THE RIVER CATARRHACTES. 219 



fertilize the gardens and turn the mills near 

 the town, rush directly over the cliffs into the 

 sea ; and if these rivulets had ever been united, 

 they must have formed a considerable body of 

 water. The water of those streams is so high- 

 ly impregnated with calcareous particles, as to 

 be reckoned unfit for man or beast; and near 

 some of the mills we observed large masses of 

 stalactites and petrifactions. Now the broad 

 and high plain which stretches to the eastward 

 of the city, terminates in abrupt cliffs along 

 the shore : these cliffs are above a hundred feet 

 high, and considerably overhang the sea ; not in 

 consequence of their base having crumbled away, 

 but from their summit projecting in a lip, which 

 consists of parallel lamina, each jutting out 

 beyond its inferior layer, as if water had been 

 continually flowing over them, and continually 

 forming fresh accretions. It is therefore not 

 impossible that this accumulation may have 

 gradually impeded the course of that body of 

 water which had once formed here a magnificent 

 fall, and may have thus forced it to divide into 

 various channels."* 



* Beaufort, Karamania, pp. 135, 136; also quoted in Cra- 

 mer, vol. ii. pp. 276, 277. 



