428 MERGE TO GYRENE.

portico may yet be found beneath it should this place be excavated at any future period : the chambers within are also much encumbered with the same material, washed in through the entrance where the tablet was discovered, and it is by no means improbable that interesting remains might be found underneath the soil which is collected there.

There is a good deal of building in front of the mountain (without the hmits which we may suppose to have been occupied by the portico of Dionysius,) of which it seems difficult to establish the nature ; if it be not in some way connected with the reception of the water, and its distribution over the town of Cyrene. It appears to us that the stream was originally confined, and raised by lateral compression to a height sufficient to allow of its being conducted into different parts of the town, the level of which is considerably above that of the fountain itself ; but in what precise manner this object was accomplished we will not here venture to suggest. The remains of an aqueduct are still visible on the brow of the hill, from which the cliff descends perpendicularly to the fountain, leading from thence to the brink of a ravine on the opposite side, down which also flows another stream of excellent water. From the traces of building which we perceived about this ravine we should imagine that the aqueduct had been formerly thrown across it, and the water distributed over the cultivated grounds which lie without the walls of the city ; at present the stream which flows down it, as well as that of the fountain already described, finds its way over the country below into the sea,