" Augustinus, 'De
Civitate Dei', lib. xvi., cap. 7: 'Opera, ed. Monach. Ordinis S.
Benedicti', t. vii., Venet., 1732, p. 422. Two centuries before the tiime
of the Bishop of Hippo, we find, by extracts from Trogus Pompeius, that the
'generatio primaria' was brought forward in connection with the earliest
drying up of the ancient world, and of the high table-land of Asia,
precisely in the same manner as the terraces of Paradise, in the theory of
the great Linnaeus, and in the visionary hypotheses entertained in the
eighteenth century regarding the fabled Atlantis: "Quod si omnes quondam
terrae submersae profundo fuerunt, profecto editissilimam quamque partem
decurrentibus aquis primum detectam; humillimo autem solo eandem aquam
diutissime immoratam, et quanto prior quaeque pars terrarum siccata sit,
tanto prius animalia generare coepisse. Porro Scythiam adeo editiorem
omnibus terris esse ut cuncta flumina ibi nata in Maeotium, tum deinde in
Ponticum et Aegyptium mare decurrant." -- Justinus, lib. ii., cap. 1. The
erroneous supposition that the land of Scythia is an elevated table-land, is
so ancient that we meet with it most clearly expressed in Hippocrates, 'De
Aere et Aquis', cap. 6, 96, Coray. "Scythia," says he, "coonsists of high
and naked plains, which, without being crowned with mountains, ascend higher
and higher toward the north.
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