Note 186 — THE THEOGONY.

The glassy depth of lakes.] All fountains were esteemed sacred: but especially those which had any preternatural quality and abounded with exhalations. It was an universal notion that a divine energy proceeded from the effluvia; and that the persons who resided in their vicinity were gifted with a prophetic quality. Fountains of this nature, from the divine influence with which they were supposed to abound, the Amonians styled Ain-omphe, or oracular fountain. These terms the Greeks contracted to numphe, a nymph: and supposed such a person to be an inferior goddess who presided over waters. Hot springs were imagined to be more immediately under the inspection of the nymphs. Another name for these places was Ain-Ades, the fountain of Ades or the Sun; which in like manner was changed to Naïades, a species of deities of the same class. Bryant.