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ὕεται: H.'s statement agrees with the fact that Roumania has more rain in summer than in winter (E. B.9 xxi. 15), but snow is comparatively rare, ‘only twelve days in the year.’ Here, as in his account of the Nile flood (cf. ii. 24 nn.), he greatly exaggerates the effects of evaporation. The absence of floods on the Lower Danube is a fact, but the real cause is the Iron Gates near Belgrade, which were unknown to H.; these hold up the water, acting like a great natural lock; hence the floods are in Hungary (which was outside H.'s sphere of knowledge), not in the Danubian principalities.

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