268 Rev. W. D. Conybeare on the Phenomena of Geology 



nation, which I shall accordingly endeavour to give them. My 

 argument would stand thus: All the localities of this scene 

 still appear the same as when its beauties inspired the muses 

 of Horace and Statius some 18 centuries ago; the fane of 

 the sibyl, the " domus Albuneae resonantis," still re-echoes 

 with the dash of the fall beneath : though did rivers travel at 

 the rate the Fluvialists think they do, the said falls must 

 surely have removed far beyond ear-shot of the old sibyl long 

 ago. Mr. Lyell, however, dwells at length on the fall of a 

 little bit of vertical cliff, 1 5 paces wide and a few yards long, 

 occasioned by the floods in 1 826 : as if the undermining such 

 a fragment were the same thing as the excavation of a valley 

 of denudation. At such an event Vesta, he thinks, must have 

 trembled in her beautiful temple for the stability of the planet 

 over which she presides. If the turret-crowned goddess were 

 indeed thus affected, the proximate sibyl whom I have al- 

 luded to, may, I think, well have stept in, in the neighbourly 

 character of a comforter. 



" My dear Sister," methinks I hear her saying, " banish 

 all such apprehensions ; from long experience I myself can 

 assure you they are as totally unfounded as any of the dreams 

 with which the Clouds, the great patrons as you know of all 

 theories of atmospheric drainage, ever inspired the Aristophanic 

 Sophists. Many many years have I myself lived in this self- 

 same old house; and from the first moment I came here, I 

 have ever heard the torrent below, dash dash dash thun- 

 dering away at the very same spot : yet during the whole time 

 it has not been able to work away enough to remove five 

 inches yet. Believe me, according to a proverb which I un- 

 derstand to prevail in the island whence those wild savages 

 come, whom, as you may remember our friend Cicero cau- 

 tioned Atticus, were far too stupid to buy as slaves, ' 'tis all 

 much cry and little wool.' If you are not to be shaken from 

 your seat till this fluvial action can shake you, trust me, you 

 may sit still long enough." 



Never myself having had the pleasure of visiting this most 

 interesting spot, I should not, however, have ventured to ques- 

 tion the views which Mr. Lyell appears to have formed after 

 personal examination, had 1 not found my own opinion of the 

 nearly permanent position of the fall strongly confirmed by the 

 minute descriptions of a scientific friend perfectly acquainted 

 with the locality. The inferences drawn by this friend from 

 the phaenomena of this Classical cascade are altogether in agree- 

 ment with the conclusions I am endeavouring to establish. In- 

 dependently of the historical records, and all the remains of 

 antiquity, according to his opinion, the natural phaenomena of 



the 



