305 



BOOK XXXVI. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF STONES. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) LUXURY DISPLAYED IN THE USE OF VARIOUS KINDS 



OF MARBLE. 



It now remains for us to speak of stones, or, in other words, 

 the leading folly of the day ; to say nothing at all of our taste 

 for gems and amber, crystal and murrhine vases. ^ For every- 

 thing of which we have previously treated, down to the 

 present Book, may, by some possibility or other, have the ap- 

 pearance of having been created for the sake of man : but as 

 to the mountains, Nature has made those for herself, as a kind 

 of bulwark for keeping together the bowels of the earth ; as 

 also for the purpose of curbing the violence of the rivers, of 

 breaking the waves of the sea, and so, by opposing to them 

 the very hardest of her materials, putting a check upon those 

 elements which are never at rest. And yet we must hew 

 down these mountains, forsooth, and carry them off; and this, 

 for no other reason than to gratify our luxurious inclinations : 

 heights which in former days it was reckoned a miracle even to 

 have crossed ! 



Our forefathers regarded as a prodigy the passage of the 

 Alps, first by Hannibal,^ and, more recently, by the Cimbri : 

 but at the present day, these very mountains are cut asunder 

 to yield us a thousand different marbles, promontories are 

 thrown open to the sea, and the face of Nature is being every- 

 where reduced to a level. We now carry away the barriers 

 that were destined for the separation of one nation from 

 another; we construct ships for the transport of our marbles ; 

 and, amid the waves, the most boisterous element of Nature, 

 we convey the summits of the mountains to and fro : a thing, 

 however, that is even less unpardonable than to go on the 

 1 See B. xxxvii. cc. 7, 8, 11. 



2 



VOL. TI. 



>ee 



the liues of Juvenal, Sat. x. 1. 151, et seq. 



