The description of the Straits by Greek and Roman writers is so unlike their present appearance, that, but for the impossibility of doubting the identity of the objects, we must have supposed their words to apply to some undiscovered region. Who could recognize the deep sea and the iron-bound coasts of these narrows, in a plain of sand furrowed by rivers running in from the ocean, which it was difficult to reach, not from the strength of the stream, but the intricacies of the passage--who would imagine the necessity of constructing flat-bottomed boats to get across from Gibraltar to Ceuta, where now there is above one thousand fathoms, or of transferring the ferry to the Atlantic side of the Straits, where at present the depth is not one-sixth of what it is in the other, in order to get more water? Yet there is no doubt that these details apply to these spots, nor can we question the known accuracy of the writers, or escape from the concurrence of their testimony. We are reduced, then, to the necessity of admitting some great revolution in the features of the country, and a total change in the nature of the current. The explanation is easy: the bank of sand, left by the retiring waters of the Deluge, which covers the western border of Africa, reached to the coast of Andalusia, and the remnants of it still lie on the eastern side of Gibraltar, and fill the caverns exposed to that side; on the depression of the Mediterranean by evaporation, the water of the ocean would filter in, the sand would be gradually removed. The amount of sand on the Mediterranean side of the “Rock,” shows that a plain nearly one thousand feet above the level of the sea, once stretched across to Africa, where now the channel is one thousand fathoms deep. This has been worked out by the overfall, while on the Atlantic side the water shoals to one hundred and eighty fathoms, presenting the character of an estuary with a bar from the rush outward of the under waters, since the Gut was sufficiently deepened to admit of the currents in opposite directions. The centre part of the channel is worn down to the rock or to gravel, every particle of sand has been removed from the bottom. Two inferences may be drawn: 1st. That the process of removal was likely to be accompanied by sudden inbursts, which would submerge the borders. 2nd. That the Mediterranean, in early ages, was fresh, and afterwards became, as it evaporated, very salt, until the channel was deepened to allow of its mixing with the ocean. What else is implied by the Myth of the midges and the fable of Alexander? FOOTNOTES: [24] See James’s History of Gibraltar. [25] This happened to the _Phantome_. [26] The excellent geodesic operations of Corabœuf and Deleros have shown, that at the two extremities of the Pyrenæan chain, as well as at Marseilles and the northern coast of Holland, there is no sensible difference between the level of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.--_Cosmos_, vol. i. p. 297.