BOOK II. c. 219-cni. 222 



Tliere is a town on the banks of the Guadalquivir 

 vhose wells sink when the tide rises and rise when it 

 falls, remaining stationary in the intervening periods. 

 At Seville there is one well in the actual town that 

 has the same nature, though all the others are as 

 usual. The Black Sea always flows out into the Sea 

 of Marmora — the tide never sets inward into the 

 Black Sea. 



CI. All seas excrete refuse at high tide, some Tidairefu 

 also periodically. In the neighbourhood of Messina 

 and Mylae scum resembhng dung is spat out on to the 

 shore, which is the origin of the story that this is the 

 place where the Oxen of the Sun are stalled. To 

 this (so that I may leave out nothing that is within 

 my knowledge) Aristotle adds that no animal dies 

 except when the tide is ebbing. This has been widely 

 noticed in the GalHc Ocean, and has been found to 

 hold good at all events in the case of man. 



CII. This is the source of the true conjecture Lunar 

 that the moon is rightly beHeved to be the star of '"■/^"«"'^- 

 the breath," and that it is this star that saturates 

 the earth and fills bodies by its approach and empties 

 them by its departure ; and that consequently 

 shells increase in size as the moon waxes, and that 

 its breath is specially felt by bloodless creatures, but 

 also the blood even of human beings increases and 

 diminishes with its hght ; and that also leaves and 

 herbage (as will be stated in the proper place ^) are 

 sensitive to it, the same force penetrating into all 

 things. 



CIII. Consequently hquid is dried by the heat Ef/ecu of 

 of the sun, and we are taught that this is the male *""^'^^* 

 star, which scorches and sucks up everything; and 

 that in this way the flavour of salt is boiled into the 



349 



