J GO HISTORY OF 



waters at the bottom of their fall is inconceivable. The dashing 

 produces a mist that rises to the \ery clouds ; and that produces 

 a most beautiful raiid)ow, when the sun shines. It may easily 

 be conceived, that such a cataract quite destroys the navigation 

 of the stream ; and yet some Indian canoes, as it is said, have 

 been knowTi to venture down it with safety. 



Of those rivers that lose themselves in the sands, or are swal- 

 lowed up by chasms in the earth, we have various information. 

 What we are told by the ancients, of the river Alpheus, in Ar- 

 cadia, that sinks into the ground, and rises again near Syracuse 

 in Sicily, where it takes the name of Arethusa, is rather more 

 known than credited. But we have better information with re- 

 spect to tlie river Tigris being lost in this manner under mount 

 Taurus ; of the Gundalquiver, in Spain, being buried in the 

 sands ; of the river Greatah, in Yorkshire, running under 

 ground, and rising again ; and even of the great Rhine itself, a 

 part of which is no doubt lost in the sands, a little above Leyden. 

 But it ought to be observed of this river, that by much the 

 greatest pai-t arrives at the ocean ; for, although the ancient 

 channel which fell into the sea, a little to the west of that city, 

 be now entirely choked up, yet there are still a number of small 

 canals, that carry a great body of water to the sea; and, besides, 

 it has also two very large openings, the Lech and the Waal, be- 

 low Rotterdam, by which it empties itself abundantly. 



Be this as it will, nothing is more common in sultry and 

 sandy deserts, than rivers being thus either lost in the sands, or 

 entirely dried up by the sun. And hence we sec, that under the 

 line, the small rivers are but few ; for such little streams as are 

 common in Europe, and which with us receive the name of 

 rivers, would quickly evaporate, in those parching and extensive 

 deserts. It is even confidently asserted, that the great river 

 Niger is thus lost before it reaches the ocean ; and that its sup- 

 posed mouths, the Gambia and the Senegal, are distinct rivers, 

 that come a vast way from the interior parts of the countiy. It 

 appears, therefore, that the rivers under the Line are large ; but 

 it is otherwise at the Poles,' where they must necessarily be 

 smalL In that desolate region, as the mountains are covered 

 with perpetual ;"ce, which melts but little, or not at all, the 



1 Craiit-z's History of Greenland, vol. i. p. U. 



