Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/104

 9 STRABO. BOOK i. with] Ejpjt, and many parts of Greece. For midway be- T&gcasia. flames rushed forth frorrPthe sea for the^spSce of four.jlays ; causing the whole of it to boil and be ajT~on^Hre ; and after a little an island tweTgfijjtaflia in circumference, composed of the burning mass, was thrown Jip. as if raised by machinery. After the cessation of this phenomenon, the Rhodians, then masters of the sea, were the first who dared to sail to the place, and Ifiey built there on the island a temple to the Asphalian 1 Neptune. Posidonius remarks, that during an earthquake which occur- recTm Phoenicia, a city situated above Si don was swallowed up, and tliatriearly two-thirds of Sidon~aTso fell, but not sud- denly, and therefore with no greatToss of life. That the same occurred, though in a lighter form, throughout nearly the whole of Syria, and was felt even in some of the Cyclades and the Island of Euboea, 2 so that the fountains of Arethusa, a spring in Chalcis, were completely obstructed, and after some time forced for themselves another opening, and the whole island ceased not to experience shocks until a chasm was rent open in the earth in the plain of Lelanto, 3 from which poured a river of burning mud. T7. Many writers have recorded similar occurrences, but it will suffice us to narrate those which have been collected by* Demetrius of Skepsis. Apropos of that passage of Homer : " And now they reach'd the running rivulets clear, Where from Scamander's dizzy flood arise Two fountains, tepid one, from which a smoke Issues voluminous as from a fire, The other, even in summer heats, like hail For cold, or snow, or crystal stream frost-bound :" 4 this writer tells us we must not be surprised, that although the cold spring still remains, the hot cannot be discovered ; 1 " Defending from danger." More probably, in this instance, the Securer of Foundations. 2 Egripo. 3 This plain was near the city of Chalcis, which at the present day bears the same name as the island itself. 4 And reached the two fair -flowing springs, where the two springs of the eddying Scamander rise. The one, indeed, flows with tepid water, and a steam arises from it around, as of burning fire ; whilst the other flows forth in the summer time, like unto hail, or cold snow, or ice from water. Iliad xxii. 147.