ON THE BORACIC ACID OF CENTRAL ITALY. 291 



a leg. Sheep occasionally fell victims when rushing too carelessly 

 along, and after remaining a short time in the water, nothing hut a 

 bleached skeleton remained. Though this picture is perhaps rather 

 overdrawn, the temperature being very considerably above the boiling 

 point of pure water, very serious and generally fatal accidents must 

 have frequently resulted. 



It would be untrue to say that the soffioni were utterly useless. The 

 skilled peasants would cleverly manage to roast their chestnuts in sacks 

 placed over these vapour vents ; no small convenience in a district 

 where this article is a substitute for bread ; birds, game, and cattle 

 made the lagoni their winter resort, in order to take refuge from the 

 cold snowy ground ; cattle, indeed, occasionally frequented the neigh- 

 bourhood to rid themselves of gad-flies and musquitoes. Our traveller 

 traced the various crevices along the course of the rivulet, where they 

 found their way out from beneath huge masses of rock ; in their 

 vicinity a hole made with a stick would frequently originate a little 

 pool or lagoncello, from whence sulphurous vapours poured forth. As 

 to the noxious vapours, which were chiefly carbonic acid gas, he was 

 told that the introduction of a copious supply of water into the vents 

 destroyed their power. 



The origin of these remarkable fissures, the account of which I have 

 borrowed from Targioni Tozzetti, was first pointed out by Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, who proved them to have the same lineal direction as the axis 

 of the Appennines and the serpentine eruptions of Central Italy, and to 

 be closely connected with recent earthquakes. As the fissures would be 

 easily blocked up by detritus, &c, 1 consider that they did not exist 

 before the Deluge, at which time they would have been completely 

 choked up and destroyed. Earthquakes, however, are common there, 

 one having occurred within the last year. In the Codice della 

 Gaddiana it is mentioned that in 1320 a fissure was produced by an 

 earthquake, near Velieno (Vegliani ?) in the Volterrano, whence water 

 rushed out in large quantities, great heat being also evolved, and a lake 

 was soon formed, which finally attained the depth of 80 feet. Ugolino 

 di Monte Catini, quoted by Eepetti, while speaking of the neighbour- 

 hood of Monte Cerboli, makes no mention ol lagoons, although he dwells 

 in detail on those of Castelnuovo, whence Repetti concludes that in the 

 middle ages, when Ugolino lived, there were no fissures or lagoons in the 

 former place. 



In 1777, Hoeffer, the chemist of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, found 

 boracic acid at Monte Rotondo and Castelnuovo, a fact confinned two 

 years subsequently at Monte Rotondo, by Prof. Mascagni, well-known 

 for his researches on the lymphatic system. 



Gazzeri made some attempt to utilize the boracic acid in these waters 

 in 1808 and again in 1816 ; Hoeffer and Mascagni proposed to make 

 borax from them, the latter in 1812. Mascagni, however, was too much 



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