BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA EARTH SCIENCI LIBRARY LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY V AND OTHER ESSAYS Landscape in History And other Essays By Sir Archibald Geikie D.C.L., F.R.S.* London Macmillan and Co., Limited New York : The Macmillan Company 1905 ' EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. PREFACE THE present volume consists of a collection of Essays and Addresses which have appeared at intervals since the publication of my Geological Essays at Home and Abroad. Half of them deal with Scenery in its geological relations and in its influence on human progress — a subject which for many years has en- grossed much of my thought. Others discuss the problem of the Age of the Earth, while two are biographical, and one deals with the place of Science in modern education. I have to thank the editors of the Fortnightly, Con- temporary, and International Quarterly Reviews for their courtesy in readily according me permission to reprint the essays which have appeared in these publications. January, 1905. 1451.70 CONTENTS PAGE I LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY, - II LANDSCAPE AND THE IMAGINATION, - 28 iii LANDSCAPE AND LITERATURE, - 76 IV THE ORIGIN OF THE SCENERY OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS,- - 130 V THE CENTENARY OF HUTTON'S 'THEORY OF THE EARTH,'- - 158 VI GEOLOGICAL TIME, - - 198 VII THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN, - 234 viii CONTENTS PAGE VIII HUGH MILLER : His WORK AND INFLUENCE, - - 257 IX SCIENCE IN EDUCATION, - - 282 X THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA, - 308 Of UNIVER3H Landscape in History1 AMONG the obscure problems in the history of man- kind a foremost place must be given to the question of the origin and distribution of the various races of men. Undoubtedly two main factors in the differentiation of these races have been climate and geography. These same physical conditions still per- petuate, if they did not actually originate, the racial distinctions. Even where we may hesitate to adopt a theory as to the initial start of any one of the great branches of mankind, we can hardly fail to recognise that the several nations or tribes comprised within one of these branches are marked off from each other by more or less definite peculiarities, of which some at least may probably be referred to the influence of environment. The landscapes of a country, the form, height, and trend of its mountain-ranges, the position and extent of its plains and valleys, the size and direc- tion of its rivers, the varying nature of its soils and climate, the presence or absence of useful minerals, 1 The substance of this Essa^ formed an address to the Oxford University Scientific Club, in 1887. A 2 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY nearness to or distance from the sea, the shape of the coast-line whether rocky or precipitous, or indented with creeks and harbours — all these and other aspects of the scenery of the land have contributed their share to the moulding of national history and char- acter. For illustrations of this external influence we need go no further than the British Isles, and contrast the aspect and history of central England with those of the Scottish Highlands.1 Some of these dominant elements in our surroundings remain permanently with little or no appreciable change. The mountains and the plains are now essentially what they were in the infancy of man, though their mantle of vegetation may have been greatly altered. In other cases, geological processes are continually at work, effecting changes which, though individually of small account, become important in the course of centuries by constant repetition. Thus on some parts of our coast-line there has been a great destruction of land, in others the land has gained on the sea. But man himself has become a geological agent, and has in that capacity greatly modified the surface of many of the countries which he has inhabited. The progress of agriculture has led to the draining of mosses, the felling of forests and the transformation of heaths and wastes into arable land. The increase of sheep and cattle has been the means of clothing the hills with pasture, in place of their former rough herbage and copsewood. And man himself becomes involved in the consequences of the changes which he sets in motion. This subject 1 This illustration of the subject is discussed in my Geological Essays at Home and Abroad, p. 253. INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 3 may obviously be discussed independently either from the scientific or from the historical side. Any investiga- tion which deals with the changes that have taken place in the outward aspect of a country since man first set foot upon its surface, and with the sources of informa- tion regarding them, must obviously appeal strongly to the lover of science, inasmuch as it brings before him the evidence for various kinds of geological process, the actual operation and rate of progress of which he may thereby be enabled to watch and determine. It may thus be made to throw light upon one of the vexed problems of science — the value of time in geological inquiry. But it is of the relations of such an investi- gation to human history that I would first more par- ticularly speak. Such inquiries seem to me eminently calculated to engage the sympathies and even the active co-operation of literary students. There can be no doubt that the advancement of our knowledge of the mutations of the land since the beginning of history must depend largely upon help from the study of historical documents. No long series of years has passed since the truth was recognised that man is in large measure the creature of his environment ; that his material progress and mental development have been guided and modified by the natural conditions in which he has been placed. The full extent and application of this truth, however, are perhaps not even yet comprehended. If the sur- rounding and limiting conditions have been such potent factors in human development, we may well believe that any serious change or modification in them can- not but have reacted upon man. If nature alters her 4 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY aspect to him, either spontaneously on her own part or as the result of human interference with her ways, he too will in some measure be affected thereby, and his relations to her will be influenced. What then have been the kind and amount of the mutations in the face of nature since man first appeared ? Although the answer to this question will here be sought in the evidence furnished by Great Britain alone, it will be understood that the principles laid down for the conduct of the inquiry with regard to this country must be of general application to other regions of the globe. Let me remark at the outset that considerable progress has been made in the investigation of this question, both from its scientific and its historical side. Lyell, and Prestwich, with the geologists who have followed them, laid a solid foundation of knowledge regarding the later mutations in the physical geography of Britain. Guest, Pearson, Freeman, Green, and others, have shown in how many ways the historical development of the people has been influenced by the topographical features of the country. Yet in spite of all that has been done, I do not hesitate to say that we are still only a little way beyond the thres- hold of this wide subject. No one has realised more vividly at once the importance of the inquiry and the imperfection of the available data than the late Mr. J. R. Green. He would fain have been able to re- construct the successive phases through which our landscapes have passed since the dawn of history ; and he did more in this respect with his materials than perhaps any other living man could have done. But SOURCES OF INFORMATION 5 the detailed evidence was wanting to him ; and it has still in large measure to be gathered before the ideal of the historian can be reached. Now, I am desirous of insisting upon the fact that this detailed evidence does not lie shut up from the reach of all but the practised man of science and the mature historian. Much of it, whether in the literary or scientific domain, may be gleaned by any young undergraduate who will bring to the task quickness of observation and accuracy of judgment. As the harvest is abundant but the labourers few, I would fain enlist the sympathy and