CHAP. 87. (85.)—IN WHAT PLACES THE SEA HAS RECEDED.
The same cause produces an increase of the land; the vapour, when it cannot burst out forcibly lifting up the surface562. For the land is not merely produced by what is brought down the rivers, as the islands called Echinades are formed by the river Achelous, and the greater part of Egypt by the Nile, where, according to Homer, it was a day and a night’s journey from the main land to the island of Pharos563; but, in some cases, by the receding of the sea, as, according to the same author, was the case with the Circæan isles564. The same thing also happened in the harbour of Ambracia, for a space of 10,000 paces, and was also said to have taken place for 5000 at the Piræus of Athens565, and likewise at Ephesus, where formerly the sea washed the walls of the temple of Diana. Indeed, if we may believe Herodotus566, the sea came beyond Memphis, as far as the mountains of Æthiopia, and also from the plains of Arabia. The sea also surrounded Ilium and the whole of Teuthrania, and covered the plain through which the Mæander flows567.