Chap. 23.] MODES OF TESTING WATER. 485 



to the water at Troezen. As to the nitrous" and salso-acid 1 

 waters which are found in the deserts, persons travelling across 

 towards the Eed Sea render them potable in a couple of hours 

 by the addition of polenta, which they use also as food. 

 Those springs are more particularly condemned which secrete 

 mud, 2 or which give a bad complexion to persons who drink 

 thereof. It is a good plan, too, to observe if water leaves 

 stains upon copper vessels ; if leguminous vegetables boil with 

 difficulty in it ; if, when gently decanted, it leaves an earthy 

 deposit ; or if, when boiled, it covers the vessel with a thick 

 crust. 3 



It is a fault also in water, 3 * not only to have a bad smell, 4 

 but to have any flavour 5 at all, even though it be a flavour 

 pleasant and agreeable in itself, or closely approaching, as we 

 often find the case, the taste of milk. Water, to be truly 

 wholesome, ought to resemble air 6 as much as possible. There 

 is only one 7 spring of water in the whole universe, it is said, 

 that has an agreeable smell, that of Chabura, namely, in Me- 

 sopotamia : the people give a fabulous reason for it, and say 

 that it is because Juno 8 bathed there. Speaking in general 

 terms, water, to be wholesome, should have neither taste nor 

 smell. 



CHAP. 23. THE MODES OF TESTING WATER. 



Some persons judge of the wholesomeness of water through 

 the agency of a balance : 9 their pains, however, are expended 

 to little purpose, it being but very rarely that one water is 



99 Waters, probably, impregnated with mineral alkali. As to the " ni- 

 trum" of Pliny, see c. 46 of this Book, 



1 " Salmacidas." 2 "Caenum." 



3 Also, Ajasson says, to observe whether soap will melt in it. If it will 

 not, it is indicative of the presence of selenite. 



3 * As drinking water, 



4 As Plautus says of women, Mostell, A. i. S. 3 " They smell best, 

 when they smell of nothing at all." 5 See B. xv. c. 32. 



6 In purity and tastelessness. As Ajasson observes, Pliny could hardly 

 appreciate the correctness of this remark, composed as water is of two 

 gases, oxygen and hydrogen. 



1 Pausanias and Athenseus mention also the well of Mothone in Pelopon- 

 nesus, the water of which exhaled the odour of the perfumes of Cyzicus. 

 Such water, however, must of necessity be impure. 



8 More probably Astarte, Fee thinks, Juno being unknown in Mesopo- 

 tamia. . 



9 " Statera." Ajasson remarks that it does not require an instrument 

 very nicely adjusted to indicate the difference in weight between pure and 



