364 plii?t's natural history. [Book XXXVI. 



tites/'*^ while raw, and as " miltites "s- when calcined ; a sub- 

 stance good for burns, and more efficacious than rubrica^^ for all 

 the purposes for which that mineral is employed. The fifth^' 

 variety is schistos ; a substance which, taken internally, arrests 

 haemorrhoidal discharges. Upon the same authority, it is re- 

 commended to take any kind of haematites, fasting, in doses of 

 three drachmse, triturated in oil, for affections of the blood.** 



The same author mentions also a kind of schistos which has no 

 affinity to haematites, and to which he gives the name of " an- 

 thracites."^^ It is a native of Africa, he says, and is of a 

 black colour. When rubbed upon a water- whetstone, it yields 

 a black colour on the side which has adhered to the earth, and, 

 on the opposite side, a saffron tint. He states also that it is a 

 useful ingredient in ophthalmic preparations. 



CHAP. 39. (21) — AiiriTEs. taphiusiak stone, callimus. 



The stone called aetites^^ has a great reputation, in conse- 

 quence of the name which it bears. It is found in the nests 

 of eagles, as already mentioned in our Tenth Book.®''' There 

 are always two of these stones found together, they say, a male 

 stone and a female ; and without them, it is said, the various 

 eagles that we have described would be unable to propagate. 

 Hence it is, too, that the young of the eagle are never more 

 than two in number. There are four varieties of the aetites : 

 that of Africa is soft and diminutive, and contains in the 

 interior — in its bowels as it were — a sweet, wliite, argillaceous 

 earth. It is friable, and is generally thought to be of the 

 female sex. The male stone, on the other hand, which is found 

 in Arabia, is hard, and similar to a nut-gall in Appearance ; . 

 or else of a reddish hue, with a hard stone in the interior. The 

 third kind is a stone found in the Isle of Cyprus, and resembles 



80 " Liver-stone." Not to be confounded with the Hepatite of modern 

 Mineralogy, or Sulphate of Barytes. ^^ " Spleen-stone." 



*^2 See B. XXXV. c, 14. 



83 Identified by Ajasson Tvith Laminated protoxide of iron. It has pro- 

 bably an affinity to the variety noticed above, in Notes 70 and 78. 



^ Owing solely, in all probability, to its name, " blood-stone." 



85 Ajasson is at a loss to know whether this is our Anthracite, a non- 

 bituminous coal, or some kind of bituminous coal. Delafosse takes it to be 

 pit-coal. 



^ Or "eagle-stone." It is a Geodes, mentioned in Chapter 23 of this 

 Book, a globular mass of clay iron-stone. Sometimes it is hollow within, 

 and sometimes it encloses another stone, or a little water, or some mineral 

 dust. 87 Chapter 4. 



