The Disasters of TivoU, 301 



laws of order and permanency which rule the universe, and is, 

 moreover, supported by the most accredited physico-mathemati- 

 cal theories ; whereas those systems, founded upon perturbations 

 of cataclysms, which science, facts and human reason equally 

 reject, only increase the number of those imaginary conceptions 

 which have been successively published for several centuries. 



The above will suffice to shew, that there is no subject whicli, 

 in all points of view, is more worthy to excite the interest and 

 meditations of philosophers, and the investigations of geologists 

 and naturalists. 



The Disasters of TivolL 



L HE city of Tivoli, whose origin is lost in the obscurity of 

 remote ages, is situate on the slope of a steep rock, traversed by 

 the Anio, which in this place precipitates itself from a height of 

 more than 100 fefet, and then proceeds to water the plain of 

 Rome, where it soon unites with the Tiber. The rock is formed 

 of a sort of conglomerate, rather friable, and subject to be worn 

 away by the river, which, in the impetuosity of its descent, has 

 scooped out numerous caverns, to which the poets have given 

 the mythological names of the Grottoes of Neptune, the Sy- 

 rens, &c. Every body has seen paintings or engravings of these 

 sportings of nature, which present the most varied appearances, 

 and render the site of Tivoli one of the most curious in the 

 world. The rock on which the city is built has been perforated 

 in various directions by the river, which has formed numerous 

 subterranean caverns, of which the inhabitants have availed 

 themselves for the purpose of putting in motion several forges 

 and manufactories which give a very animated appearance to 

 the country. A little above the town, the Anio had been divid- 

 ed into two branches, by means of a sluice, which threw the 

 greatest mass of its waters to the left, on the side next the town, 

 whence, after passing under the broken bridge, they pro- 

 ceeded to be engulfed in the Grotto of Neptune, immediately 

 beneath the Sibyl's Temple. This branch filled the subterra- 

 nean canals of which we have spoken, and after passing through 

 the Villa Mecene, fell in broad sheets called the Cascatelles. 



