438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To the same manner of explaining striking appearances in 

 physical geography, and especially strange rocks and bowlders, 

 we mainly owe the innumerable stories of the transformation of 

 living beings, and especially of men and women, into these natu- 

 ral features. 



In the mythology of China we constantly come upon legends 

 of such transformations from that of the first counselor of the 

 Han dynasty to those of shepherds and sheep. In the Brahman- 

 ical mythology of India, Salagrama, the fossil ammonite, is recog- 

 nized as containing the body of Vishnu's wife, and the Binlang 

 stone has much the same relation to Siva; so, too, the nymph 

 Raniba was changed, for offending Ketu, into a mass of sand ; by 

 the breath of Siva elephants were turned into stone, and in a 

 very touching myth Luxman is changed into stone but afterward 

 released. In the Buddhist mythology a Nat demon is repre- 

 sented as changing himself into a grain of sand. 



Among the Greeks such transformation-myths come constantly 

 before us both the changing of stones to men and the changing 

 of men to stones. Deucalion and Pyrrha, escaping from the flood, 

 repeopled the earth by casting behind them stones which became 

 men and women ; Heraulos was changed into stone for offending 

 Mercury ; Pyrrhus for offending Rhea ; Phineus, and Polydektes 

 with his guests, for offending Perseus ; under the petrifying glance 

 of Medusa's head such transformations became a thing of course. 



To myth-making in obedience to the desire of explaining strik- 

 ing natural appearances, coupled with the idea that sin must be 

 followed by retribution, we also owe the well-known Niobe myth. 

 Having incurred the divine wrath, she saw those dearest to her 

 destroyed by missiles from heaven, and was finally transformed 

 into a rock on Mount Sipylos which bore some vague resemblance 

 to the human form, and her tears became the rivulets which 

 trickled from the neighboring strata. 



Thus, in obedience to a moral and intellectual impulse, a strik- 

 ing geographical appearance was explained, and for ages pious 

 Greeks looked with bated breath upon the rock at Sipylos which 

 was once Niobe, just as for ages pious Jews, Christians, and Mo- 

 hammedans looked with awe upon the salt pillar at the Dead Sea 

 which was once Lot's wife. 



tants, and the saving of Philemon and Baucis, see Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Book VIII; 

 also Botticher, " Baumcultus der Alten," etc. For the lake in Ceylon arising from the 

 tears of Adam and Eve, see variants of the original legend in Maundeville and in Jiirgen 

 Andersem " Reisebeschrcibung," 1669, ii, 132. For the volcanic nature of the Dead Sea, 

 see Daubeny cited in Smith's " Dictionary," 1873, sub voc. "Palestine." For lakes in Ger- 

 many owing their origin to human sin and various supernatural causes, sec Karl Bartsch, 

 " Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche aus Mecklenburg," vol. i, pp. 397 et seq. For lakes in 

 America, see any good collection of Indian legends. For lakes in Japan sunk supemat- 

 urally, see Braun's " Japanesische Marchen und Sagen," Leipsic, 1885, pp. 350, 351. 



