Chap. 30.] WATEE3 WHICH HAVE SUDDENLY APPEAEED. 493 



the city was rebuilt, the water again made its appearance, just 

 as each spot was again brought into cultivation. 



(5.) Earthquakes also are apt to discover or swallow*^ up 

 springs of water ; a thing that has happened, it is well known, 

 on five different occasions in the vicinity of Pheneus, a town of 

 Arcadia. So too, upon Mount Corycus,^^ a river burst forth ; 

 after which, the soil was subjected to cultivation. These 

 changes are very surprising where there is no apparent cause 

 for them ; such as the occurrence at Magnesia,*^ for instance, 

 where the warm waters became cold, but without losing their 

 brackish flavour ; and at the Temple^* of Keptune in Caria, 

 where the water of the river, from being fresh, became salt. 

 Here, too, is another fact, replete with the marvellous — the 

 fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse has a smell of dung, they say, 

 during the celebration of the games at Olympia,'^^ a thing that 

 is rendered not improbable by the circumstance,^*^ that the river 

 Alpheus makes its waj" to that island beneath the bed of the 

 sea. There is a spring in the Chersonesus of the Rhodians*'* 

 which discharges its accumulated impurities every nine j'ears. 



Waters, too, sometimes change their colour; as at Babylon, 

 for example, where the water of a certain lake for eleven days 

 in summer is red. In the summer season, too, the current of 

 the Borysthenes^^ is blue, it is said, and this, although its 

 waters are the most rarefied in existence, and hence float upon 

 the surface of those of the Hypanis ;" — though at the same time 

 there is this marvellous fact, that when south winds prevail, the 

 waters of the Hypanis assume the upper place. Another proof, 

 too, of the surpassing lightness of the water of the Borysthenes, 

 is the fact that it emits no exhalations, nor, indeed, the slightest 

 vapour even. Authors that would have the credit of diligent 

 research ill these enquiries, assure us that water becomes 

 heavier after the winter-solstice. 



^'' See B. ii. c. 84. _ 4« In Cilicia. 



*" Whether he means the district of Thessaly so called, or. one of the 

 two cities of that name in Lydia, does not appear to be known. 



*'' Its locality is unknown, but it was probably near the sea-shore. 



^^ In Elis in Peloponnesus. 



5" His credulity is influenced by the popular story that the river Alpheus 

 in Peloponnesus, in its love for the Fountain Nymph Arethusa, penetrated 

 beneath the bed of the sea, and reappeared in Sicily. See B. iii. c. li. 



^•J* See c. 20. 



*' The modern Dnieper. ^2 ^he Boug. 



