From the convent we rode to the Written-rock, at the farther end of the same defile, on the road to Eleusis. Here, on a smoothed face of stone, are several recesses for _ex voto_ tablets, or perhaps for little statues or other offerings. The offerings are gone, but with some difficulty we may trace portions of the inscriptions below them. Many of these are covered with a thin deposit of hard stalagmite, which it appears must have proceeded from the mere action of the weather on the surface of the stone; for from the situation of the rocks, it is hardly possible that any current of water should have passed over them. Before arriving at the Written-rock, we may observe vestiges of the ancient sacred way, supported in places on a sort of terrace, formed merely of natural fragments found on the spot, untooled, and uncemented; and in other places are marks of wheels, on a surface quite as uneven as that of the road to the Piræus. There are said also to be traces of a temple of Venus, but I could make nothing out. From this spot we walked to the top of Ægialus, whence we enjoyed a glorious view over the gulf and island of Salamis, the Thriasian plains of Eleusis, the mountains of Kerata and Cithæron, and a distant view of snowy summits in the Morea. Beyond this range of hills we find a salt lake. The beds of limestone apparently corresponding with that of the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, continue quite to the base of the hill, but it is probable that the salt is deposited in a partial formation of the red marl, which may intervene between this and the Magnesian limestone. The fertility of the celebrated vale of Eleusis agrees well with such an idea; the red marl often decomposing into a productive soil, when it can obtain sufficient moisture. The water of this salt pool or lake, is kept up by a dam to the height of two or three feet above the sea, and a copious current issues from it. At a little distance there is another pool of the same sort, which also furnishes a considerable issue of salt water. Pausanias supposes these streams to originate from the sea on the eastern shore of Attica. We returned along the shore, where the limestone rocks exhibit large crevices, filled up with a yellowish stalagmite or alabaster.[31] The breccia here appears again, and as I conceived at the time, running under the limestone rock. A little, pleasant, but uncultivated valley, opening to the shore, preceded our entrance to the defile on this side. It is sprinkled with olive and carob trees, and with a thorny tree something like an almond, now in full flower.[32] Corydalus is here also covered with the _Pinus Halepensis_, but Ægialus has only bushes.