The Mediterranean Sea, a body of water between Europe and Africa,
nearly 2,000 miles in length, surrounded with most of the noted cities
of antiquity, has remained during these thousands of years in an
unchanged condition from tides, inundations, or any other disturbing
causes. Into this sea through the Strait of Gibraltar has been flowing
all this time from the Atlantic Ocean, a river 15 miles wide with an
average depth of one and one-fourth miles. This river is reported to
have so strong a current that a sailing vessel has difficulty of coming
out against it without the help of a favorable east wind. This is a
sufficient flow of water to fill the basin of the sea almost yearly,
besides the help of all the rivers of Southern Europe and Northern
Africa. The reason of no change is given for its location, where
evaporation carries off all this influx of water; while some think an
undercurrent must exist back into the Atlantic. The first reason seems
too ridiculous for a child to give. The water of the Atlantic is so
salt as to produce over a pound of salt to a common bucket full. If
evaporation is the reason of its equable condition, there could be no
other result than a mountain of salt big as the Himalayas long before
this time.
The claim of a countercurrent is almost as absurd. That the sea
discharges its waters in an undercurrent which passes through the
neighborhood of the Caspian and Aral Seas, is more likely than that the
waters run backward against a powerful current from the Atlantic and
against the centrifugal force that governs the movements of relatively
every other water course on the Earth.
So much for that subject for any criticisms that may be offered.
Intervening lakes between the Caspian and Aral Seas, seasonably fill
with salt water, from the evaporation of which immense bodies of salt
are gathered. Where does this supply of salt water come from to leave
hundreds of thousands of tons of salt each year?