co-operation of any who may be able and willing to help. There are four obvious sources of information re- garding former conditions of the land. First comes the testimony of historical documents, then that of place- names, next that of tradition, and lastly, that of geo- logical evidence. (i) One might suppose that for what has taken place during the historical period, the documentary records would be all sufficient. But as it is only recently that the subject has been determined to be worthy of the historian's serious attention, we cannot look for much light to be thrown upon it in the pages of the ordinary histories. Still less need we expect to meet with any full measure of information regarding it in the original documents from which such histories have been mostly compiled. In truth, the facts of which we are in search must be gleaned from brief allusions and implications rather than from actual descriptions. It was no part of the duty of an old chronicler purposely to record any natural fact, short of some terrific earthquake or storm 6 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY that destroyed human life and damaged human pro- perty. But in describing historical events he could hardly avoid reference to woods, lakes, marshes, and other natural features which served as boundaries to the theatre of these events. By comparing, therefore, his local topography with the present aspect of the same localities, we may glean some interesting particulars as to changes of landscape in the course of centuries. Such a comparison, however, to be effective and trust- worthy, involves two special qualifications. The in- quirer must be master of the language and style of the author he is studying, and he must be completely familiar with the present condition of the ground to which allusion is made. The want of this combination of knowledge has led to some curious blunders on the part of able scholars. It is evident, then, that an ample domain of research is here opened out to the student. In a general sense, every kind of historical document may be available for the purposes of the inquiry. England fortunately possesses in Domesday Book the results of a minute examination of the greater part of the country in the latter half of the eleventh century. For other portions of our islands much information may be gleaned in quarters that might be thought the most unlikely. Besides the narratives of the old Chronicles, which might be expected to contain at least occasional in- cidental reference to physical features, Charters and other legal documents, in dealing with the holding and transference of land, not infrequently throw light on the former aspect of the ground with which they are connected. The Cartularies of some of our ancient HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 7 abbeys, besides affording glimpses into the inner life of these establishments, which do not seem to have been always abodes of peace and studious retirement, give indications of the former areas of forest, woods and mosses, or the positions of lakes now reduced in size or effaced. Old Acts of Parliament, looked at from our present point of view, are by no means always repulsive reading. They have one great advan- tage over their modern representatives in that they are often commendably brief; and in their occasional quaint local colouring, they afford material for interest- ing comparison with existing topography. Among historical documents I include poems of all kinds and ages. Our earliest English literature is poetical ; and from the days of Caedmon down to our own time, the typical characters of landscape have found reflection in our national poetry. It is not merely from what are called descriptive poems that information of the kind required is to be gathered. The wild border-ballad, full of the rough warfare of the time, has a background of bare moorland, treacher- ous moss-hags, and desolate hills, which can be com- pared with the aspect of the same region to-day. The gentler lyrics of a later time take their local colouring from the glades and dells, the burns and pastures where their scenes are laid. In the stately cadence of the Faery Queen, among the visionary splendours of another world, the rivers of England and Ireland are pictured, each with its characters touched off as they appeared in the days of Elizabeth. And in Drayton's quaint, but somewhat tiresome Polyolbion, abundant material is supplied for a comparison between the topography 8 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY of England at the beginning of the seventeenth century and that of our own time.1 But these comparisons have still to be worked out. As an example of the kind of use that may be made of them, and of the light which our poetry may cast, not only upon physical changes, but upon historical facts, I would refer to the passages in Barbour's poem of The Bruce descriptive of the Battle of Bannockburn.2 I do not contend for the complete historical veracity of the Archdeacon of Aberdeen, though I think he hardly deserves the sweeping and contemptuous con- demnation meted out to him by J. R. Green. As he was born only some two years after the battle, as he had travelled a good deal, and as the field of Bannock- burn lay across the land-route from the north to the south of Scotland, we may believe him to have made himself personally acquainted with the ground. At least, he could easily obtain information from many who had been themselves actors in the fight. He had no object to gain by drawing on his imagination for the local topography, more especially as his little bits of local description were not in any way required for the glorification of his hero. I think, therefore, that when Barbour describes a piece of ground, we may take his description as a fairly accurate representation of the topography, at least in his own day ; and the scene could hardly have changed much in the generation that had passed since the time of Bruce. Now, many 1This part of the subject is more fully treated in the two following essays. 2 A portion of this passage has been inserted in my Scenery of Scotland. BANNOCKBURN BATTLE-FIELD 9 persons who have visited the site of the Battle of Bannockburn have felt some difficulty in understanding why the English army did not easily outflank the left wing of the Scots. At present, a wide fertile plain stretches for miles north and south on the east side of the low plateau on which Bruce's forces were drawn up.1 A small body of the English cavalry did, indeed, make its way across this plain until overtaken and cut to pieces by Randolph. But why was this force so easily dispersed, and why was no more formidable and per- sistent effort made to turn that left flank? It is very clear that, had the topography been then what it is now, the Battle of Bannockburn must have had a far other ending. The true explanation of the difficulty seems to me to be supplied by some almost casual references in Barbour's account of the operations. He makes Bruce, in addressing his followers, allude to the advantage they would gain should the enemy attempt to pass by the morass beneath them. The poet further narrates how the Carse, that is, the low flat land on the left, was dotted with pools of water : how the English, in order to effect a passage, broke down houses, and tried to bridge over these pools with doors, windows, and thatch from the cottage roofs ; and how, with the assistance of their compatriots in Stirling Castle, they were so far successful that Clifford's troop of horse, and, possibly, some more of the English army, got safely over to the hard ground beyond. We thus learn that Bruce's famous device of the * pots ' was only 1 This plain is one of the upraised marine platforms referred to in a later part of this Essay. io LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY an extension of the kind of defence that nature had already provided for him. The ground on his left, now so dry and so richly cultivated, was then covered with impassable bogs and sheets of water ; and the huge army of Edward was consequently compelled to crowd its attack into the narrow space between these bogs and the higher grounds on Bruce's right. (2) Another wide field of inquiry for information touching changes in the aspect of the country is supplied by the etymology of place-names. These names, at least those of them that date from old times, possess a peculiar value and interest as abiding records of the people who gave them, and