Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/225

Rh Lake Copais is the receptacle of the drainage of the valley of the Cephissus and of the plain of Chæronea, which is watered by the Hyrcinns, Permessus, Olmeus, Lophis, and other streams that descend from Helicon. All these streams flow in on the south and west sides, where the shores of the lake are simply a continuation of the adjacent plains; but on the north, east, and southwest, where the waters would naturally find an outlet to the sea, the banks form steep, rocky shores.

At the southeast extremity the lake ends in the Bay of Carditza, which is inclosed in a fold of Mount Sphingium, an offshoot of Helicon, and at the northeast in the Bay of Topolias or Kephalari, inclosed in Mount Ptoum. A depression in the flank of Sphingium is called the Hill of Carditza, and behind this, between it and Mount Ptoum, is a smaller lake, Hylice or Hylicus (Likeri). Further east, near the seacoast, lies Mount Messapium, with another small lake, called Paralimni, between it and Mount Ptoum. A similar depression in Mount Ptoum, east of the Bay of Kephalari, is called the Hill of Kephalari. The Copaic basin is



thus a natural cul-de-sac, with no apparent outlet; but the pentup waters have worn fissures through the limestone rocks underlying the hills and formed for themselves, perhaps with some volcanic aid, as Strabo suggests, subterraneous outlets into the Euripus or channel of the sea between Bœotia and Eubœa. There are twenty-three of these subterraneous passages, locally called katabothra, but many of them unite underground and only four reach the surface on the east side of the hills. Of