Out of this error arose the dull plagiarism of the Bœotian Charles, who gave to the presumptuous arms, in which those of the Peninsula were quartered with those of the Empire, two Pillars as supporters, which are to stand for the traditional altars and the figurative hills. The motto was “plus ultra,” taken from “ne plus ultra,” both equally meaningless after the discovery of America. The dropping of the particle ne announced the unlimited ambition of his nature, and the narrow limits of his mind and scholarship.[20]
The Two Columns are still often heard of throughout the Mediterranean, and sometimes seen in the shape of the dollar of Charles V., which is superior in value to those of his successors, and is known by the name of Colonato. Strange vicissitude! The Phœnician Melcarth’s votive offering become a money-changer’s tale! The story is now ended, and the circle complete. Bright-eyed poetry—strong-handed enterprise, have descended to ambition and solecism, vulgarity and gain, and having begun with virtue idolized, we end with gold become the idol.
I have been speculating on the influence exercised by this passage on human events: the physical condition of the globe offers a parallel field.
Let us suppose, that the gap had been just wide enough to supply the water lost by evaporation, for which the thousandth part of the present passage would suffice:—the Mediterranean would have been a salt-pan.
The yearly deposit would have been an inch, the yearly produce 80 millions of cart loads, or 50,000 times the quantity of earth displaced in constructing the London and Birmingham Railway. Supposing then this evaporation to have gone on since the deluge, the result would be, a field of 750,000 square miles of salt, fifty fathoms thick—that is, the Mediterranean would be a tank of brine, and perhaps we should have a fresh-water ocean outside in lieu of a salt one.[21] This has been prevented by the straits being wide and deep enough to allow an admixture of the waters.
In all other geological facts, there are presented subordinate effects only. You may reason from the completeness of the whole, and the adaptation of the parts to a supreme creating Will. But this adjustment of the forms of nature to the use of man, appears less a geological incident than a specimen of animal organization.
Going a step further, let us suppose the ocean shut out altogether.[22] What sights should we then have seen? Since the Deluge the evaporation, at the present rate, would have reduced by this time the level 8,000 or 10,000 feet; but in proportion as it sunk, and the shallow borders became dry land, the temperature would rise, and the moisture of the atmosphere diminish. The evaporation would be more and more rapid, and the surface of the Mediterranean might have sunk as far beneath its present level as Mont Blanc soars above it.[23]
It is singular that the Tartarus of Virgil and Dante is cast in this very region; but it would then have been no fabled terrors: natural objects would have outstripped their fancies. The breath of this furnace would not have been pent up in its caverns, but have spread its blight over the finest regions of Africa, Europe, and Asia, blasting in their bud the glories of the Capitol, the eloquence of the Bema, the sculptures of the Parthenon, the trophies of the Memnonium, the enterprise of Tyre, and the wealth of Carthage; and these fair and fertile shores would have been a wilderness, overhanging an abyss of death. The Chinese, the Hindoo, or, perchance, the Seminole philosopher, would have been journeying here to visit the bowels of the earth laid open to the sun.
What observations and experiments to make on the converse phenomena to ours—on the increase of intensity of heat and pressure on the powers of men or animals! What speculations on the old orders of the animal and vegetable kingdoms under new conditions! What new ones called into existence! What magnetic and electric phenomena to reward the Empedocles who ventured into this crater of 4,000 miles circumference! Imagine Lebanon or Etna rising 30,000 or 60,000 feet, and Cyprus, a plateau, suspended a mile and a half above the plain of burning salt or boiling brine! What treasures for the historian—the exuviæ of animals and men—the refuse of centuries washed down by the streams—the dead of extinguished races buoyed up and floating through each other in the brine, or caught and cured in the salt as the mammoth in the ice! The geologist would then have enjoyed the sight of strata unmodified by a retiring deluge, and feasted his eyes on the reality of chaos, and an earth fitted for salamanders, megalosauri, cheirotheria, and mastodons. The Simoon would have extended its empire from the Zahara to the plains of Languedoc, and, cherished by his breath, the locust would have asserted her sway up to the English sea. Such, horrid and inane, must have been the “sweet south,” had not this channel been dug, and this purple sea poured in—reflecting the heavens above,—dispensing around moisture to the fields, health to the people,—yielding its body to their keels, its breezes to their sails. For this were these portals opened, which man so long has deemed a mystery denying his scrutiny, and a barrier defying his adventure.