Cephalonia, or rather Cephallenia, is the largest of the Ionian Islands, and its highest summit—Mount Ænus, or Elato—is the culminating point of the entire Archipelago. Mariners from the centre of the Ionian Sea can see at one and the same time Mount Ætna in Sicily and this mountain of Cephalonia. The forests of conifers, to which the latter is indebted for its Italian name of Montenero, have for the greater part been destroyed by fire, but there still remain a few clumps of magnificent firs. On its summit may be seen the remains of a temple of Jupiter. The island is fertile and populous, but suffers much from want of water. All its rivers dry up in summer, the calcareous soil sucking up the rain, and most of the springs rise from the bottom of the sea, far away from the fields thirsting after water. On the other hand, two considerable streams of sea-water find their way into the bowels of the island. This curious phenomenon occurs a short distance to the north of Argostoli, a bustling town, having a safe but shallow harbour. The two oceanic rivers are sufficiently powerful to set in motion the huge wheels of two mills, one of which has been regularly at work since 1835, and the other since 1859. Their combined discharge amounts to 35,000,000 gallons daily, and naturalists have not yet decided whether they form a vast subterranean lake, in which beds of salt are constantly being deposited, or whether they find their way through numerous threads, and, by hydrostatic aspiration, into the subterranean rivers of the island, rendering their water brackish. The latter is the opinion of Wiebel, the geologist, and thus much we may assume for certain—that these subterranean waters and caverns are one of the principal causes of the severe earthquakes which visit Cephalonia so frequently. The island of Asteris, between Cephalonia and Ithaca, upon which stood the city of Alalkomenæ, exists no longer, and was probably destroyed by one of those earthquakes.