220 COSMOS. 



facts, as they show us that even in a country subject to fre- 

 quent and violent shocks of earthquakes the interior of our 

 planet has retained for upwards of 2000 years its ancient con- 

 figuration, in reference to the course of the open fissures that 

 yield a passage to these waters. The Fontaine jaillissante of 

 Lillers, in the Department des Pas de Calais, which was bored 

 as early as the year 1126, still rises to the same height and 

 yields the same quantity of water ; and as another instance, I 

 may mention that the admirable geographer of the Caramanian 

 coast, Captain Beaufort, saw in the district of Phaselis the same 

 flame fed by emissions of inflammable gas which was described 

 by Pliny as the flame of the Lycian Chimera.* 



The observation made by Arago in 1821 that the deepest 

 Artesian wells are the warmest,! threw great light on the 

 origin of thermal springs, and on the establishment of the law 

 that terrestrial heat increases with increasing depth. It is a 

 remarkable fact, which has but recently been noticed, that 

 at the close of the third century St, ?atricius,J probably 



m Strabo, p. 379 ; the spring of Erasinoa at Mount Chaon, south of 

 Argos, in Herod, vi. 67, and Pausanias, ii. 24, 7 ; the springs of JEdipsus 

 in Euboea, some of which have a temperature of 88, whilst in others it 

 ranges between 144 and 167, in Strabo, pp. 60 and 447, and Athenaeus, 

 ii. 3, 73 ; the hot springs of Thermopylae, at the foot of (Eta, with a tem- 

 perature of 149. All from manuscript notes by Professor Curtius, the 

 learned companion of Otfried Miiller. 



* Pliny, ii. 106; Seneca, Epist. 79, 3, ed. Euhkopf, (Beaufort, 

 Survey of the Coast of Karamania, 1820, Art. Yanar near Deliktasch, 

 the ancient Phaselis. p. 24). See also Ctesias, Fragm., cap. 10, p. 250, 

 ed. B'ahr; Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 666, Casaub. 



[" Not far from the Deliktash, on the side of a mountain, is the per- 

 petual fire described by Captain Beaufort. The travellers found it as 

 brilliant as ever, and even somewhat increased, for, besides the large 

 flame in the corner of the ruins described by Beaufort, there were small 

 jets issuing from crevices in the side of the crater-like cavity five or six 

 feet deep. At the bottom was a shallow pool of sulphureous and turbid 

 water, regarded by the Turks as a sovereign remedy for all skin com- 

 plaints. The soot deposited from the flames was regarded as efficacious 

 for sore eyelids, and valued as a dye for the eyebrows." See the highly 

 interesting and accurate work, Travels in Lycia, by Lieut. Spratt and 

 Professor E. Forbes.] Tr. 



"\r Arago, in the A nnuaire pour 1835, p. 234. 



A eta S. Patricii, p. 555, ed. Ruinart, t. ii. p. 385, Mazochi. 

 Bureau de la Malle was the first to draw attention to this remarkable 

 passage in the Recherches sur la Topographie de Carthage, 1835, 

 p. 276. (See also Seneca, Nat. Qucest., iii. 24.) 



