Mediterranean Basin

“ The western Mediterranean is cut off by a bank crossing the narrow strait between Sicily and Cape Bon, usually known as the Adventure Bank, on which the depth is nowhere 200 fathoms. The mean depth of the western basin is estimated at 881 fathoms, and the deepest sounding recorded is 2040 fathoms. In the eastern Mediterranean the mean depth is nearly the same as in the western basin. The Sicilian-Ionian basin has a mean depth of 885 fathoms, and the Levant basin, 793 fathoms. Deep water is found close up to the coast of Sicily, Greece, Crete and the edge of the African plateau. ”

“ The Nile greatly relieves this monotony, but its sources lie within tropical regions far beyond the limits of the desert. Alexandria possesses almost the only natural harbour on this flat coast of early formation. The old-world characteristics of the land, its inhabitants, and their language at once strike the traveller on landing at Tripoli. Yet even this part of the Mediterranean, especially the Levant Basin, beyond the passage between Crete and Barca, contains recent formations. ”

“ On the north-west only, on each side of the Pyrenees, the basin is bounded by a coast of the primæval bed-rock formation, and is easily accessible from the Iberian mountains by the valleys of the Ebro, Jucar, and other rivers. Still more important are the avenues afforded by the Aquitanian Plains and the Rhone Valley. Hence it was that from a very early period the streams of Roman culture flowed through Marseilles and Narbonne to western and central Europe. ”

“ But the western sea of the Great Basin was dominated by a fauna from the boreal waters, which came down through the Bering portal, along the old shore line of northwestern America. The Mediterranean fauna extended eastward through the Tethys to Sumatra, and up into the Ural Mountains, showing that the Iberian, the Bokharan, and the Asia Minor portals were all open. ”

“ The mountains beyond appear equally unwilling that the beauteous basin should lose its benefactor; presenting themselves in such confused and successive masses, and in such intricate forms, as seem to preclude the possibility of the little stream ever finding its way through them to the Mediterranean. ”

“ The desiccation of the Aralo-Caspian basin, which communicated with the Black Sea only by a comparatively narrow and shallow strait along the present valley of Manytsch, the bottom of which was less than 100 feet above the Mediterranean, must have been vastly aided by the erosion of the strait of the Dardanelles towards the end of the pleistocene epoch, or perhaps later. For the result of thus opening a passage for the waters of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean must have been the gradual lowering of its level to that of the latter sea. ”

“ The waters of the ocean were then excluded from the Caspian and eastern Mediterranean basins, and replaced by vast fresh-water lakes; while brackish water lagoons occupied much of the western Mediterranean. This great retreat of the sea culminated in the Pontian stage, and land-connexion was established between North and South America. Outside the Eurasian region, Aquitanian deposits occur in Formosa, Java, Borneo and Madagascar ”

“ The precise amount of sediment which would have been thus distributed over the soil is matter of conjecture, but though large, it would have been much less than the inundations have deposited, and continuous longitudinal embankments would have compelled the Nile to transport to the Mediterranean an immense quantity over and above what it has actually deposited in that sea. The Mediterranean is shoal for some miles out to sea along the whole coast of the Delta, and the large bays or lagoons within the coast-line, which communicate both with the river and the sea, have little depth of water. ”

“ The ocean always flows into the sea. The current through the strait of Gibraltar is always inward. Many great rivers contribute to the blue waters of the great sea. There is no known outlet. Why does not the Mediterranean run over and fill the Sahara desert, which is considerably below the sea-level? Scientists have tried to figure this out, and the only tangible theory is that the bottom of the Mediterranean leaks badly in some places, and that the water finds its way by subterranean channels back to the ocean. ”

“ What is now a great convexity thrust into the Mediterranean, perpetually gaining ground on the sea, was at the commencement of the present geologic epoch a great bay, and the waves of the Mediterranean broke against the cliffs of les Monts Garrigues, at Lodève, the heights of Nimes and Beaucaire, against the limestone crags of the Alpines, and swirled against that calcareous spur that now separates the lagoon of Berre from the desert of la Crau. ”

“ The Mediterranean is by no means as smooth as a lake. Storms somewhat violent arise suddenly, but rarely last over a day or two.
Our first glimpse of Africa was far from pleasing—nothing but dreary barren sand, or rather mud-looking mounds, formed its frontier, with very few traces of habitation except numerous windmills on the hilltops—which are of no great elevation. Vegetation there appeared to be none. By-and-by, however, we entered upon the magnificent Bay of Alexandria, for shipping one of the largest and finest in the world. ”

“ Not all the rich sediment the Nile brings down is left on the level flood plain along its course. A vast quantity is dumped at the river's mouth, where the tides of the Mediterranean check the river's current. Thus the great delta is formed. The broad river splits into many mouths that spread out like a fan and build higher and broader each year the mud-banks between the streams. Upper Egypt consists of river swamps. Lower Egypt, from Cairo to the sea, is the delta built by the river itself on sea bottom. ”

“ Egypt remains in the same position that Nature originally allotted to her; the life-giving stream that flows through a thousand miles of burning sands suddenly rises in July, and floods the Delta which it has formed by a deposit, during perhaps hundreds of thousands of inundations; and it wastes a superabundance of fertilizing mud in the waters of the Mediterranean. As Nature has thus formed, and is still forming a delta, why should not Science create a delta, with the powerful means at our disposal? ”

