or a considerable space, and the surface of the
sea, in calm weather, swells in large convex waves. It is curious to
reflect, that when this discharge fails in seasons of drought, the
pressure of the sea may force its salt waters into subterraneous
caverns, and carry in marine sand and shells, to be mingled with
ossiferous mud, and the remains of terrestrial animals.

In general, however, the efflux of water at these inferior openings is
surprisingly uniform. It seems, therefore, that the large caverns in the
interior must serve as reservoirs, and that the water escapes gradually
from them, in consequence of the smallness of the rents and passages by
which they communicate with the surface.

The phenomena above described are not confined to the Morea, but occur
in Greece generally, and in those parts of Italy, Spain, Asia Minor, and
Syria, where the formations of the Morea extend. The Copaic lake in
Boeotia has no outlet, except by underground channels; and hence we
can explain those traditional and historical accounts of its having
gained on the surrounding plains and overflowed towns, as such floods
must have happened whenever the outlet was partially choked up by mud,
gravel, or the subsidence of rocks, caused by earthquakes. When speaking
of the numerous fissures in the limestone of Greece, M. Boblaye reminds
us of the famous earthquake of 469 B.C., when, as we learn from Cicero,
Plutarch, Strabo, and Pliny, Sparta was laid in ruins, part of the
summit of Mount Taygetus torn off, and numerous gulfs and fissures
caused in the rocks of Laconia.

During the great earthquake of 1693, in Sicily, several thousand people
were at once entombed in the ruins of caverns in limestone, at Sortino
Vecchio; and, at the same time, a large stream, which had issued for
ages from one of the grottoes below that town, changed suddenly its
subterranean course, and came out from the mouth of a cave lower down
the valley, where no water had previously flowed. To this new point the
ancient water-mills were transferred, as I learnt when I visited the
spot in 1829.

When the courses of engulfed rivers are thus liable to change, from time
to time, by alterations in the levels of a country, and by the rending
and shattering of mountain masses, we must suppose that the dens of wild
beasts will sometimes be inundated by subterranean floods, and their
carcasses buried under heaps of alluvium. The bones, moreover, of
individuals which have died