The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1915-09-10
GATES TO THE BLACK SEA,
National Geographic Society, Wash
ington, D. c.

PHSlS dS lndt Wnere the deciding mas
ter strokes in this most titan-like of
all struggles are to be delivered, a
sketch of this remarkable regions
past prepared by Harry Griswold
Dwight for the National Geographic
Soclty is of more than usual interest.
Here the west won its self-c onhdence,
and this confidence has borne fruits
with splendid richness for longer than
I,OOO years. Here the course of civil
izatlon has been changed and modi-
ned several times, and here, again to-
day, the attention of the world is fixed
IN the belief that the future of Eu-
rope will once more be determined by
events about to transpire. In the bull
letln Just issued by the National Geo
graphical Society, Mr.. Dwight tells
about The Gates to the Black Sea-"
here is something alluring in the
very shape and position of these lakes
the Black Sea and the Sea of Mar
understanding as they do the two
most historic continents of our globe,
and communicating with each other
and with the outer seas by openings
that seem miraculous. And those
landlocked waters have been from
earliest times, as they happen again
to be today, the theater OF epic events.
For us of the west no legends are
older than those of Genus and 10, of
Phryxus and Helle, of the Trojan war,
OF Jason and the Argo, which COM
memorate the earliest voyages into
the Great Lakes of the Levant.
"Of the two, the Marmora-the
Propontls, If you prefer to be CLASH
calls by far the smaller Not much
more than 100 miles long and some
40 miles across at its broadcast part,
it is about the same size as Lake
Champlain. The Marmora has much
of the softness of air, vividness of col
or and beauty of scenery that we as
sociate with the Aegean and Ionian
seas. Thread the narrow slit Of the
Bosphorous, however, and you pass
into and entirely different world
sterner, barer, rocker, and colder.
Il t the Marmora may be compared
to Lake Champlain, the Black Sea
is about four times the size of our
greatest lake Lake Superior is ALP
miles long by l67 wide, while the
Black Sea has a length of $50 miles
and breadth of 1885, That there is
something dark and unfriendly about
it is more than legend. The Bos-
Phorus is 20 miles long, and at one
point of its tortuous course the hills
of Europe and Asia come within $50
yards of each other. The Dardanelles
is twice as long and nearly twice as
wide, varying from 400 yards to five
miles. Its European shore, Gallopoli
peninsula is the Thracian Cheronese
1
overlooks the plain Of Troy on the
Asatic bank of the broken foothills
of Mt. Ida.
while its two historic gateways
are strategically the most important
features of Marmora, that picturesque
little sea has a character all its own.
In any othen part of the world it
would long ago have become a place
of soJourn for yachtmen and sum-
merers, so happily is it treated by sun
and wind, so amply provided with
bays, capes, islands, mountains, for
ests, and all other accidents of ma
ture that make glad the heart Of the
amateur explorer. AS it is, the Mar
mora remains strangely wild for a
sea that has known SO much of life.
More numerous than the settlement
of today are the ruins of yesterday
About no body of water in the world
of equal size, have stood so many
stately cities. 1t is almost impossible
indeed to give any coherent account
of the story of Marmora, so much
history and legend have crowded its
shores"
Writing of the antiquity of the
straits question, Mr.. Dwight says;
"The true question of the straits
arose as early as the fifth century, B.
c., when Alcibiades of Athens coun-
seled the people of Chrysopolis, the
modern Scutari at the southeastern
extremity of the Bosphorous, to take
toll of passing ships" But the Otto
man regulation of the straits has been
far more jealous than anything at
tempted by the ancicnts. "The Turks
have allowed no foreign mcn-of-war
TO enter the Marmora," the writer
continues. unless under rare and spe-
cial circumstances; and not only do
they exercise surveillance over the
traffic in the straits, but twice during
the last four years they have closed
the Dardancllcs to navigation of any
kind
AT the moment at which | write
the fleets of France and England are
hammering away at the historic gate
M, Al, Il Al, i