Here also was the temple of the [668]Muses, which stood close upon a reeking stream. But, what rendered Delphi more remarkable, and more reverenced, was the Corycian cave, which lay between that hill and Parnassus. It went under ground a great way: and Pausanias, who made it his particular business to visit places of this nature, says, _that it was the most extraordinary of any which he ever beheld_. [669]Αντρον Κωρυκιον σπηλαιων, ὡν ειδον, θεας αξιον μαλιστα. There were many caves styled Corycian: one in Cilicia, mentioned by Stephanus Byzantinus from Parthenius, who speaks of a city of the same name: Παρ' ᾑ το Κωρυκιον αντρον Νυμφων, αξιαγαστον θεαμα. _Near which city was the Corycian cavern, sacred to the nymphs, which afforded a sight the most astonishing_. There was a place of this sort at [670]Samacon, in Elis; and, like the above, consecrated to the nymphs. There were likewise medicinal waters, from which people troubled with cutaneous and scrofulous disorders found great benefit. I have mentioned the temple at Hierapolis in [671]Phrygia; and the chasm within its precincts, out of which there issued a pestilential vapour. There was a city of the same name in [672]Syria, where stood a temple of the highest antiquity; and in this temple was a fissure, through which, according to the tradition of the natives, the waters at the deluge retired. Innumerable instances might be produced to this purpose from Pausanias, Strabo, Pliny, and other writers. It has been observed, that the Greek term κοιλος, hollow, was often substituted for Coëlus, heaven: and, I think, it will appear to have been thus used from the subsequent history, wherein the worship of the Atlantians is described. The mythologists gave out, that Atlas supported heaven: one reason for this notion was, that upon mount Atlas stood a temple to Coëlus. It is mentioned by Maximus Tyrius in one of his dissertations, and is here, as in many other instances, changed to κοιλος, hollow. The temple was undoubtedly a cavern: but the name is to be understood in its original acceptation, as Coël, the house of God; to which the natives paid their adoration. This mode of worship among the Atlantian betrays a great antiquity; as the temple seems to have been merely a vast hollow in the side of the mountain; and to have had in it neither image, nor pillar, nor stone, nor any material object of adoration: [673]Εστι δε Ατλας ορος κοιλον, επιεικως ὑψηλον.--Τουτο Λιβυων και ἱερον, και θεος, και ὁρκος, και αγαλμα. _This Atlas (of which I have been speaking) is a mountain with a cavity, and of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a Deity: and it is the great object by which they swear; and to which they pay their devotions_. The cave in the mountain was certainly named Co-el, the house of God; equivalent to Cœlus of the Romans. To this the people made their offerings: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. It seems to have been no uncommon term among