LAKES. 



313 







ancient Fucinus, exhibits a superficial ex- 

 tent of 100 square miles, and has no natural 

 outlet for its waters through the hills by 

 which it is surrounded. Owing to its rise 

 in former times, an immense tract of excel- 

 lent land was lost, and the Roman senate 

 was petitioned to drain it, a scheme which 

 Julius Cassar is said to have contemplated. 

 For effecting this purpose a tunnel three 

 miles long, through one of its mountain 

 boundaries, was formed by the Emperor 

 Claudius; and the younger Pliny relates 

 the barbarous ceremony of its opening. 

 During the space of eleven years, thirty 

 thousand men were employed in digging the 

 passage, and when everything was ready for 

 letting off the water, a naval spectacle was 

 exhibited upon it. A great number of con- 

 demned criminals were ranged in separate 

 fleets, obliged to engage in earnest, and to destroy one another for the entertainment 

 of the court, and the multitude of spectators who covered the hills. A line of well- 

 armed vessels and rafts, loaded with soldiers, surrounded the scene of action, in order 

 to prevent any of the victims from escaping. Pliny states, however, that when this 

 savage diversion was ended, and the operations for opening the tunnel commenced, 

 the emperor was very near being swept away and drowned, by the sudden rush of the 

 waters towards the vent. The tunnel was speedily choked up, and the Celano lake 

 rose so much as to cover ten thousand acres of fertile soil, when it was again re-opened, 

 and other hydraulic means adopted to keep the waters to a low level. Lakes of this 

 description, without any outward current, though continually receiving large streams, 

 are principally found in Asia, and are for the most part salt. Such is the great Lake 

 of Urameah on the Persian frontier, which, according to Colonel Kinneir, is three 



Cascade in Mount Taurus. 



