8 On Terrestrial or Efigeic Deposits 



and their reddish soil enables us to detect the situation of the 

 chasms. It is in these circumstances, that their entrance, almost 

 always masked by the powerful vegetation produced by humi- 

 dity, becomes for seven months the retreat of foxes and jack- 

 als, * who carry thither their prey. We saw, with Colonel 

 Borry, the entire skeleton of a horse at the opening of one of 

 these gulfs, which these carnivorous animals had partially stript, 

 being unable to drag it in ; the bones, which bore the marks of 

 their teeth, will, in a short time afterwards, occupy a place in 

 the muddy deposits of the cavern, amongst rolled bones, and 

 complete skeletons of animals, which must frequently be sur- 

 prised in that place by storms of rain. We thus see, how, in 

 all countries having seasons alternately wet and dry, caverns may 

 be successively the abode of carnivorous animals, and a passage 

 for subterraneous water ; and that the exclusive causes by which 

 the presence of bones is wished to be explained, are also false in 

 this case, as they are generally in all natural phenomena. 



We have shewn, that the waters in the interior of the Morea 

 are lost in genuine bone-caverns, and reach the level of the sea 

 by subterranean outlets. What we are now to advance, will 

 prove that their existence is entirely owing to causes at present 

 in activity. 



The obstruction of the Internal drains is a phenomenon of 

 frequent occurrence, which, noticed by the Greeks of ancient 

 times as well as the present, enabled them to discover the out- 

 let of subterraneous water from many enclosed basins. Thus 

 they discovered, that the waters of Lake Stymphalus formed 

 the Erasmus ; that those of the plain of Argos, near INIantinea, 

 produced the submarine river Dine, which is known to modern 

 Greeks by the name of Anavoh : that the waters of lake Phonia 

 are the magnificent sources of the Ladon, below Lycouria, &c. 



At this time, lake Phonia presents us with the phenomenon 

 of the obstruction of the drains in a very remarkable manner. 

 Drama Aly, the last Bey of Corinth, ordered gratings to be 

 placed at the three openings ; they were taken up at the com- 

 mencement of the Greek revolution, and a fertile plain was soon 

 converted into a lake, whose depth we previously mentioned, al- 

 ready reached, in some places, from 40 to 50 metres, and a 

 diameter of 6000 to 8000. 



• We have been told by the inhabitauts, that wolves never retire thither. 



