local circumstances. Both in northern Greece and the Peloponnesus the snow remains long on the higher ridges; and even in Attica the winters are often severe. On the other hand, the heat of the summer is tempered, in exposed situations, by the strong breezes from the northwest (the etesian winds), which prevail during that season in the Grecian seas; and it is possible that Herodotus may have had their refreshing influence chiefly in view. Though no traces of volcanic eruptions appear to have been discovered in Greece, history is full of the effects produced there by volcanic agency; and permanent indications of its physical character were scattered over its surface, in the hot springs of Thermopylæ, Trœzen, Ædepsus, and other places. The sea between the Peloponnesus and Crete has been, down to modern times, the scene of surprising changes wrought by the same forces; and not long before the Christian era, a new hill was thrown up on the coast near Trœzen, no less suddenly than the islands near Thera were raised out of the sea. Earthquakes, accompanied by the rending of mountains, the sinking of land into the sea, by temporary inundations, and other disasters, have in all ages been familiar to Greece, more especially to the Peloponnesus. And hence some attention seems to be due to the numerous legends and traditions which describe convulsions of the same kind as occurring still more frequently, and with still more important consequences, in a period preceding connected history; and which may be thought to point to a state of elemental warfare, which must have subsided before the region which was its theatre could have been fitted for the habitation of man. Such an origin we might be inclined to assign to that class of legends which related to struggles between Poseidon and other deities for the possession of several districts; as his contests with Athene (Minerva) for Athens and Trœzen; with the same goddess, or with Hera (Juno) for Argos--where he was said, according to one account, to have dried up the springs, and according to another, to have laid the plain under water; with Apollo for the isthmus of Corinth.[b] THE NAME