also, in many cases, of the circumstances in which they were given. We are at present concerned only with those that embody some physical fact in the topography. Many of these are as appropriate now as they were at first ; for the features to which they were applied have remained unaltered. Ben Dearg shows the same red slopes that struck the earliest Celtic tribes who looked up to it from the bays and glens of Skye. The big stones on the summit of Penmaenmawr still stand as memorials of the British people who erected them and gave their name to the hill. But in innumerable instances the appositeness of the designation has been lost. The name has, in fact, been more permanent than the feature to which it is applied. The one has survived in daily speech from generation to generation : the other has wholly passed away. By comparing the descriptive epithet in the name with the present aspect of the locality, some indication, or even, perhaps, some measure of the nature and amount CELTIC PLACE-NAMES n of the changes in the topography, may still be recovered. Now in researches of this kind the liability to blunder is so great, and many able writers have blundered so egregiously, that the inquiry ought not to be entered upon without due preparation, and should not be continued without constant exercise of the most scrupulous caution. The great danger of being betrayed into error by the plausibilities of phonetic etymology should never for a moment be lost sight of. Where possible, the earliest form of the name should be recovered, for in the course of time local names are apt to be so corrupted as to lose all obvious trace of their original orthography. The Celtic place-names* are as a whole singularly descriptive. The Celtic tribes, indeed, have manifested, in that respect, a keener appreciation of landscape and a more poetical eye for nature than their Saxon suc- cessors. Who that has ever stood beneath the sombre shadow of the cloud that so often rests on the shoulder of the Grampians will fail to recognise the peculiar fitness of the Gaelic name for the highest summit of the chain — Ben-na-muig-dubh, ' the mountain of dark gloom ' ? Or who has ever watched the Atlantic billows bursting into white foam against the cliffs of Ardnamurchan and did not acknowledge that only a poetic race could have named the place c the headland of the great ocean.' The colours of mountain and river have been seized upon by these people as de- scriptive characters that have suggested local names. 1 Dr. Joyce's excellent Irish Names of Places is the best authority on this subject. 12 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY Swiftness and sluggishness of flow have furnished discriminating epithets for streams. Moors, forests, woodlands, copses, groups of trees, solitary bushes, lakes, mosses, cliffs, gullies, even single boulders, have received names which record features in the landscape that struck the imagination of the old Celt, and which are still in use, even when the features that suggested them have long vanished out of sight. From this source glimpses may be had of the character of the vegetation and of the wild animals in prehistoric times. Thus we learn that the desolate, treeless tract of Ross- shire known as the Dirriemore (great wood) must once have been clothed with forest. How numerous wild boars were in the country is shown by the frequent occurrence of the name of the animal (Tore, turk) in local topography. The former haunts of the wolf are indicated by its Gaelic appellation (madah, maddie) in Highland place-names. Many descriptive names which have never found a place on any map are well known to the Welsh and Gaelic-speaking inhabitants, who in the more mountainous and trackless regions have often a wonderful acquaintance with the details of the topography. Here, then, in our Celtic place-names lies a wide and as yet, for large districts, but little worked field for exploration. Civilisation has advanced less rapidly and ruthlessly in the Celtic-speaking parts of the country, where, too, there are fewer historical records of progress and change. But the topographical names when carefully worked out supply a good deal of information regarding former conditions of surface whereof every other memorial has perished. SAXON PLACE-NAMES 13 Our Saxon progenitors, also, gave appropriate local names ; but with a sturdy self-assertion, and prosaic regard for plain fact, they chose to couple their own cognomina with them. If a settler fenced in his own inclosure he called it his c ton ' or his c ham.' If he felled the trees of the primeval woodlands and made his own clearance, it became his c fold.' If he built himself a mud cottage, it was his ' cote,' or if he attained to the dignity of a farm, he called it his c stead.' As he and his brethren increased their holdings and drew their houses together for companionship and protection, the village kept their family name. But besides these patronymic epithets, which are of such value in tracing out the early settlement of the country, the English gave more or less descriptive local names. In their ' holts ' and ' hursts,' ' wealds ' and * shaws,' we can still tell where their woods lay. In their ' leighs,' ' fields,' and ' royds,' we can yet trace the open clearings in these woods. But for the broad landmarks, rivers, and larger natural features of the country, the Saxons were generally content to adopt, in some more or less cor- rupted form, the names already given by the Celtic tribes who had preceded them. (3) As another but less reliable source of information regarding alterations in the surface of the country, I would make brief allusion to the subject of local tradition. In these days of education and locomotion, we can hardly perhaps realise how tenacious, and on the whole faithful, the human memory may be in spite of the absence of written or printed documents. Even yet we see the unbroken and exact record of the true boundaries of a parish or township handed down in the i4 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY annual beating of the bounds or riding of the marches. And even where no such ceremony has tended to perpetuate the remembrance of topographical details, tradition, though it may vary as to historical facts, is often singularly true to locality. I am tempted to give what seems to me a good example of this fidelity of tradition. Many years ago among the uplands of Lammermuir I made the acquaintance of an old maiden lady, Miss Darling of Priestlaw, who with her bachelor brothers tenanted a farm which their family had held for many generations. In the course of her observant and reflective life she had gathered up and treasured in her recollection the traditions and legends of these pastoral solitudes. I well remember, among the tales she delighted to pour into the ear of a sympathetic listener, one that went back to the time of the Battle of Dunbar. We know from his own letters in what straits Cromwell felt himself to be when he found his only practicable line of retreat through the hills barred by the Covenanting army, and how he wrote urgently to the English commander at Newcastle for help in the enemy's rear. It has usually been supposed that his communications with England were kept up only by sea. But the weather was boisterous at the time, and a vessel bound for Berwick or Newcastle might have been driven away from land. There is therefore every probability that Cromwell would try to send a communication by land also. Now the tra- dition of Lammermuir maintains that he did so. The story is told that he sent two soldiers disguised as natives of the district to push their way through the hills and over the border. The men had got as far as VALUE OF TRADITION 15 the valley of the Whiteadder, and were riding past the mouth of one of the narrow glens, when a gust of wind, sweeping out of the hollow, lifted up their hodden-grey cloaks and showed their military garb beneath. They had been watched, and were now over- taken and shot. Miss Darling told me that tradition had always pointed to some old whin-bushes at the opening of the cleugh as the spot where they were buried. At her instigation the ground was dug up there, and among some mouldering bones were found a few decayed buttons with a coin of the time of Charles the First. Tradition is no doubt often entirely erroneous ; but it ought not, I think, to be summarily dismissed with- out at least critical examination. There are doubtless instances where it might come in