365 
The river Elsa, which arises between Sienna and Volaterra, sur- 
rounds the bodies, which its current seizes, with a lapideous matter. 
A similar property is possessed by the fountains of Aponus, near 
Padua. The Silarus, a river not far distant from Sorrento, is thus 
spoken of by Silius : 
Nunc Silarus, quos nutrit aquis, quos gurgite tradunt, 
Duritiem lapiduin mersis inolescere ramis. 
Lib. viii. 
In no part of the world, perhaps, do waters of this kind so much 
abound as in Italy : and in speaking of some of those which remain, 
I shall take the opportunity of pointing out, on how very large a 
scale this process of lapidefaction is sometimes performed. 
The beds and banks of such rivers, but particularly those basons 
which receive their falling waters, suffer a continual accretion of 
this stony matter : thus diminishing the grandeur and beauty of 
these waterfalls. Thus the Tiverone, which was the j)rcBceps Anio of 
Horace, is described by Misson, as now forming a large and plea- 
sant sheet of water ; but the fall, he says, is not high* ; and a more 
modern traveller, the Count Stolberg, observes, that it has lost much 
of its natural beauty, because its bed has been deepened, partly, 
he says, to guard against its wild torrents, and partly to form mill- 
streams : but the more cogent reason, perhaps, for thus deepening 
its bed, will appear, on attending to the following curious account, 
given by Mercatus, of the lake Velino, the waters of which pos- 
sessed this lapidifying property, in a high degree. The river Velino 
passing, in its course, the town of Reate, belonging to the Umbri, 
spread over the neighbouring widely -extended marshes, and formed 
the lake Velino, now called Logo pid di Luco ; then, overcoming its 
lofty banks, its waters were precipitated down a considerable water - 
* Misson ’s Voyages, vol. ii. p* 65. 
