MERGE TO GYRENE. 
551 
explore this passage to the end. It is formed entirely in the rock 
from which the stream issues, and runs, in an irregular course, for 
nearly a quarter of a mile into the bowels of the mountain : the sides 
and roof of the passage are flat, where time and the action of the 
current (which is very strong) have not worn them away ; but the 
bottom is encumbered with stones, bedded fast in a quantity of clay 
which has accumulated about it and against the sides. The general 
height of this subterranean channel is scarcely five feet, an elevation 
which we found rather inconvenient, for it obliged us to stoop a 
good deal in advancing ; and as it would not have been possible to 
examine the place properly, or indeed to have preserved our 
light, without keeping the head and body in an upright position, we 
usually found the water making higher encroaches than its chilling 
cold rendered agreeable. 
In some places, however, where there appear to have been originally 
flaws or fissures in the rock, the roof was irregular, and there was room 
enough to stand upright, an occurrence of which we very gladly availed 
ourselves, to the great relief of our knees. We found the average 
width from three to four feet, although in the places just mentioned 
it was occasionally as much as six feet ; and were it not for the clay 
which has been collected against the sides, we should often have suf- 
fered from their roughness. F rom the irregularity of the course of the 
passage we were obliged to take bearings very often ; and at each time 
w'e stopped for this purpose we took down the distance measiu-ed with 
our chain between the point we stopped at and the last ; so that after 
much trouble we succeeded in obtaining a tolerably correct plan of the 
