a canal or strait which divides the island of Euboea, now Negropont, from the continent of Greece. In one place it is so narrow, that a galley can scarcely pass through it. The agitations of the Euripus were much spoken of by the ancients. Some say that the canal has a flux and reflux six times in 24 hours; others, that it ebbs and flows seven times a day; but Livy does not allow this flux and reflux to be so regular. Father Babin, a Jesuit of great learning, who made many observations on the spot during his long abode in the island of Negropont, tells us, that the Euripus is regular in its ebbing and flowing the first eight days of the moon: the same regularity he observed from the 14th to the 25th day inclusive, and in the three last days: but in the other days of the lunar month, it is not so regular; for it sometimes ebbs and flows 11, 12, 13, and 14 times in the space of a natural day. In this place, as the story commonly goes, Aristotle drowned himself out of chagrin, for not being able to account for so unusual a motion.

Euripus has since become a general name for all straits, where the water is in great motion and agitation.

The ancient circuses had their euripi, which were no other than pits or ditches on each side of the course, into which it was very dangerous falling with their horses and chariots as they ran races. The term euripus was more particularly applied by the Romans to three canals or ditches which encompassed the circus on three sides, and which were filled occasionally to represent naumachiae or sea battles. The same people called their smaller fountains or canals in their gardens euripides; and their largest, as cascades, &c., nilos.