“ The Mediterranean seems at first sight a poor substitute for the rivers that have given their waters to make it. Those were living waters, whether they ran muddy or clear; the sea seems just salt and still and dead. But as soon as we study the sea, we find movement and life there also. There are silent currents circulating perpetually from one part to another, and the surface-water that seems to be lost by evaporation is not really lost, but will descend in distant places and seasons, with its bitterness all distilled away, as life-giving rain. ”

“ In Northern Africa, Dalmatia, and the larger islands of the Grecian Archipelago, the same evil has made terrible advances. The Mediterranean Sea, once a forest-lake of paradise, is now a dead sea, surrounded by dusty and burning coasts, often for hundreds of miles without a vestige of organic life.
The present appearance of the Troad, the neighborhood of Lake Tiberias, the valley of the Euphrates, and other districts that were once teeming with population, can actually make us doubt if there ever was such a thing as an original desert. ”

“ All around the basins, upon slabs of marble, are huge frogs and tortoises, representing the metamorphosed peasants of Libya, who are supplying the goddess with water in liberal streams, which they spout in arching jets towards her. Then there is the great Basin of Apollo, with the god driving a chariot, surrounded by sea-gods and monsters, who are all doing spouting duty ”

“ The Mediterranean held its place as an inland sea, as one might well expect, since it was sea during the Permian times when most of the world was high, but all through the Triassic—which is the first Period of the Mesozoic Era—the land began to fall, and before it was over, the Mediterranean joined the Atlantic once again. ”

“ At least the geological aspect of the coast is that of an ancient seaboard forming a continuation of the small limestone ridge at Alexandria, which at present terminates at Abukir Point. In the shallow waters the waves take advantage of every rocky projection, islet, or headland to deposit sandbanks, and thus gradually transform the irregular marine inlets into landlocked lagoons. Before advancing beyond the mainland the Nile had to fill up these lagoons, separated by strips of sand from the Mediterranean, and this work is not yet accomplished. ”

“ As these desert regions have an almost identical history, the Spanish word playa—meaning shore or strand—has been adopted by geologists as a generic term under which the various desiccated lake-basins may be grouped. Valleys more absolutely desolate than the playas of the Great Basin can not be found, even in the midst of Sahara. ”

“ Compared to the vast liquid plains of the Pacific, the Mediterranean is a mere lake, but it’s an unpredictable lake with fickle waves, today kindly and affectionate to those frail single-masters drifting between a double ultramarine of sky and water, tomorrow bad-tempered and turbulent, agitated by the winds, demolishing the strongest ships beneath sudden waves that smash down with a headlong wallop. ”

“ In the British seas, the shells and other organic remains lie in soft mud or loose sand and gravel; whereas, in the bed of the Adriatic, Donati found them frequently inclosed in stone of recent origin. This is precisely the difference in character which we might have expected to exist between the British marine formations now in progress and those of the Adriatic; for calcareous and other mineral springs abound in the Mediterranean and lands adjoining, while they are almost entirely wanting in our own country. ”

“ The military highway from Egypt to Syria from ancient times followed the coast line of the Mediterranean, the settlements along which were modified on one side by the encroachment of the sea, on the other by the invasion of sand.
Adjoining this zone of drift sand, the land extends south with increased elevation to the centre of the peninsula, where it reaches a height of about 4000 ft., and abruptly breaks off in a series of lofty and inaccessible cliffs, the upper white limestone of which contrasts brilliantly in some places with the lower red sandstone. ”

“ The Mediterranean is, after all, the sea of the world: we associate it with everything classic and beautiful, either in art or climate; and although we know well that its lazy, saint-ridden seamen, and its picturesque, but dirty and ill-sailed, vessels would fly before a breeze which a North-sea fisherman or a Channel boatman would consider a mere puff,—still there is something racily and specially picturesque about the black-eyed, swarthy, copper ear-ringed rascals, and something dearly familiar about the high, graceful peaks of the sails around which they cluster. ”

“ The hills rise abruptly; those we examined are of sandstone formation. The basin is very shoal, but there is a narrow channel in the centre, with from five to nine fathoms water. The shore, opposite the Bastion Hills, is low, and the gulf trends gradually round to the South-West for five miles, when it is contracted into a narrow communication, called The Gut, leading to an interior shoal basin, strewed with low marshy islands, which the tide covers. ”

“ The diversity of scenery in the Great Basin is increased by mountains of volcanic origin, including several modern craters, some of which hold lakes, and by lava-flows of recent date, and by great alluvial fans or detritus cones which stream out into the valleys from the mouths of gorges in the bordering mountains.
The Great Basin proper, with its rugged topography and arid climate, is not an agricultural region. Small portions of it, however, when water can be had for irrigation, have been transformed into fruitful farms and gardens which yield bountiful returns. ”

“ Looking down, the Mediterranean is at your feet. There go the ships, with boats from either shore which dip their long lateen-sails as sea-gulls dip their wings, and sometimes fly over the waves as a bird flies through the air, even while large ships labor against the wind. As the current from the Atlantic flows steadily into the Mediterranean, if perchance the wind should blow from the same quarter, it is not an easy matter to get out of the Straits. Ships that have made the whole course of the Mediterranean are baffled here in the throat of the sea. ”

“ In the case of a large hollow in a very dry climate the rate of evaporation may be sufficient to prevent the water from ever rising to the lip, so that there is no outflow to the sea, and a basin of internal drainage is the result. This is the case, for instance, in the Caspian sea, the Aral and Balkhash lakes, the Tarim basin, the Sahara, inner Australia, the great basin of the United States and the Titicaca basin. These basins of internal drainage are calculated to amount to 22% of the land surface. ”