122 plint's natural ihstoet. [Book IT. 



others are so to man also, as in the country of Sinuessa and 

 Puteoli. They are generally called vents, and, by some 

 persons, Cliaron's sewers, from their exhaling a deadly 

 vapour. Also at Amsanctum, in the country of the Hirpini, 

 at the temple of Mepliitis\ there is a place which kills all 

 those who enter it. And the same takes place at Hierapolis in 

 Asia"^, where no one can enter with safety, except the priest 

 of the great Mother of the Gods. In other places there are 

 prophetic caves, w^here those who are intoxicated with the 

 vapour which rises from them predict future events^, as at 

 the most noble of all oracles, Delphi. In which cases, what 

 mortal is there who can assign any other cause, than the 

 divine power of nature, which is everyw^here diffused, and 

 thus bursts forth in various places ? 



CHAP. 96. (94.)— OF CERTAIN LANDS WHICH ARE ALWAYS 

 SHAKING, AND OF FLOATING ISLANDS. 



There are certain lands which shake wlien any one passes 

 over them'* ; as in the territory of the Gabii, not far from the 

 city of Home, there are about 200 acres which shake when 

 cavalry passes over it : the same thing takes place at Eeate. 



(95.) There are certain islands which are alw^ays floating ^, 

 as in the territory of the CsBcubum^, and of the above-men- 

 tioned Eeate, of Mutina, and of Statonia. In the lake of 

 Vadimonis and the waters of Cutiliae there is a dark wood, 

 which is never seen in the same place for a day and a night 

 together. In Lydia, the islands named Calaminse are not 



whei'e, in consequence of a stratum of carbonic acid gas, which, occupies 

 the lower part of the cave only, dogs and other animals, whose mouths 

 are near the ground, are instantly sviifocated. 



^ Celebrated in the weU-known lines of Virgil, ^n. vii. 563 et seq., as 

 the " S8evi spLi'acula Ditis." 



2 Apulcius gives us an account of this place from his o^ti observation ; 

 De Mundo, § 729. See also Strabo, xii. 



3 See Aristotle, De Mundo, cap. iv. 



^ " Ad ingressum ambulantium, et equonim ciu'sus, terrse quoque tre- 

 mere sentiimtiu* in Brabantino agro, qu^e Belgii pars, et circa S. 

 Audoniari fanum." Hardouin in Lemau*e, i. 421, 422. 



^ See Seneca, Nat. Qusest. iii. 25. 



^ Martial speaks of the marshy nature of the Csecuban district, xiii. 115. 

 Most of the places mentioned in tliis chapter are illustrated by the 

 remarks of Hardouin ; Lemau-e, i. 422, 423. 



