“Strato of Lampsacus,” says Strabo,[LQ] “enters more fully than the Lydian Xanthus (who has described the impressions of shells far from the sea) into a consideration of the causes of these phenomena. He maintains, that the Euxine had formerly no outlet at Byzantium, but that the pressure of the swollen mass of waters caused by the influx of rivers had opened a passage, whereupon the water rushed into the Propontis and the Hellespont. The same thing also happened to _our_ sea (the Mediterranean), for here too a passage was opened through the isthmus at the Pillars of Hercules, in consequence of the filling of the sea by currents, which in flowing off left the former swampy banks uncovered and dry. In proof of this, Strato affirms, first, that the outer and inner bottoms of the sea are different; then that there is still a bank running under the sea from Europe to Lybia, which shows that the inner and outer sea were formerly not united; next that the Euxine is extremely shallow, while the Cretan, the Sicilian and the Sardinian seas are, on the contrary, very deep; the cause of this being that the former is filled with mud from the numerous large rivers flowing into it from the north. Hence too the Euxine is the freshest, and the streams flowing from it are directed towards the parts where the bottom is deepest. It would also appear that if these rivers continue to flow into the Euxine, it will some day be completely choked with mud, for even now, its left side is becoming marshy in the direction of Salmydessus (the Thracian Apollonia), at the part called by mariners ‘The Breasts,’ before the mouth of the Ister and the desert of Scythia. Perhaps, therefore, the Lybian Temple of Ammon may also have once stood on the sea-shore, its present position in the interior of the country being in consequence of such off-flowings of rivers. Strato also conjectures that the fame and celebrity of the Oracle (of Ammon) is more easily accounted for, on the supposition that the temple was on the sea-shore, since its great distance from the coast would otherwise make its present distinction and fame inexplicable. Egypt also was in ancient times overflowed by the sea as far as the marshes of Pelusium, Mount Casius, and Lake Serbonis; for whenever in digging it happened that salt-water was met with, the borings passed through strata of sea-sand and shells, as if the country had been inundated, and the whole district around Mount Casius and Gerrha had been a marshy sea, continuous with the Gulf of the Red Sea. When the sea (the Mediterranean) retreated, the country was uncovered, leaving, however, the present Lake Serbonis. Subsequently the waters of this lake also flowed off, converting its bed into a swamp. In like manner the banks of Lake Mœris resemble more the shores of a sea than those of a river.” An erroneous reading