124 flint's nattjeal histoet. [Book IT. 



earth wMcli cures all wounds ^ About Assos, in Troas, a 

 stone is found, by which all bodies are consumed ; it is called 

 Sarcophagus^. There are two mountains near the river 

 Indus ; the nature of one is to attract iron, of the other to 

 repel it : hence, if there be nails in the shoes, the feet cannot 

 be drawn oif the one, or set down on the other^. It has 

 been noticed, that at Locris and Crotona, there has never 

 been a pestilence, nor have they ever suffered from an earth- 

 quake ; in Ljcia there are always forty calm days before an 

 earthquake. In the territory of Argyripa the corn which is 

 sown never springs up. At the altars of Mucins, in the 

 country of the Yeii, and about Tusculum, and in the Cim- 

 merian Forest, there are places in which things that are 

 pushed into the ground cannot be pulled out again. The 

 hay which is growTi in Crustuminium is noxious on tlie spot, 

 but elsewhere it is wholesome ^ 



CHAP. 99. (97.) CONCEENIlfG THE CAUSE OE THE rLOWIF& 



AISTD EBBINa OF THE SEA. 



Much has been said about the nature of waters ; but the 

 most wonderful circumstance is the alternate flowing and 

 ebbing of the tides, which exists, indeed, under various forms, 

 but is caused by the sun and the moon. The tide flows 

 twice and ebbs twice between each two risings of the moon, 



1 Perhaps the author may refer to some land of earth, possessed of 

 absorbent or astrmgent properties, Hke the Terra Sigillata or Armenian 

 Eole of the old Pharmacopoeias. 



^ A (TcipE, caro, and (pdyoj, edo. We may conceive this stone to have 

 contained a portion of an acrid ingredient, pei'haps of an alkahne natm-e, 

 wliich, in some degree, might produce the effect here described. It does 

 not appear that the material of which the stone coffins are composed, to 

 which tliis name has been apphed, the workmanslnp of wliich is so much 

 an object of admiration, are any of them possessed of this propei'ty. 



3 Alexandre rejnarks on this statement, " Montes istae videntur ori- 

 ginem dechsse fabulae quae in Arabicis Noctibus legitvir . . . . ;" Lemaire, 

 i. 425. Fouche, indeed, observes, that there are mountams composed 

 principally of natural loadstone, which might sensibly attract a shoe 

 containmg iron nails. Ajasson, ii. 386. But I conceive that we have no 

 evidence of the existence of the magnetic iron pyrites having ever been 

 found in sufficient quantity to produce any sensible effect of the kind 

 here described. 



"* We may remark generally, that of the " mu-acida" related in this 

 chapter, the greatest part are entirely without foundation, and the I'e- 

 mainder much exaggerated. 