to corroborate con- clusions deducible from other and usually more reliable kinds of evidence. (4) But of all the sources of information regarding bygone mutations of the surface of the land, un- doubtedly the most important is that supplied by the testimony of geology. Early human chronicles are not only imperfect, but may be erroneous. The chronicle, however, which Nature has compiled of her past vicis- situdes, though it may be fragmentary, is, at least, accurate. In interpreting it the geologist is liable, indeed, to make mistakes; but these can be corrected by subsequent investigation, while the natural chronicle itself remains unaffected by them. Moreover, it em- braces a vast period of time. Historical evidence in this country is comprised within the limits of nineteen cen- turies. The testimony from Celtic topographical names 1 6 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY may possibly go back some hundreds of years further. But the geological record of the human period carries us enormously beyond these dates. Hence, in so vast a lapse of time, scope has been afforded for a whole series of important geological revolutions. On every side of us we may see manifest proofs of these changes. The general aspect of the country has been altered, not once only, but many times. The agencies that brought about these changes have, in not a few instances, pre- served tolerably complete memorials of them. We are thus enabled to trace the history of lakes and rivers, of forests and mosses : we can follow the succession of animals that have wandered over the land, and many of which had died out ere the days of history began : we can dimly perceive the conditions of life amidst the earliest human population of the country : we can recover abundant evidence of the extraordinary vicissitudes of climate which, since these ancient times, have affected not this land only, but the whole northern hemisphere. The evidence from which these reconstructions of the former aspect of the country and its inhabitants can be deduced lies easily accessible around us. From the numerous caves in the limestone districts, abundant remains have been disinterred of the land- animals that were contemporary with aboriginal man, and among them relics of human workmanship have likewise been obtained. Our bogs have yielded skeletons of the Irish elk and other denizens of the primeval glades and woodlands, together with the canoes and stone- implements of the hunters of these animals. Our river-terraces reveal a long history of EARLY ASPECT OF BRITAIN 17 climatal changes onward from the later phases of the Ice-Age, during which the country witnessed successive migrations of northern and southern mam- mals accompanied by Palaeolithic and Neolithic men. The raised beaches and sunk forests contain relics of contemporary human workmanship which prove that man had already become an inhabitant of Britain before the land had settled into its present level above the sea. It may be of advantage to consider here, from the various sources of information above enumerated, what appears to have been the condition of the surface of Britain at the dawn of authentic history and what have been the nature and origin of the changes which this surface has undergone within historic time. When the light of human testimony first begins to fall upon Britain at the advent of the Romans, the general aspect of the country must have presented in many respects a contrast to that which is now to be seen ; and notably in the wide spread of its forests, in the abundance of its bogs and fens, and (through the northern districts) in the vast number of its lakes. At the first coming of the Romans by far the larger part of the country was probably covered with wood. During the centuries of Roman occupation some of the less dense parts of the woodland were cleared. In driving their magnificent straight highways through the country, the Roman legionaries felled the trees for seventy yards on each side of a road, in order to secure themselves from the arrows of a lurking foe. So stupendous was the labour thus involved, that they gladly avoided forests where that was 1 8 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY possible, and sometimes even swung their roads to right or left to keep clear of these formidable obstacles. For many hundreds of years after the departure of the legions, vast tracts of primeval forest continued to be impassable barriers between different tribes. In these natural fastnesses the wolf, brown bear, and wild boar still found a secure retreat. Even as late as the twelfth century the woods to the north of London swarmed with wild boars and wild oxen. Everywhere, too, the broken men of the community betook themselves to these impenetrable retreats, where they lived by the chase, and whence they issued for plunder and bloodshed. The forests were thus from time immemorial a singularly important element in the topography. They, have now almost entirely disappeared, and their former sites have as yet only been partially determined, though much may doubtless still be done in making our knowledge of them more complete. In connection with this subject it should be re- membered that, in many instances, the areas of wood and open land have in the course of generations com- pletely changed places. The wide belts of clay-soil that sweep across the island, being specially adapted for the growth of trees, were originally densely timbered. But the process of clearance led to the recognition of the fact that these clay-soils were also eminently fitted for the purposes of agriculture. Hence, by degrees, the sites of the ancient forests were turned into corn-fields and meadows. On the other hand, the open tracts of lighter soil, where the earlier settlers established themselves, were gradu- BOGS AND FENS 19 ally abandoned, and lapsed into wastes of scrub and copsewood. The fens and bogs of Britain played likewise a large part in the attack and defence of the country in Roman and later times. They were of two kinds. One series lay on the coast, especially of sheltered inlets, and were liable to inundation by high tides. The most notable of these was the wide tract of low, swampy land at the head of the Wash, our Fenland — an area where, secure in their amphibious retreats, descendants of the Celtic population preserved their independence not only through Roman but through Saxon times, if indeed, as Mr. Freeman conjectures, outlying settle- ments of them may not have lingered on till the coming of the Normans. vThe other sort of fens were those formed in the interior of the country by the gradual encroachment of marshy vegetation over tracts previously occupied by shallow sheets of fresh water, and over flat land. It was in these swamps that the Caledonians, according to the exaggerated statement of Xiphiline, concealed themselves for many days at a time, with only their heads projecting above the mire. At a far later period the peat-bogs of the debateable land between England and Scotland formed an impor- tant line of advance and retreat to the freebooters of the border, who could pick their way through sloughs that to less practised eyes and feet were impassable. One of the distinguishing features among the topo- graphical changes of the last few hundred years has been the disappearance of a vast number of these fens and bogs. In some cases they have been gradually silted up by natural processes ; but a good many of 20 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY them have no doubt been artificially drained. Their sites are still preserved in such Saxon names as Bog- side, Bogend, Mossflats ; and where other human record is gone, the black peaty soil remains to mark where they once lay. It would not be impossible with the help of such pieces of evidence and a study of the present contours of the ground to map out in many districts, now well drained and cultivated, the swamps that hemmed in the progress of our ancestors. No one looking at the present maps of the north of England and Scotland would be led to suspect what a large number of lakes must have been scattered over the surface of these northern regions when the Romans set foot in the country. Yet if he turns to old maps, such as those of Timothy Pont, published some three hundred years ago, he will notice many sheets of water represented there which are now much reduced in size or entirely replaced by cultivated fields. If, farther, he scans the topographical names of the different