Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

He said that Psammetichus king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt had put to the test whether the springs are bottomless: for he had a rope of many thousand fathoms' length woven and let down into the spring, but he could not reach to the bottom.

This recorder, then, if he spoke the truth, showed, I think, that there are strong eddies and an upward flow of water, such that with the stream rushing against the hills the sounding-line when let down cannot reach bottom.