471 



BOOK XXXI. 



REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE AQUATIC PRODUCTIONS. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) REMARKABLE FACTS CONNECTED WITH WATER. 



WE have now to speak of the benefits derived, in a medicinal 

 point of view, from the aquatic productions ; for not here even 

 has all- bounteous Nature reposed from her work. Amid waves 

 and billows, and tides of rivers for ever on the ehb and flow, 

 she still unceasingly exerts her powers ; and nowhere, if we 

 must confess the truth, does she display herself in greater 

 might, for it is this among the elements that holds sway over- 

 all the rest. It is water that swallows up dry land, that 

 extinguishes flame, that ascends aloft, and challenges posses- 

 sion of the very heavens : it is water that, spreading clouds as 

 it does, far and wide, intercepts the vital air we breathe ; and, 

 through their collision, gives rise to thunders and lightnings, 1 

 as the elements of the universe meet in conflict. 



What can there be more marvellous than waters suspended 

 aloft in the heavens ? And yet, as though it were not enough to 

 reach so high an elevation as this, they sweep along with them 

 whole shoals of fishes, and often stones as well, thus lading 

 themselves with ponderous masses which belong to other 

 elements, and bearing them on high. Falling upon the earth, 

 these waters become the prime cause of all that is there pro- 

 duced ; a truly wondrous provision of Nature, if we only con- 

 sider, that in order to give birth to grain and life to trees and 

 to shrubs, water must first leave the earth for the heavens, and 

 thence hring down to vegetation the breath of life ! The 

 admission must be surely extorted from us, that for all our 

 resources the earth is indebted to the bounteousness of water. 



1 See B. ii. c. 43. Ajasson remarks, that the electric fluid, forming 

 lightning, escapes from the clouds through causes totally independent of 

 water. Still, Pliny would appear to be right in one sense ; for if there 

 were no water, there would be no clouds ; and without clouds the electric 

 fluid would probably take some other form than that of lightning. 