counties, he will be able to detect the sites of other and sometimes still older lakes; while, if he sets to work upon the geological evidence by actual examina- tion of the ground itself, he will be astonished to find how abundant at comparatively recent times were the tarns and lakes of which little or no human record may have survived, and often how much larger were once the areas of lakes that still exist. Owing to some peculiar geological operations that characterised the passage of the Ice-Age in the northern hemisphere, the land from which the snow-fields and glaciers re- treated was left abundantly dotted over with lakes. The diminution and disappearance of these sheets of WASTE OF COAST-LINE 21 water are mainly traceable to the inevitable process of obliteration which sooner or later befalls all lakes great and small. Detritus is swept into them by rain and wind from the surrounding slopes and shores. Every brook that enters them is engaged in filling them up. The marsh-loving vegetation which grows along their shallow margins likewise aids in diminishing them. Man, too, lends his help in the same task. In early times he built his pile-dwellings in the lakes, and for many generations continued to cast his refuse into their waters. In later days he has taken the more rapid and effectual methods of drainage, and has turned the desiccated bottoms into arable land. In connection with the geological changes that have affected the general surface of the country since the beginning of history, reference may here be made to those which have taken place on the coast-line. Stand- ing as it does amid stormy seas and rapid tidal currents, Britain has for ages suffered much from the attacks of the ocean. More especially has the loss of land fallen along our eastern shores. Ever since the sub- mergence of the North Sea and the cutting through of the Strait of Dover, the soft rocks that form our sea-board facing the mainland of Europe have been a prey to the restless waves. Within the last few centuries whole parishes, with their manors, farms, hamlets, villages, and churches have been washed away ; and the fisherman now casts his nets and baits his lines where his forefathers ploughed their fields and delved their gardens. And the destruction still goes on. In some places a breadth of as much as five 22 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY yards is washed away in a single year. Holderness, once a wide and populous district, is losing a strip of ground about two and a quarter yards broad, or in all about thirty-four acres annually. Its coast-line is computed to have receded between two and three miles since the time of the Romans — a notable amount of change, if we would try to picture what were the area and form of the coast-line of eastern Yorkshire at the beginning of the historic period. But though the general result of the action of the sea along our eastern border has been destructive, it has not been so everywhere. In sheltered bays and creeks some of the material, washed away from more exposed tracts, is cast ashore again. In this way part of the mud and sand swept from off the cliffs of Holderness is carried southward into the Wash, and is laid down in that wide recess which it is gradually filling up. Along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, inlets which in Roman and later times were navigable channels, and which allowed the ships of the Danish Vikings to penetrate far into the interior of the country, are now effaced. On the shores of Kent, also, wide tracts of low land have been gained from the sea. Islands, between which and the shore Roman galleys and Saxon war-boats made their way, are now, like the Isle of Thanet, joined to the mainland. Harbours and towns, such as Sandwich, Richborough, Winchelsea, Pevensey, and Porchester, which once stood at the edge of the sea, are now, in some cases, three miles inland. There appears also to have been some gain of land on parts of the south coast of Sussex, whereby the UNDERGROUND MOVEMENTS 23 physical geography of that district has been consider- ably altered. The valleys by which the downs are there trenched were formerly filled with tidal waters, so that the ancient camps, perched so conspicuously on the crest of the heights, could not communicate directly with each other except by boat. Instead of being a connected chain of fortifications, as was once supposed, they must have been independent strong- holds, surrounded by water on three sides, and on the north by dense forest and impassable morasses. The subterranean forces which throughout geological time have been so potent in the area of the British Isles, appear to have on the whole remained nearly quiescent during the centuries of authentic history. Volcanic energy, which played so notable a part through- out most of the geological past of our region, has never awakened here since the remote Tertiary ages, but has shifted its site northwards to Iceland, where it continued its activity even during the Ice-Age and has remained vigorous down to the present time. But two forms of underground movement have affected Britain since man appeared here. In the first place, there have been important changes in the relative levels of sea and land, and in the second place, the islands have frequently been shaken more or less per- ceptibly by earthquakes. In southern Scotland, the north of England and of Ireland, the land has been upraised some twenty feet or more. As a consequence of this elevation a selvage of flat alluvial land has been added to a number of the estuaries, particularly to those of the Forth, Tay and Clyde. Canoes and other remains of human 24 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY workmanship, found imbedded in the sands and silts of this marine terrace, show that the upheaval has taken place since some part of Neolithic time. The addition of these strips of level ground to the margin of the land has had an important influence on the human population of these districts, for it has pro- vided many hundreds of square miles of arable ground, comprising admirable sites for dozens of villages and towns as well as for excellent coast-roads. On the other hand, a long tract of land, extending from Cork across the Bristol Channel and the southern counties to the coast of Yorkshire, has sunk fifty feet or more since the Neolithic period. The result of this depression has been to allow the sea to ascend far up many of the estuaries which had previously been river- valleys, and thus to create, or at least to deepen and widen, the numerous natural harbours which indent the south coasts of England, Wales and Ireland. Not improbably the downward movement, by helping to lower the narrow isthmus which in the earlier ages of the human period connected Kent with the north-west of France, contributed not a little to the insulation of England from the continent. Earthquake-shocks, though generally feeble, have been of severity enough to damage public buildings. The cathedral of St. David's in its uneven floor and dislocated walls, still bears witness to the shock which six hundred years ago did so much injury to the churches of the west of England. But though a formidable catalogue has been drawn up of the earth- quakes experienced within the limits of these islands, it is not to that kind of underground disturbance that CELT AND SAXON IN BRITAIN 25 much permanent alteration of the surface of the country is to be attributed. In fine, there can be no doubt that the larger features of the landscape of Britain have mainly determined the distribution of the several tribes of mankind out of which the present population of our islands has grown. It is hardly less obvious that the same features have continued during the times of history to influence the development and progress of these tribes. The Gael who long ages ago was pushed by the Briton into the mountain fastnesses of the north was left there to maintain, until only a few generations ago, his primitive habits as hunter and warrior, cattle-dealer and freebooter. While he re- mained comparatively unprogressive, the Norsemen, Danes and Saxons, who took possession of the low- lands that lay between his glens and the sea, were able to advance in agriculture upon richer soil and in a less inhospitable climate, and to crowd the land with their homesteads, farms, villages, towns and sea- ports. So too the Welshman, pushed in turn into his hills by successive Teutonic swarms from the other side of the North Sea, has