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Meteorology By Aristotle

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Bathos
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« Reply #30 on: August 30, 2009, 11:45:45 pm »

Since there is necessarily some change in the whole world, but not
in the way of coming into existence or perishing (for the universe
is permanent), it must be, as we say, that the same places are not
for ever moist through the presence of sea and rivers, nor for ever
dry. And the facts prove this. The whole land of the Egyptians, whom
we take to be the most ancient of men, has evidently gradually come
into existence and been produced by the river. This is clear from
an observation of the country, and the facts about the Red Sea suffice
to prove it too. One of their kings tried to make a canal to it (for
it would have been of no little advantage to them for the whole region
to have become navigable; Sesostris is said to have been the first
of the ancient kings to try), but he found that the sea was higher
than the land. So he first, and Darius afterwards, stopped making
the canal, lest the sea should mix with the river water and spoil
it. So it is clear that all this part was once unbroken sea. For the
same reason Libya-the country of Ammon-is, strangely enough, lower
and hollower than the land to the seaward of it. For it is clear that
a barrier of silt was formed and after it lakes and dry land, but
in course of time the water that was left behind in the lakes dried
up and is now all gone. Again the silting up of the lake Maeotis by
the rivers has advanced so much that the limit to the size of the
ships which can now sail into it to trade is much lower than it was
sixty years ago. Hence it is easy to infer that it, too, like most
lakes, was originally produced by the rivers and that it must end
by drying up entirely.

Again, this process of silting up causes a continuous current through
the Bosporus; and in this case we can directly observe the nature
of the process. Whenever the current from the Asiatic shore threw
up a sandbank, there first formed a small lake behind it. Later it
dried up and a second sandbank formed in front of the first and a
second lake. This process went on uniformly and without interruption.
Now when this has been repeated often enough, in the course of time
the strait must become like a river, and in the end the river itself
must dry up.
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