CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 53 



and passed into a cavern. Here the water appeared, rushing with 

 great force, beneath the rock, towards the bason on the outside. It 

 was the coldest spring we had found in the country; the mercury 

 in the thermometer falling, in two minutes, to thirty-four, according 

 to the scale of Fahrenheit. When placed in the reservoir immedi- 

 ately above the fall, where the water was more exposed to the 

 atmosphere, its temperature was three degrees higher. The whole 

 rock about the source is covered with moss. Close to the bason 

 grew hazel and plane trees ; above were oaks and pines ; all beyond 

 was a naked and fearful precipice. 



[Clarke s Travels, Part II. Sect. 1.] 



2. Source of the Clitumnus. 

 From FLINT to ROMANUS. 



HAVE you ever seen the source of the river Clitumnus*? as I 

 never heard you mention it, 1 imagine not : let me therefore advise 

 you to do so immediately. It is but lately indeed I had that plea- 

 sure, and I condemn myself for not having seen it sooner. At the 

 foot of a little hill covered with venerable and shady cypress trees, 

 a spring issues out, which gushing in different and unequal streams 

 forms itself, after several windings, into a spacious bason, so ex- 

 tremely clear that you may see the pebbles and the little pieces of 

 money which are thrown into it f, as they lie at the bottom. From 

 thence it is carried off not so much by the declivity of the ground, 

 as by its own strength and fulness. It is navigable almost as soon 



* Now called Clitumno : it rises a little below the village of Campello in 

 Ombria. The inhabitants near this river still retain a notion that Us waters are 

 attended with a supernatural property, imagining it makes the cattle white that 

 drink of it : a quality for which it is likewise celebrated by many of the 

 Latin poets. See Addison's Travels. 



f The heads of considerable rivers, hot springs, large bodies of standing 

 water, &c. were esteemed holy among the Romans, and cultivated with reli- 

 gious ceremonies. " Magnorum flumimun," says Seneca, " Capita revere- 

 mur ; subita et ex abdito vasti amnis eruptio aeras habet : coluntur aquarum 

 calentium fontes ; et stagna quasdam, vel opacitas, vel immensa altitudo sacra- 

 vit." Ep. 41. it was customary to throw little pieces of money into those 

 fountains, lakes, &c. which had the reputation of being sacred, as a mark of 

 veneration for th >s' places, ind to render the presiding deities propitious. 

 Suetonius mentions this practice in the annual vows which he says the Roman 

 people made for the health of Augustus. 



E 3 