preserved his pris- tine language, and with it much of that individuality of character which has kept him from cordially amalgamating with the invaders. And thus while the original Celtic people, restricted to less ample territories and less fertile land, have to a large extent retained the holdings and habits of their ancestors, building comparatively few towns, and engaging in few crafts, save farming and stock-raising, the Teutonic tribes, possessing themselves of the broad culti- 26 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY vable lowlands and the great repositories of coal and iron, have thrown across the islands a network of thoroughfares, have scattered everywhere villages and towns, have built many great cities, have developed the industrial resources of the land and have mainly contributed to the commercial supremacy of the Empire. While the leading elements of the topography have remained for many long ages essentially the same, there have arisen since the beginnings of history, many important minor changes in the landscape, mainly due to human interference, whereby the progress of the population has been more or less affected. Promi- nent among these changes has been the clearing of the dense woodlands that once covered so large a proportion of the surface. Innumerable bogs and fens have been drained and converted into arable land ; lakes have been silted up by natural causes or have been emptied by artificial drainage. War has been waged against the wild animals which once abounded all over the islands. The bear, wolf and wild boar have been extirpated. Only a few of the smaller beasts of prey have been allowed to survive in diminished numbers. The various species of deer would long ago have been exterminated had they not been preserved as game. But man's influence on the landscape has not con- sisted wholly in removing what he found to be obnoxious. He has introduced many forms of vegeta- tion among those indigenous to the country. He has thus converted thousands of square miles of scrub, moor and woodland into gardens, parks, meadows SUMMARY OF SUBJECT 27 and corn-fields. He has replaced some parts of the primeval forest by plantations of a different type, wherein the native hardwood trees are mingled now with larch, silver-fir and other trees which seem to have had no place in the original flora. But the minor modifications of the landscape within historic time have not been merely those due to human interference. Nature has been ceaselessly at work in slowly, and for the most part imperceptibly, changing the forms of the ground. The streams have dug their channels deeper into the flanks of the hills and have spread their alluvial soil further and wider over the valleys and lake-floors. The frosts of winter have been splintering the crags, the springs have been sapping x the cliffs, and from time to time landslips have been launched into the stream- channels below. The sea has cut away large slices of land from some parts of the coast-line, while to others it has added strips of alluvial ground and mounds of shingle. We have seen too that under- ground movements have contributed to modify the landscape in some parts of the country, certain tracts having been upraised so as to expose broad spaces of flat ground, while others have been submerged beneath the sea which now ascends into what were formerly open valleys. This sinking of the land in southern England, inasmuch as it helped to separate Britain from the continent, must be regarded as prob- ably the most far-reaching change that has affected the landscape of this country since the days of Neo- lithic man. II Landscape and the Imagination * THE more marked features on the surface of the land have from early times awakened the curiosity and stimulated the imagination of men. Mountainous regions with their peaks and crests, where cloud and tempest find a home, their rugged scarps of cliff nd crag, whence landslips sweep down into the valleys, their snows and frosts, their floods and avalanches, their oft-repeated and too frequently disastrous shocks of earthquake, supply the most striking illustrations of this relation of the external world. Yet while it is from these elevated parts of the earth's surface, where the activities of nature seem to beat with a more rapid pulse, that the human imagination has been more especially stimulated, even among the compara- tively featureless lowlands the influence of outer things, though less potent, may be distinctly traced. Wherever, for instance, the monotony of a lowland landscape is broken by an occasional oddly-shaped hill, by a conspicuous grassy mound, by a group of pro- minent boulders, by a cauldron-shaped hollow, or by ^•Fortnightly Review, April, 1893. MYTHS AND TOPOGRAPHY 29 a river chasm, we may expect to find that these diversi- ties of scenery have from time immemorial arrested attention. Whatever departs from ordinary usage and experi- ence prompts, even among the rudest people, a desire for explanation. The more striking elements of topo- graphy accordingly aroused the curiosity of the earliest races who came to dwell among them, and to whom, in the infancy of the world, the forces of nature were more or less mysterious. These forces were then looked upon as visible manifestations of the agency of superior beings, whose conflicts or co-operation were held to account for the changes of external nature. Thus, by a system of personification that varied from clime to clime, primeval mankind sur- rounded itself with invisible deities, to each of whom some special function in the general government and progress of the world was assigned. Hence the problems presented by the more impres- sive details of the scenery of the earth's surface were in truth among the earliest with which the human race began to deal. If we try to discover how they were first approached, and how their treatment varied, not only with peculiarities of race and national tempera- ment, but with conditions of climate and variations of topography, we are led backward into the study of some of the most venerable efforts of the human imagination, which, though now in large measure faded or vanished, may yet be in some slight degree recovered from the oldest mythologies and super- stitions. In many of the earlier myths we may recog- nise primitive attempts to account for some of the 30 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION more prominent features of landscape or of climate. And as we trace the variations of these legends from country to country, we learn how much their changes of dress have arisen from local peculiarities of environ- ment. Of the earlier interpretations of nature, some may be partially restored from a comparison of ancient myth and superstition with the physical characters of the regions wherein these legends took their rise, or where, at least, they assumed the forms in which they have been transmitted to later ages. Others have survived in place-names which, still in common use, connect our own generation with the days of our ancestors. In pursuing the investigation of this subject we soon perceive that the supernatural interpretations, and the tendency to personification which led to them, began eventually to be supplanted by natural explanations founded on actual observation of the outer world, and that this change of view, commencing first with the few observant men or philosophers, made considerable way among even the ordinary populace, long before the decay of the mythological systems or superstitions of which these primeval supernatural interpretations formed a characteristic part. The growth of the naturalistic spirit was exceedingly slow, and for many centuries was coeval with the continued vigorous life of religious beliefs which accounted for many natural events as evidence of the operations of supernatural beings. Those features of the outer world which most attract attention were the first that appealed to the observing NATURAL INTERPRETATIONS 31 faculty of mankind. Among them the elements of topography obviously hold a foremost place, including, as they do, the most frequent and impressive mani- festations of those natural agencies whereby the surface of the land is constantly modified. It was impossible that after men had begun to observe, and to connect effects with causes, they should refrain from referring the resultant changes of landscape to the working of the natural processes that were seen or inferred to produce them. They were led to trace