212 PLINY* S NATURA.L HISTORY. [Book XXXIV. 



particularly from wounds inflicted with iron ; and they act as 

 a check upon female discharges. They are applied, too, for 

 diseases of the spleen, and they arrest hsemorrhoidal swellings 

 and serpiginous ulcers. They are useful also for affections of 

 the eyelids, gradually applied in the form of a fine powder. 

 But their chief recommendation is, their great utility in the 

 form of a hygreraplastrum^* or wet plaster, for cleansing 

 wounds and fistulous sores, consuming all kinds of callosities, 

 and making new flesh on bones that are denuded. The follow- 

 ing are the ingredients : of pitch, six oboli, of Cimolian chalk, ^^ 

 six drachmae, two drachmae of pounded copper, the same quantity 

 of scales of iron, six drachmae of wax, and one sextarius of oil. 

 To these is added some cerate, when it is wanted to cleanse 

 or fill up wounds. 



CHAP. 47. (16.)— THE ORES OF LEAD. 



The nature of lead next comes to he considered. There 

 are two kinds of it, the black and the white.®^ The white is 

 the most valuable : it was called by the Greeks " cassiteros,"^^ 

 and there is a fabulous story told of their going in quest of 

 it to the islands of the Atlantic, and of its being brought in 

 barks made of osiers, covered with hides.*^ It is now known 

 that it is a production of Lusitania and Gallsecia.^^ It is a 

 sand found on the surface of the earth, and of a black colour, 

 and is only to be detected by its weight. It is mingled with 

 small pebbles, particularly in the dried beds of rivers. The 

 miners wash this sand, and calcine the deposit in the furnace. 

 It is also found in the gold mines that are known as "alutise,"^^* 



81 From the Greek vypov TrXacrrpov. — B. ^5 gge B. xxxv. c. 57. — B. 



^6 It is raost probable that the " black lead" of Pliny was our lead, and 

 the*' white lead" onr tin. Beckmann has considered these Chapters at 

 great length, Vol. II. p. 209, et seq. Bohn's Edition. 



^"^ Supposed to have been derived from the Oriental word Kasttra. 



S8 What is here adduced as a fabulous narrative is not very remote 

 from the truth ; the Scilly Isles and Cornwall being the principal sources 

 of the tin now employed in Europe. Small boats, corresponding to the 

 description here given, were very lately still in use among the inhabitants 

 of some parts of the south-west coast of England [and on the Severn]. 

 Phny has already spoken of these boats in B. vii. c. 57. — B. See also B. iv. 

 c. 30, OS to the coracles of the ancient Britons. 



^^ The ores of tin are known to exist in Gallicia; hut the mines in that 

 country are very scanty compared to those of Cornwall. — B. 



^^* " Talutium" is mentioned in B. xxxiii. c. 21. 



