274 JOURNEY FROM time of Ptolemy. We think it equally probable that the river Triton flowed into the lake, and that the island called by some Triton, by Herodotus, Phla, together with the temple of Minerva, (in which the Triton is said to have deposited Jason’s tripod) was situated near the mouth of it : moreover, that the island in question is now a part of the sandy plain in which the rivulet of Hammah, the supposed river of Triton, loses itself. For it appears to us that the difference between the present state of things, at this place, and the ancient description of the lake and Syrtis, may be reconciled, by merely adverting to the changes that have taken place on other sandy shores ; and more particularly at the head of a gulf where the tide exerts its greatest power of casting up the sand to a higher point. That which has happened at the head of the Fed Sea may be adduced in point ; and, as the shore of the Syrtis is much flatter than the other, the operation has probably gone on with greater rapidity.”

Lucan (as Major Fennell has justly observed) “ appears to believe that the bottom of the Syrtis” (that is, the Greater Syrtis) “ was growing firmer, and the water shallower ; and surmises that it may hereafter become dry and solid.” “ \That changes (he continues), “ in point of form and extent, they may have undergone, or if any, we know not : but it is certain they have hitherto preserved their original properties.”

We insert below the lines of Lucan alluded to, from Fowes translation*.

* When Nature’s hand the first formation tried, When seas from land she did at first divide, 1 he