[577] It is somewhat uncertain to what island our author applied this name; see the remarks of Alexandre in Lemaire. [578] See Ovid, Metam. xv. 287. [579] It is not improbable, from the situation and geological structure of the places here enumerated, that many of the changes mentioned above may have actually occurred; but there are few of them of which we have any direct evidence. [580] This celebrated narrative of Plato is contained in his Timæus, Op. ix. p. 296, 297; it may be presumed that it was not altogether a fiction on the part of the author, but it is, at this time, impossible to determine what part of it was derived from ancient traditions and what from the fertile stores of his own imagination. It is referred to by various ancient writers, among others by Strabo. See also the remarks of Brotier in Lemaire, i. 416, 417. [581] Many of these changes on the surface of the globe, and others mentioned by our author in this part of his work, are alluded to by Ovid, in his beautiful abstract of the Pythagorean doctrine, Metam. xv. _passim_. [582] See Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 8, and Strabo, i. For some account of the places mentioned in this chapter the reader may consult the notes of Hardouin _in loco_. [583] Poinsinet, as I conceive correctly, makes the following clause the commencement of the next chapter. [584] See Ovid, Metam. xv. 293-295; also the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 418. [585] “Spatium intelligit, fretumve, quo Sicilia nunc ab Italia dispescitur.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 419. [586] See Strabo, ix. [587] “Spiracula.” [588] “Busta urbium.” [589] “Suboriens,” as M. Alexandre explains it, “renascens;” Lemaire, i. 420. [590] “Scrobibus;” “aut quum terra fossis excavatur, ut in Pomptina palude, aut per naturales hiatus.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 420. [591] This circumstance is mentioned by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 28, as occurring “pluribus Italiæ locis;” it may be ascribed to the exhalations from volcanos being raised up into the atmosphere. It does not appear that there is, at present, any cavern in Mount Soracte which emits mephitic vapours. But the circumstance of Soracte being regarded sacred to Apollo, as we learn from our author, vii. 2, and from Virgil, Æn. xi. 785, may lead us to conjecture that something of the kind may formerly have existed there. [592] The author may probably refer to the well-known Grotto del Cane, where, in consequence of a stratum of carbonic acid gas, which occupies the lower part of the cave only, dogs and other animals, whose mouths are near the ground, are instantly suffocated. [593] Celebrated in the well-known lines of Virgil, Æn. vii. 563 _et seq._, as the “sævi spiracula Ditis.” [594] Apuleius gives us an account of this place from his own observation; De Mundo, § 729. See also Strabo, xii. [595] See Aristotle, De Mundo, cap. iv.