to.. 



^t 



rx 



Jlt^ 



Oft 



^5 





.•i\-" 



K 



\ 



e of «?> 



tile 



"off, 



pla 



•^CS 



ce. 



H 



} 



at 



'^ of tie 



^oitli of 



one 



''of 



a 



f 



Te 



TT 



Mk 



*^ trident 



■*o torrent' 

 ^; but wlien 



'". V leagues, 

 only r^""^ 



of the Morel, 

 this is tlie 



iclls in W 



Bif of tlie sea 



:th us.^i^'^^^" 



5 







Ch. XLV.] 



:VL DEPOSITS AND 



519 



Italy, Spain, Asia Minor^ and Syria, wliere tlie calcareous 

 formations of tlie Morea extend. Tlie Copaic lake in Boeotia 

 lias no outlet, except by underground cliannels ; and hence 

 we can explain those traditional and historical accounts of 

 its having gained on the surrounding plains and overflowed 

 :owiis, as such floods must have happened whenever the 

 outlet was partially choked up by mud, gravel, or the sub- 

 sidence of rocks, caused by earthquakes. When speaking 

 of the numeroas fissures in the limestones of Greece, M. 

 Boblaye reminds us of the famous earthquake of 4G9 B.C., 

 when, as we learn from Cicero, Plutarch^ Strabo, and Pliny, 

 Sparta was laid in ruins, part of the summit of Mount Tay- 

 getus torn off, and numerous gulfs and fissures caused in the 

 rocks of Laconia. 



During the great earthquake of 1693, in Sicily, several 

 thousand people were at once entombed in the ruins of 

 caverns in limestone, at Sortino Vecchio ; and, at the same 

 time, a large stream, which had issued for ages from one of 

 the grottos beloAV that town, changed suddenly its sub- 

 terranean course, and came out from the mouth of a cave 

 lower down the valley, where no water had previously flowed. 

 To this new point the ancient water-mills were transferred ; 

 as I learnt when I visited the spot in 1829. 

 . "When the courses of engulfed rivers are thus liable to 

 change, from time to time, by alterations in the levels of a 

 country, and by the rending and shattering of mountain 

 masses, we must suppose that the dens of wild beasts will 

 sometimes be inundated by subterranean floods, and their 

 carcasses buried under heaps of alluvium. The bones, more- 

 over, of individuals which have died in the recesses of caves, 

 or of animals which have been carried in for prey, may be 

 drifted along, and mixed up with mud, sand, and fragments 

 of rocks, so as to form osseous breccias. 



In 1833 I had an opportunity of examining the celebrated 

 caves of Pranconia, and among others that of Rabenstein, 

 then newly discovered. . Their general form, and the nature 

 and arrangement of their contents, appeared to me to agree 

 perfectly with the notion of their having once served as the 

 channels of subterranean rivers. This mode of accounting 



