17.
Many writers have recorded similar occurrences, but it will suffice us to narrate those which have been collected by Demetrius of Skepsis.
Apropos of that passage of Homer:—
“And now they reach’d the running rivulets clear,
Where from Scamander’s dizzy flood arise
Two fountains, tepid one, from which a smoke
Issues voluminous as from a fire,
The other, even in summer heats, like hail
For cold, or snow, or crystal stream frost-bound:”370
this writer tells us we must not be surprised, that although the cold spring still remains, the hot cannot be discovered; and says we must reckon the failing of the hot spring as the cause. He goes on to relate certain catastrophes recorded by Democles, how formerly in the reign of Tantalus371 there were great earthquakes in Lydia and Ionia as far as the Troad,372 which swallowed up whole villages and overturned Mount Sipylus;373 marshes then became lakes, and the city of Troy was covered by the waters.374 Pharos, near Egypt, which anciently was an island, may now be called a peninsula, and the same may be said of Tyre and Clazomenæ.375
During my stay at Alexandria in Egypt the sea rose so high near Pelusium376 and Mount Casius377 as to overflow the land, and convert the mountain into an island, so that a journey from Casius into Phœnicia might have been undertaken by water. We should not be surprised therefore if in time to come the isthmus378 which separates the Egyptian sea379 from the Erythræan,380 should part asunder or subside, and becoming a strait, connect the outer and inner seas,381 similarly to what has taken place at the strait of the Pillars.
At the commencement of this work will be found some other narrations of a similar kind, which should be considered at the same time, and which will greatly tend to strengthen our belief both in these works of nature and also in its other changes.
