78 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



with the Romans ; and, but their jealousy of each other, might for 

 ever have defied the Roman arms. One of the branches of the Po 

 was the Draria, which, at this period poured down, or was supposed 

 to por.r down gold-dust in its sands; which the S'^lassi endeavoured 

 to secure to themselves before it reached the country of Insubria. 

 The Insubres, incapable of supporting their own imagined right, ap- 

 pealed to the consul Appius Claudius Pulcher, who readily took ad- 

 vantage of the appeal, and immediately invaded the Salassi. At 

 first, however, he was unsuccessful, beijig defeated with a loss of 

 five thousand men : though upon a second battle he triumphed 

 to an equal extent, and at length gratified himself and his country- 

 men by equally reducing both nations to a state of subjection. 



This noble river, rises from mount Vesula, or Viso, on the very 

 confines of Fiance and Italy, nearly in the parallel of mount 

 Dauphin, in Dauphine, and Saluzzo, in Piedmont, being almost 

 central between them, at the distance of about 18 English miles 

 from each. Thus descending from the centre of the western Alps, 

 the Po passes to the N. E. of Saluzzo, by Carignan, to Turin ; re- 

 ceiving even in this short space many rivers, as the Varrita, Maira, 

 and Grana from the south; and from theN. the Felice, Sagon and 

 others. Most of these streams having had a longer course than 

 what is called that of the Po, the Maira, for instance, might per- 

 haps be more justly regarded as the principal river: nay the Ta- 

 iiaro, which flows into the Po, some miles below Alexandria, might 

 perhaps claim, in the river Stura, a more remote source than the 

 Po itself. After leaving the walls of Turin, the Po receives innu- 

 merable rivers and rivulets from the Alps in the N. and the Appen* 

 nines in the S. Among the former may be named the Doria, the 

 Tesino, the Adda, the Oglio, the Mincio : to the east of which the 

 Adige, an independent stream, descends from the Alps of Tyrol, 

 and refusing to blend his waters with I he Po pursues his course to 

 the gulph of Venice. From the south the Po first receives the 

 copious Alpine river Tanaro, itself swelled by the Belba, Bormida, 

 and other streams : the ether southern rivers are of far less conse- 

 quence, but among, them may be named the Trebbia, the river of 

 Parma and Panaro, which joins the Po at Stellato, on the western 

 frontier of the former territory of Ferrara. The course of the Po 

 may be comparatively estimated at about 300 British miles ; so that 

 when Busching pronounces it the second river in Europe, after the 



