Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1898-02-16
4 WONDERFUL MOLE.

| In Years Past.
 One is reminded of the pretty fa- ble about Arethusa and Alpheus by a curious story in Cassier's Maga- zine But in the ancient narrative 1t was a fresh water river into which the pursuing lover was changed, and the fountnin which represents the metamorphosed nymph has been Identified, while in the less romantic tale now told a salt water stream disappears into a hole in the ground, and all the rest is a profound mys tery.
 On the coast of the Greek island of CephalOnia, near the town of Ar gostoli, there are two little fumes. or canals, leading inland from the sea to the distance of about 100 feet, and then discharging their contents into rudely excavated pits, through whose badly Assured, rocky bot toms the water immediately loses itself. At least as long ago as 1855 a mill was run by power from one of these fumes, and a second mill was built beside and operated by the other a little while afterward. The mills themselves are now ID ruins, but the flow continues This remarkable state of things has ex- isted for over SO years and very like ly for century.
 One cannot help asking in amaze ment where all that water goes to. The Messrs. Crosby, who furnish the account which Cassier's prints, esti- mate that the flow in each channel amounts to 1,0OO cubic feet per min: ute, or 8, 900, 600 cubic feet per day In both. Two smaller passages Of a similar character have been or served in the same neighborhocd and it is added that along the sboTe ''at all points between the two mills and for an unknown distance beyond each, the water is everywhere perco lating through cracks and Assures of the limestone and sinking into the earth. The openings in the sea bottom are no doubt mainly closes by weeds and gravel Yet no incon- siderable amount of water must fin6 its way to these mysterious depths through such an extent of beach, lying on 0 rock that is practically as porous as a sieve. 1t is difficult tC decide which is the greater marvel, the sea mills themselves or the fact that they have remained practically unkn own to the scientific world uT to the present day, although de scribed by several authors, men toned in the guidebooks and visited by "admirals, generals, bishops and distinguished civilians.
 Almost the only explanation httA- erto offered assumes that evapUra ton goes on rapidly in some subter- Fanean cavern and thus disposeS of the water. But, as it is admitted that the remaining salt from the two mill streams alone would amount to AS, coo cubic feet a year, 1t is hard to understand why inc subterranean cavern--if there be one--dOes not fill up
 The Messrs. Crosby offer a differ ent hypothesis. They ask the read CT to imagine two great Assures de scending into the earth and meeting below, like the sides of letter V oT D. Then they suggest that perhaps one arm IS shorter than the other. and that there is long, very gently rising passage leading from the bot. tom of one to the bottom of the oth- CT, so that the Gubterranean heat can got good chance to act on any stream passing through it It then becomes easy to suppose that a cold current of sea water comes down through one branch of the system and is forced upward through the other by thermal influences.
 The rocky island of Cephalonia, like some of it's neighbors, betrays the effect of earthquakes innumer able in times past, abounding iu fractures and faults, caverns and subterrsnean rivers None of the springs on Cephalonia contain any large quantity of salt, however, and 1t is difficult to regard any of them as the outflow of the flood which disappears at Argostoh. But it is possible that, as Alpheus is said tC have done, it takes a dive beneath the sea and comes up on some farofI island.