86 Mr Forbes''s Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. ' 



annihilation of the Lucrine Lake, as a thing understood ; 

 *' Monte di Cenere, quaP e quello c"* ha coperto Tripergolo, e'l 

 lago Lucrino in Pozzuolo." * 



Lake Avernus, or Lago Averno, was anciently united arti- 

 ficially to the Lucrine. This communication has, however, 

 disappeared. The lake is nearly circular, and about half a 

 mile in diameter, -f* It appears certainly to occupy the crater 

 of a volcano, whose geological date is perhaps coincident with 

 that of Astroni, already described. The surrounding soil is 

 chiefly composed of ordinary yellow tufa, of which we have a 

 section in the Sybil's Cave, as it is vulgarly called, on its bank ; 

 the history or purposes of which, it is not our present object 

 to discuss. It contains, however, a singular apartment, in which 

 occurs a slightly tepid spring. The fancy of the poets, and 

 the superstition of all ages, has assigned to Avernus an un- 

 fathomable depth ; this illusion has, however, been ruthlessly 

 dissipated by the nautical energy of Captain Smith, J who 

 found the extreme depth to be from 100 to 102 feet, beginning 

 to shoal from about forty feet from the bank. Regarding the 

 ancient ideas of the pestilential influence of the neighbourhood 

 of Lake Avernus, I confess that I never saw any reason to 

 disbelieve the facts, suposing them only a little over-coloured, 

 and shrouded with the grand superstitions of mythological 

 poetry. Avernus is indeed now open and smiling ; no natural 

 symptoms now conspire to remind the classic traveller of the 

 *' atri Janua Ditis ;'' the birds now fly untroubled over its once 

 fatal surface ; and all nature shines in her most cheerful co- 

 lours, where we ought to find Stygian shades, mournful sounds, 

 and flitting ghosts. Very much is to be imputed to the change 

 of men''s minds, yet art and nature have done much to change 

 the spot. According to all our ideas, mephitic vapours, such 

 as might naturally be exhaled from an extinct crater, such as 



• Anikhita di Pozzuolo, 1652. p. 164. 



+ 300 canne ; Ferrari, Guida. 



X Geological Trans. N. S. ii. 347. Tlie uLual uncertainty prevails on 

 the size and depth of Avernus. Ferrari makes the former 95 canne, or 

 about 210 yards ; Romanelli has it 1000 palms, or 2dO yards, and makes 

 the circumference three miles, instead of one and a half, as we have above 

 given from Ferrari. Could Captain Smith hate found it in fathoms instead 

 of feet.? 



