254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



marked out under the command of Augustus ; and it was 

 acknowledged as the chief of more than sixty cities of the 

 Gauls, who built there at common expense a magnificent temple 

 to Augustus, where he was worshipped as their divinity till the 

 reign of the Roman monster Caligula, when it was appropriated 

 to the use of an academy. This was subsequently burnt, and 

 now, on the spot where it stood, rises the church of Ainai, a 

 monument of a former age, its dome supported by four granite 

 pillars. Then there is the cathedral of St. John, enriched by 

 many a souvenir of the early crusades, and the Hotel de Ville, 

 with its architecture of Louis Fourteenth, whose equestrian 

 statue stands as one of the chief attractions of the Place Belle- 

 cour, one of the most magnificent squares in Europe. 



The most beautiful part of the city is on a tonge of land 

 between the Soane and the Rhone. Li spring and summer, 

 when swollen by the melting of snow upon the mountains, the 

 Rhone is much larger than in winter, but the flood of the Soane 

 is in the winter. 



The Rhone rises on the St. Gothard, and runs first into Lake 

 Geneva, and after resting awhile, glides on, pure and clear, but 

 is soon joined by the muddy Arv6, and enters the borders of 

 France. The basin of the Soane and the Rhone, in France, 

 includes an area of no less than twenty-eight millions of acres. 

 This great river may therefore be considered as the only channel 

 by which all the waters of this immense Mediterranean basin 

 are emptied into the sea. Its length is about six hundred 

 miles. The Arv(3 brings to it the waters from the west slope of 

 the mountains of Savoy, including Mont Blanc. Tiicn comes 

 the Soane, and, below Lyons, the Isere brings down the waters 

 from Mont Cenis and the valleys below, and still lower down 

 the Drome and the Durance. 



We left Lyons by boat early in the morning, for a run of 

 nearly two hundred miles down the Rhone. I shall never 

 forget the impression this trip made upon my mind. The 

 banks of the river are often very steep, hemmed in by lofty 

 hills, covered with vines from the base to the top, while the 

 ruins of old feudal castles and Roman chateaux lend a constant 

 charm to its whole course. Tradition points to a little spot a 

 few miles below Lyons as the tomb of Pontius Pilate. It is an 

 old monument, only a few rods from the river, of great anti- 



