120 PLIXY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXXIIT. 



of their gods. I shall therefore use all the more diligence in 

 enquiring into all the known facts respecting it. 



CHAP. 37. THE DISCOVERY AND ORIGIN" OF MINIUM. 



Theophrastus states that, ninety years before the magis- 

 tracy of Praxibulus at Athens a date which answers to the 

 year of our City, 439 minium was discovered by Callias the 

 Athenian, who was in hopes to extract gold, by submitting to 

 the action of fire the red sand that was found in the silver-mines. 

 This, lie says, was the first discovery of minium. He states, 

 :n<o, that in his own time, it was already found in Spain, but 

 of a harsh and sandy nature ; as also in Colchis, upon a cer- 

 tain inaccessible rock there, from which it was brought down 

 by the agency of darts. This, however, he says, was only an 

 adulterated kind of minium, the best of all being that pro- 

 cured in the Cilbian Plains, 33 above Kphrsus, the sand of which 

 has just the colour of the kerines berry. 51 This sand, h in- 

 forms us, is Iirst ground to powder and then washed, the 

 portion that settles at the bottom being subjected to a second 

 washing. From this circumstance, he says, arises a difference 

 in the article ; some persons being in the habit of preparing 

 their minium with a single washing, while with others it is 

 more diluted. The best kind, however, he says, is that which 

 lias undergone a second washing. 



CHAP. 38. CINNABARTS. 



I am not surprised that this colour should have been held 

 in such high esteem ; for already, in the days of the Trojan 

 AVar, rubrica 55 was highly valued, as appears from the testi- 

 mony of Homer, who particularly notices the ships that were 

 coloured with it, whereas, in reference to other colours and 

 paintings, he but rarely notices them. The Greeks call this 

 nd earth " miltos," and give to minium the name of "cinna- 

 baris," and hence the error* 5 caused by the two meanings of 



53 See I?, v. c. 31. Sec B. xvi. c. 12, and B. xxiv. c. 4. 



i5 The same as the miltos mentioned below, " miltos" bein# the word 

 used by Ilomer, II. II. 037. This substance is totally different from the 

 minium of the preceding Chapters, and from that mentioned in c. 40. It 

 is iur red ochre, peroxide of iron, mixed in a greater or less degree with 

 argillaceous earth. 



* See.]!, xxix. c. 8 ; where he speaks of the mistake made by the phy- 

 sicians iu giving mineral vermilion or minium to their patients instead of 



