Note 23 — Chapter X

When Nature’s hand the first formation tried,

When seas from land she did at first divide,

The Syrts, nor quite of sea nor land bereft,

A mingled mass uncertain still she left;

For nor the land with seas is quite o’erspread,

Nor sink the waters deep their oozy bed,

Nor earth defends its shore, nor lifts aloft its head.

The site with neither and with each complies—

Doubtful and inaccessible it lies;

Or ’tis a sea with shallows bank’d around,

Or ’tis a broken land with waters drown’d;

Here shores advanced o’er Neptune’s rule we find,

And there an inland ocean lags behind.

* * * * * *

Perhaps, when first the world and time began,

Here swelling tides and plenteous waters ran;

But long confining on the burning zone,

The sinking seas have felt the neighb’ring sun:

Still by degrees we see how they decay,

And scarce resist the thirsty god of day.

Perhaps in distant ages ’twill be found,

When future suns have run the burning round,

These Syrts shall all be dry and solid ground:

Small are the depths their scanty waves retain,

And earth grows daily on the yielding main.—(Pharsalia, Book 9.)

It here seems evident, that the Gulfs of Syrtis in Lucan’s time were believed to be growing shallower, and the land advancing upon the sea. This is certainly consistent with the present appearance of the Greater Syrtis (as contrasted with the accounts of the ancients respecting it,) and, from all that we have been able to learn, of the Lesser Syrtis also. It must, however, be recollected, that this accumulation of soil is only observable in the low grounds, where the sand is constantly heaped up by the sea; for in other parts (as we have already stated) the sea has gained upon the land. The advance of the sea, which may be considered to be equally certain with that of the land, will serve to prove how rapidly the soil must have been accumulating in the lower parts of the Syrtis; since there is reason to believe that (notwithstanding the rise of the Mediterranean on these shores) they were formerly covered with a greater body of water than at present.