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CHAP. II. 

 OF THE WATERS, 



T/'IRGIL feems to attribute the rife of rivers to the Ocean, 

 which, according to the Greek philofophy of Thales, he calls 

 the Parent of all Things. He finely imagines a perfon to enter 

 into the bowels of the earth to fatisfy his curiofity, where he 

 fees Nature in her fubterraneous palace, on cryftal thrones, and 

 furveys foffil-woods, and groves of metal, and lakes and rivers 

 taking their courfe to their mother-ocean *. But at the fame 

 time he obferves, that fuch a refearch eft tangere Limina Divum ; 

 which may ferve as an admonition not to be too inquifitive into 



natural caufes, to explore them with modefly cum fas ejl 



when it may be done without prefumption, and then imploring 

 the divine bleffing. He makes his Arlftsus not to enter upon his 

 fubterraneous adventure without divine permiffion and autho- 

 rity. And, at length, he reprefents him in an act of religious 

 adoration. 



" Oceano libemus precatur 



" Oceanum patrem rerum." f 



Difcordant are the opinions of modern adventurers in this 

 enquiry concerning the fource of rivers and fountains ; one, with 

 the great Mantuan, his countryman, a Florentine, of noted faga- 

 city and penetration, afcribes it to the fea by fecret fubterraneous 



* Virg. Geo. I. 4. v. 365, &c. f Ibid. v. 3812. 



VOL. I. C currents; 



