The Ten Books on Architecture, 8.3.2

Vitruvius  translated by Joseph Gwilt

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2There are also cold springs whose smell and taste are bad. These arise in the lower subterranean places, then pass through hot districts, and afterwards continuing their course for a considerable distance, are cold when they rise to the surface, and of a vitiated taste, smell, and colour. Such is the river Albula, in the Tiburtine way: such are the cold fountains in the lands of Ardea, both of a similar smell, which is like sulphur: such, also, are found in other places. But these, though cold, seem, nevertheless, to boil: for, falling from a high place on to a heated soil, and acted on by the meeting of the water and fire, they rush together with great violence and noise; and, apparently inflated by the violence of the compressed air, they issue boiling from the spring. Among them, however, those whose course is not open, but obstructed by stones or other impediments, are, by the force of the air through the narrow pores driven up to the tops of hills.

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