It is often assumed that the climate of Africa has been more humid even in historic times. The geographer Leo Berg in Petrograd, however, is emphatically opposed to this theory. He points out that the writers of antiquity, Diodoros, Polybios, and Pausanias, have given descriptions of the rivers on the North African coast which nearly agree with conditions today. The location of two ancient cities on the shores of Lake Chott-el-Djerid in Tunis (Lacus Tritonis of old), which lake, it is claimed, reached a level very much higher than now 500 years B.C., plainly demonstrates that the shore-line then ran very close to its present position. Students of ancient Egypt are unable to find evidence of any distinct difference in the climate of that country from the earliest times to our days. It is true that marshes in the Nile delta have changed into splendid meadows--but this is the work of man. The humid period must have ended long before history commenced. A few of the old writers, such as Herodotos, Aristophanes, and Philo, assert that rain never falls in Egypt, but this must be classed as an exaggeration when contrasted with references to rain, snow, and hail in this section made by other ancient authors, for instance Plutarch, Pliny, and Ælianus. At any rate it seems as if precipitation was as rare an occurrence in the land of the Pharaohs as in the land of the Nile of today. Against the statement by Huntington that the climate of Palestine has become very much more torrid during historic times, stands the assertion by Hilderscheid, who has made a thorough study of these questions, that no reason whatever exists for such a conclusion. Of greatest interest to us in this connection are perhaps Italy and Greece. Huntington believes that the river Alpheios, which flooded Olympia and covered it with a 4 m. to 5 m. (4 or 5 yards) thick sediment, carried a far greater volume of water formerly than today. This flood, however, was caused by an earthquake accompanied by a fall of rocks whereby the river was dammed. There is no necessity for assuming a greater abundance of the waterflow. According to Strabo, the streams Kefissos and Ilissos, between which Athens is situated, dried out during the summer then as they do now. If we are to believe Pausanias, the brooks which traversed the Argive plain behaved similarly, and so they behave today. From all we can judge, the climate of Greece has not changed perceptibly since the days of Homer.