Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/234

 218 HISTORY OF GREECE. takes its rise at a more southerly part of the same mountain chain, and falls into the same sea more to the eastward. Tho rivers more to the southward are unequal and inferior. Ke- phisus and Asopus, in Boeotia, Alpheius, in Elis and Arcadia, Pamisus in Messenia, maintain each a languid stream throughout the summer ; while the Inachus near Argos, and the Kephisus and Ilissus near Athens, present a scanty reality which falls short still more of their great poetical celebrity. Of all those rivers which have been noticed, the Achelous is by far the most impor- tant. The quantity of mud which its turbid stream brought down and deposited, occasioned a sensible increase of the land at its embouchure, within the observation of Thucydides. 1 But the disposition and properties of the Grecian territory, though not maintaining permanent rivers, are favorable to the multiplication of lakes and marshes. There are numerous hollows and inclosed basins, out of which the water can find no superficial escjipe, and where, unless it makes for itself a subter- ranean passage through rifts in the mountains, it remains either as a marsh or a lake according to the time of year. In Thessaly, we find the lakes Nessonis and Boebeis ; in JEtolia, between the Achelous and Euenus, Strabo mentions the lake of Trichonis, besides several other lakes, which it is difficult to identify indi- vidually, though the quantity of ground covered by lake and marsh is, as a whole, very considerable. In Boeotia, are situated the lakes Kopai's, Hylike, and Harma; the first of the three formed chiefly by the river Kephisus, flowing from Parnassus on the north-west, and shaping for itself a sinuous course through the mountains of Phokis. On the north-east and east, the lake Kopais is bounded by the high land of Mount Ptoon, which intercepts its communication with the strait of Euboea. Through ikHr limestone of this mountain, the water has either found or r wced several subterraneous cavities, by which it obtains a partial '^ress on the other side of the rocky hill, and then flows into the strait. The Katabothra, as they were termed in antiquity, yet exist, but in an imperfect and half-obstructed condition. Even in antiquity, however, they never fully sufficed to carry off the surplus waters of the Kephisus ; for the remains are still found Thucydid. ii. 102.