71 
is applied to many rivers in Somerset, and this appears to be only 
a corruption of the word Eau water. ' 
There is no record of coins or votive offerings having been 
found near the sources of the Thames. 
This is singular, as such have been found at the sources of other 
rivers, as we know from what have been collected at the source 
of the river Seine, and are now in the Museum at Dijon. 
The worship of springs is of ancient date, and we have proofs 
of it in this island, as at Bath, where an altar was found near the 
source of one of the hot springs dedicated to the presiding goddess, 
and coins, which had been placed there as votive offerings. 
There were found. in June, 1875, coins and remains of offerings 
at the source of a small stream at Horton in Dorsetshire.* 
The ‘‘ Sacred Fount,” “ Fons Sacer,” was an object of reverence 
in times of heathen superstition. The rites peculiar to the 
worship of springs were called “ Fontinalia.” We havea beautiful 
ode of Horacet in which he alludes to the offering of a kid, made 
to the Divinity of the spring. I myself found lately the head of 
a young goat, at the foot of a basin which received the waters 
of a pure spring, and which was being repaired, and a drain 
constructed from the spring. It was found in making the drain. 
Fountains are celebrated in Mythological History ; allusion is 
made to them not only by Horace, but by Ovid, Virgil, Martial, 
Juvenal, Tacitus, Livy, Plutarch and Seneca. The latter says, 
“ Magnorum fluvium capita veneramur.” 
If any one will visit the Museum of Antiquities at Dijon they 
will find there numerous objects, as well as some altars, discovered 
at the source of the Seine, which rises near Besangon. Around 
the principal spring were found the foundations of a Roman 
Temple, and within it many ‘ex voto” offerings, carved in 
stone, also a vase containing votive offerings in bronze and 
* See Journal of Archzol. Asso., 1876, p. 60. 
+ Carmina iii, 13. 