this connec- tion even while their religious belief or superstition remained hardly impaired. The conclusions thus popularly reached were sometimes far from correct, but inasmuch as they substituted natural for super- natural causes, they undoubtedly marked a distinct forward step in the intellectual development of man. From that time onward the influence of scenery on the human imagination took a different course. The gods were dethroned, and the invisible spirits of nature no longer found worshippers; but it was impossible that the natural features which had prompted the primeval beliefs should cease to exercise a potent influence on the minds of men. This influence has varied in degree and in character from generation to generation, as we may see by comparing its place in the literature of successive periods. Probably at no time has it been more potent than it is at the present day. To discuss fully this wide subject would demand far more space than can be given to it here. I pro- pose, therefore, to select two portions of it only; one from the beginning and the other from the end 32 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION of its historical development. I shall try to show first, by reference to primitive myth and legend what were the earliest and most obvious effects of prominent elements of topography on the imagination, and secondly, what these effects are or should be now in the midst of modern science and universal education. The mythology of Ancient Greece supplies many illustrations of the way in which the physical aspects of the land have impressed their character on the religious beliefs and superstitions of a people. The surface of that country is almost everywhere rugged, rising into groups of bare, rocky hills and into chains of lofty mountains which separate and enclose isolated plains and valleys. The climate embraces all the softness of the Mediterranean shores, together with the year-long snows and frosts of Olympus on the one hand, and the almost sub-tropical heat of the lowlands of Attica on the other. The clouds and rains of the mountains have draped the slopes with umbrageous forests, and have spread over the plains a fertile soil which has been cultivated since before the dawn of history. Thus, while a luxuriant vege- tation clothes the lower grounds with beauty, bare crags and crests are never far away. The soft and the harsh of nature, the soothing and the repulsive, are placed side by side. The indolence begotten of a teeming soil and sunny clime is quickened by proximity to the stern mountain-world — the home of thunder-clouds, tempests, and earthquakes. In the childhood of mankind, the physical features of such a country could not fail to react powerfully upon the imagination of those who dwelt among GREEK MYTHS 33 them, calling forth visions of grace and beauty, and at the same time imparting to these visions a variety and vigour which would hardly have been developed among the dwellers on monotonous plains. The natural influence of scenery and climate like those of Greece upon the imagination of a race endowed with a large share of the poetic faculty has never been more forcibly or gracefully expressed than by our own Wordsworth, in a well-known passage in the fourth book of his Excursion. With the source of the early Hellenic myths we are not so much concerned in the present inquiry as with the form in which they have reached us. Whether they arose in Greece, or, having been brought from some other home, received their final shape there, is of less moment than the "actual guise in which we find them in the earliest Greek literature. There cannot, I think, be any doubt that to the striking topography of Thessaly they are largely indebted for the dress in which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. We may recognise among them some of the earliest recorded efforts of the human imagination to interpret the aspects of nature, and these aspects were unmistakably such as presented themselves in that particular portion of the ancient world. The wide Thessalian plain, the largest area of low- land in Greece, lies upon Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, which, in the lower parts of the region, are overlain with a level tract of alluvial soil. Round this plain stretches a girdle of lofty and imposing mountains, composed chiefly of hard crystalline schists 34 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION and limestones. On the north the crags and snowy crests of Olympus rise high and bare above the dense forests that clothe their slopes. To the eastward, above the narrow chasm of Tempe, through which the drainage of the great inland basin escapes to the sea, the grey peak of Ossa forms the northern end of a long chain of heights which, farther south, mount into the ridge of Pelion. Along the southern edge of the plain another vast mountain barrier sweeps eastward from Mount Pindus through the lofty chain of Othrys to the sea. No other part of Greece presents such diversities of topography and of climate as are to be found within the region thus encircled with mountains. The peaceful beauty and spontaneous fertility of the plain offer an impressive contrast to the barren ruggedness of the surrounding heights. High above the gardens, mea- dows, and corn-fields, sharply-cut walls and pinnacles of white limestone mount out of the thick woodland into the clear upper air. Nor is evidence wanting of those catastrophes which from time to time convulse a mountain region. At the base of the bare cliffs and down the rocky declivities lie huge blocks of stone that have been detached by the weather from the precipices above. And, doubtless, from time immemorial the dwellers on these slopes have been familiar with the crash and tumult of the land- slip, and with the havoc wrought by it on forest and field. Along the mountain-ridges, too, clouds are ever gathering, and thunderstorms are of con- tinual recurrence. The lightnings of Olympus are visible from Othrys, and to the inhabitants of the GREEK MYTHS 35 intervening plain the incessant peals and reverbera- tions from the northern and southern ranges might well sound like shouts of mutual defiance from the two lines of lofty rampart, as where, in a more northern clime "Jura answers from her misty shroud Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud." If to these daily or frequently returning meteoro- logical phenomena we add the terrors of occasional earthquakes, such as affect most mountainous countries and are known to have convulsed different parts of Greece within historic times, we perceive how favourable the conditions of environment must have been for exciting the imagination ofxan impressionable people. Whether, therefore, the early Hellenic myths arose in Hellas, or came from elsewhere, they could hardly fail in the end to betray the influence of the sur- roundings amid which they were handed down from generation to generation. The snowy summits of Olympus, rising serenely above the shifting clouds into the calm, clear, blue heaven, naturally came to be regarded as the fit abode of the gods who ruled the world. The association of that mountain-top with the dwelling-place of the immortals, first suggested to the imagination of the early settlers in Thessaly, passed outwards to the utmost bounds of the Hellenic world. Everywhere the word Olympus came to be synonymous with heaven itself. In the myth of the Gods and the Titans, as handed down in early Greek poetry, the influence of Thes- salian topography is abundantly conspicuous. The two 36 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION opposite mountain ranges of Olympus and Othrys be- came the respective strongholds of the opposing hosts. The convulsions of that ten years' struggle, whether suggested or not by the broken features of the ground and the conflicts of the elements, assuredly took their poetic colouring from them. The riven crags piled in confusion one above another, the rock-strewn slopes, the trees uprooted by landslips, the thunder-peals that resound from the misty mountain-chains, seem still to tell of that primeval belief, wherein the Titans were pictured as striving with frantic efforts to scale the heights of Olympus by piling Ossa on Pelion, hurling huge rocks and trees through the darkened air, and answering the thunderbolts of Zeus with fierce peals from the clouds of their lofty citadel. In the mag- nificent description of Hesiod, beneath all the super- natural turmoil we catch, as