The eastern coast region of Asia Minor, the western
of Greece, and many of the intermediate islands, exhibit thick
masses of stratified deposits of later tertiary age and of
purely lacustrine characters; and it is remarkable that, on the
south side of the island of Crete, such masses present steep
cliffs facing the sea, so that the southern boundary of the lake
in which they were formed must have been situated where the sea
now flows. Indeed, there are valid reasons for the supposition
that the dry land once extended far to the west of the present
Levantine coast, and not improbably forced the Nile to seek an
outlet to the north-east of its present delta--a possibility of
no small importance in relation to certain puzzling facts in the
geographical distribution of animals in this region. At any
rate, continuous land joined Asia Minor with the Balkan
peninsula; and its surface bore deep fresh-water lakes,
apparently disconnected with the Ponto-Aralian sea. This state
of things lasted long enough to allow of the formation of the
thick lacustrine strata to which I have referred. I am not aware
that there is the smallest ground for the assumption that the
AEgean land was broken up in consequence of any of the
"catastrophes" which are so commonly invoked.<12> For anything
that appears to the contrary, the narrow, steep-sided, straits
between the islands of the AEgean archipelago may have been
originally brought about by ordinary atmospheric and stream
action; and may then have been filled from the Mediterranean,
during a slow submergence proceeding from the south northwards.
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