ADU´LA MONS
ADU´LA MONS (
ὁ Ἀδούλας), the name given to a particular group of the Alps, in which, according to the repeated statement of Strabo, both the Rhine and the Addua take their rise, the one flowing northwards, the other southward into the Larian Lake.
This view is not however correct, the real source of the Addua being in the glaciers of the Rhaetian Alps, at the head of the
Valtelline, while both branches of the Rhine rise much farther to the W.
It is probable that Strabo considered the river which descends from the
Splügen to the head of the lake of
Como (and which flows from N. to S.) as the true Addua, overlooking the greatly superior magnitude of that which comes down from the
Valtelline. The sources of this river are in fact not far from those of the branch of the Rhine now called the
Hinter Rhein, and which, having the more direct course from S. to N., was probably regarded by the ancients as the true origin of the river. Mt. Adula would thus signify the lofty mountain group about the passes of the
Splügen and
S. Bernardino, and at the head of the valley of the
Hinter Rhein, rather than the
Mt. St. Gothard, as supposed by most
[p. 1.29]modern geographers, but we must not expect great accuracy in the use of the term. Ptolemy, who also represents the Rhine as rising in Mt. Adula, says nothing of the Addua; but erroneously describes this part of the Alps as that where the chain alters its main direction from N.to E. (Strab.iv.pp. 192, 204, v. p. 213;
Ptol. 2.9.5,
3.1.1.)
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E.H.B]