it were, the tumult of a wild storm among the Thessalian hills, with such added horrors as might be suggested to the imagination of the poet from the recollection or tradition of former earthquake or volcanic eruption. Long after the time of the primitive mythology, the more striking features of the land continued to appeal to the Hellenic imagination and to perpetuate the prowess of gods and heroes, even down to genera- tions of men among whom belief in these legends was already beginning to grow dim. The narrow gorge of Tempe may be cited in illustration of this influence. Cleft between the precipices of Olympus and Ossa, and serving as the only outlet for the drainage of the wide Thessalian plain, this chasm must have arrested the attention of the earliest settlers, VALE OF TEMPE 37 and certainly continued for many centuries to be one of the most noted valleys of the Old World. The contrast between the vast level plain through which the River Peneius and its tributaries wander, and the narrow gorge through which the accumulated waters issue; the apparently insurmountable barrier interposed across the course of the stream ; the sin- gular and unexpected ravine by which the drainage is allowed to escape to the sea; the naked, fissured walls of white limestone on either side of the narrow pass, even now powerfully impress the observant traveller of to-day. These striking features could not fail to appeal to the imagination of the old Greek. From early times it was recognised that the plain of Thessaly had once been covered with a sheet of water, of which the remaining portions formed two consider- able lakes. Had no passage been opened for the outflow of the drainage across the barrier of moun- tains the plain would have remained submerged. The cleaving of a chasm whereby the pent-up waters were allowed to flow down to the sea, and thus to lay bare so wide an area of rich land for human occu- pation, was looked on as the work of some bene- volent power, and naturally came to be associated with the name of Poseidon, the God of the Sea.1 In later times, when the deeds of gods and heroes began to be confounded with each other, the supernatural char- acter of the Vale of Tempe was still acknowledged; but the opening of the cleft was in course of time transferred to Hercules, who, by cutting a hollow 1 Herodotus, vii. 129. 38 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION across the ridge, allowed the stagnant waters of the interior to flow off into the sea.1 Prominent hills and crags in other parts of Greece gave rise to legends, or became the localised scenes of myths which had floated down from an older time, and sometimes perhaps from another birthplace. Thus the hill Lycabettus, that stands so picturesquely on the north-east of Athens, suggested to the lively fancy of the early Athenians a record of the prowess of their patron-goddess. When Athene, so the legend ran, was founding their state and wished to strengthen the city, she went out to Pallene, a demos lying to the north-eastward, and procured there a great hill which she meant to place as a bulwark in front of the Acropolis, but on her way back, hearing from a crow of the birth of Erichthonius, she dropped the hill, which has remained on the same spot ever since. Legends of this kind, but varying in dress with local topography and national temperament, may be found all over the world. To the early Greeks the West was a region of marvels. It lay on the outermost bounds of the known world, where the sun descended beneath the earth and where Atlas supported the vault of Heaven. By degrees as the spirit of colonisation drew men in that direction, the occidental marvels of the first voyagers faded away before a more accurate know- ledge of the Mediterranean shores. But the legends to which they had given rise remained in the popular mythology, and served as subjects for chroniclers and poets. 1 Diod. Sic., iv. 18. See also Lucan, Pharsalia, vi. 345. MEDITERRANEAN MYTHS 39 Thus the two singular masses of rock in which, at Gibraltar and Ceuta, the European and African conti- nents respectively terminate, and which form, on each side of an intervening strait, only some seventeen miles wide, a kind of gateway for the vast Mediterranean basin, naturally fixed the attention of the early navi- gators on those distant waters, and filled a prominent place among the travellers' tales from the remote West. They took their part in the myths, becoming the 'pillars of Hercules/ that were erected by this legendary explorer and knight-errant as an eternal record of his labours and of the ultimate limit of his wanderings. The details of the story vary. By some narrators the hero was represented as having narrowed and shallowed the strait, and built his pillars on the two sides to keep the huge monsters of the outer ocean from entering the Mediterranean sea. By others he was believed to have actually excavated the strait itself, and by thus separating Europe and Africa, previously joined together, to have allowed the waters of the ocean and those of the inner sea to mingle.1 In a mountainous country, where the streams, swollen by sudden or heavy rains, sweep down much detritus into the valleys and plains, the great changes of topography thereby produced impress the imagination and dwell in the memory of the inhabi- tants. In Greece, the myths that gathered round the Achelous — the largest and most famous river in the country — probably arose, as Strabo showed, from 1 Diod. Sic., iv. 1 8, who allows his readers to choose which version of the legend they prefer. 40 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION the varying operations of the stream itself. The stories of the river-god assuming the form of a bull and of a serpent, his contests with Hercules, and the loss of his horn, are obviously only personifica- tions of a rapid stream, rushing impetuously from its mountainous birthplace and winding in twisteci curves across the plain ; now strewing the meadows with gravel, now curbed by the laborious construction of embankments, and now bursting forth again to resume its old wayward course.1 The river still retains the character which prompted its ancient legends. It is now called the Aspropotamo or white river, from the abundance of white silt suspended in its water and lying on its bed. While in winter, fed by the rains and melting snows of distant Pindus, it often fills its channel from bank to bank, it shrinks in summer into a number of lesser streams, which wind about in a broad gravelly channel. In the myths that grew round other rivers of ancient Greece, we may recognise similar early attempts to account for striking features of local typography. When, for instance, Hercules is fabled to have barred back the river Cephissus and to have submerged and destroyed the country about Orchomenos in Bosotia,2 we may doubtless recognise the traditional record of some prehistoric inundation, perhaps an abnormal rise of the singularly variable Lake Copais, whereby a 1 See Strabo, x. 458. Diodorus also (iv. 35), giving a similar interpretation of the legends, tells us how Hercules hollowed out a new bed for the Achelous, thereby reclaiming a vast tract of exceedingly fertile land. 2Diod. Sic., iv. 18. INFLUENCE OF VOLCANOES 41 large tract of land was flooded ; possibly even an attempt to account for the lake itself. But there was one physical feature which, more than any other, must have impressed the imagination of the dwellers by the Mediterranean shores; and that was furnished by the volcanic phenomena so characteristic of the great depression between Europe and Africa. Among the islands of the .fligean sea, some were continually smoking; others retained, in their cindery cones and ashy slopes, the memorials of subterranean fires not long extinguished. From time to time actual eruptions broke forth, with their accompaniments of convulsion and terror. We know from geological evidence that one of the most violent volcanic explosions which have affected the Mediter- ranean basin took place where now is the island of Santorin, after the original site was inhabited by a civilised people.1 A conical volcanic mountain — an eastern Vesuvius or Etna — stood on that site, but in some prehistoric age it was blown into the air, as happened at Krakatoa in August, 1883, only portions of the base of the cone being left to form the present semi-circular ring of islands. Whether this stupen- dous catastrophe occurred after the Hellenic race appeared in the -