12.

Eratosthenes, when he is speaking of the lakes near Arabia, says, that the water, when it cannot find an outlet, opens passages under-ground, and is conveyed through these as far as the Cœle-Syrians,495 it is also compressed and forced into the parts near Rhinocolura496 and Mount Casius,497 and there forms lakes and deep pits.498 But I know not whether this is probable. For the overflowings of the water of the Euphrates, which form the lakes and marshes near Arabia, are near the Persian Sea. But the isthmus which separates them is neither large nor rocky, so that it was more probable that the water forced its way in this direction into the sea, either under the ground, or across the surface, than that it traversed so dry and parched a soil for more than 6000 stadia; particularly, when we observe, situated midway in this course, Libanus, Antilibanus, and Mount Casius.499

[Pg 150]
[CAS. 742]Such, then, are the accounts of Eratosthenes and Aristobulus.