Spratt finds in the geological record clear evidence of the Greek Archipelago having been formerly a fresh-water lake or series of lakes, and, if this be true, Crete must have been connected with the main lands of Europe and Asia Minor, in which case the aboriginal inhabitants would be a land migration, probably from Aryan sources. That a Phrygian colony known as the Idæan Dactyls brought here knowledge of certain arts and religious mysteries, and became to the people with whom they mingled, semi-divine, appears probable. The subsequent visit of the Tyrian Hercules, who, on his way to get the cattle of Geryon, called here as the rendezvous of his forces, and, to recompense the Cretans for their friendship, purged the island of wild beasts, may indicate a Phœnician colony or passing expedition. But admitting, as of possibility, that the Eteocretan was a land emigration, cavern-dwelling, as the abundance of the caves in the island suggests; a collation of all the traditions makes it probable that the first important immigration was Pelasgic, and from the Italian shores, noted in many Greek traditions as the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi (Etruscans?), whose colonies came down by the Morea and the isles of Cerigo and Cerigotto by easy journeys to Crete. [The records of Karnak show that, in the reign of Thotmes III., a great migration of Cretan Pelasgi came into Egypt, and became the Philistines (Pilisti or Pilisgi); proving that at this early period the hive was so full that it had begun to swarm.] This first immigration became, if my conjecture goes to the mark, the Cydonian stock--the subsequent one which Homer speaks of as Pelasgic, being of much later date; the Dorian, which was of the highest importance in its effect, as finally assimilating or subjecting all other races, and the Achæan, a scarcely influential influx, coming within the recognized traditions. The author of the "Isles of Greece" supposes two aboriginal races in the island, a needless multiplication of "original Adams," though an Asiatic or Phrygian race coming in at the east, and a Pelasgic at the west, seem to have been the first recognizable elements in the population.