In the Imperial Library at Paris is preserved a manuscript work by
an Arabian writer, Mohammed Karurini, who flourished in the seventh
century of the Hegira, or at the close of the thirteenth century of
our era. Herein we find several curious remarks on aerolites and
earthquakes, and the successive changes of position which the land and
sea have undergone. Of the latter class is the following beautiful
passage from the narrative of Khidz, an allegorical personage:
I passed one day by a very ancient and wonderfully populous city,
and asked one of its inhabitants how long it had been founded. “It
is indeed a mighty city,” replied he; “we know not how long it
has existed, and our ancestors were on this subject as ignorant
as ourselves.” Five centuries afterwards, as I passed by the same
place, I could not perceive the slightest vestige of the city. I
demanded of a peasant who was gathering herbs upon its former site
how long it had been destroyed. “In sooth, a strange question,”
replied he; “the ground here has never been different from what you
now behold it.” “Was there not of old,” said I, “a splendid city
here?” “Never,” answered he, “so far as we have seen; and never
did our fathers speak to us of any such.” On my return there five
hundred years afterwards, _I found the sea in the same place_; and
on its shores were a party of fishermen, of whom I inquired how
long the land had been covered by the waters. “Is this a question,”
say they, “for a man like you? This spot has always been what it is
now.” I again returned five hundred years afterwards; the sea had
disappeared: I inquired of a man who stood alone upon the spot how
long this change had taken place, and he gave me the same answer as
I had received before. Lastly, on coming back again after an equal
lapse of time, I found there a flourishing city, more populous and
more rich in beautiful buildings than the city I had seen the first
time; and when I would fain have informed myself concerning its
origin, the inhabitants answered me, “Its rise is lost in remote
antiquity: we are ignorant how long it has existed, and our fathers
were on this subject as ignorant as ourselves.”
This striking passage was quoted in the _Examiner_, in 1834. Surely in
this fragment of antiquity we trace the “geological changes” of modern
science.