428 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
portico may yet be found beneath it should this place be excavated 
at any future period : the chambers within are also much encum- 
bered with the same material, washed in through the entrance where 
the tablet was discovered, and it is by no means improbable that 
interesting remains might be found underneath the soil which is 
collected there. 
There is a good deal of building in front of the mountain (without 
the hmits which we may suppose to have been occupied by the 
portico of Dionysius,) of which it seems difficult to establish the 
nature ; if it be not in some way connected with the reception of the 
water, and its distribution over the town of Cyrene. It appears to 
us that the stream was originally confined, and raised by lateral 
compression to a height sufficient to allow of its being conducted 
into different parts of the town, the level of which is considerably 
above that of the fountain itself ; but in what precise manner this 
object was accomplished we will not here venture to suggest. The 
remains of an aqueduct are still visible on the brow of the hill, 
from which the cliff descends perpendicularly to the fountain, 
leading from thence to the brink of a ravine on the opposite side, 
down which also flows another stream of excellent water. From 
the traces of building which we perceived about this ravine we 
should imagine that the aqueduct had been formerly thrown 
across it, and the water distributed over the cultivated grounds 
which lie without the walls of the city ; at present the stream 
which flows down it, as well as that of the fountain already 
described, finds its way over the country below into the sea, 
