100. Chap. 100.-Where The Tides Rise And Fall In An Unusual Manner.

CHAP. 100.—WHERE THE TIDES RISE AND FALL IN AN UNUSUAL MANNER.

There are, however, some tides which are of a peculiar nature, as in the Tauromenian Euripus[1], where the ebb and flow is more frequent than in other places, and in Eubœa, where it takes place seven times during the day and the night. The tides intermit three times during each month, being the 7th, 8th and 9th day of the moon[2]. At Gades, which is very near the temple of Hercules, there is a spring enclosed like a well, which sometimes rises and falls with the ocean, and, at other times, in both respects contrary to it. In the same place there is another well, which always agrees with the ocean. On the shores of the Bætis[3], there is a town where the wells become lower when the tide rises, and fill again when it ebbs; while at other times they remain stationary. The same thing occurs in one well in the town of Hispalis[4], while there is nothing peculiar in the other wells. The Euxine always flows into the Propontis, the water never flowing back into the Euxine[5].

1. The name of Euripus is generally applied to the strait between Bœotia and Eubœa, but our author here extends it to that between Italy and Sicily. A peculiarity in the tide of this strait is referred to by Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 24.

2. "Estus idem triduo in mense consistit." "Consistentia, sive mediocritas aquarum non solum septima die sentitur, sed et octava, ac nona durat," as Hardoum explains this passage, Lemaire, i. 431.

3. Now called the Guadalquivir.

4. The modern Seville.

5. This circumstance is noticed by most of the ancients, as by Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 1; by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. iv. 2; and by Strabo. It has, however, no relation to the tide, but depends upon the quantity of water transmitted into the Euxine by the numerous large rivers that empty themselves into it.