, in the form and trend of coast-lines, in the grouping of mountains, valleys, and plains, in the disposition and flow of rivers, in the arrangement of climates, and in the distribution of vegetation and animals, a series of influences must be recognized which have unquestionably played a large part in the successive stages of human development. Though no record of the earliest of these stages has probably survived, some of the later steps in the progress of advancement may not be beyond the reach of investigation. The connection, for example, between the circumscribing topography and geology of a country, and the mythological creed of its inhabitants offers a tempting field of inquiry, in which much may yet be gleaned. Who can doubt that the legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery, and rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim titanic mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of rugged snowy uplands, under gloomy and tempestuous skies?[21]