BOOK n. esL ijfb-i^ 



CX. But among mountain marvels—Etna always roimnu 

 glows at night, and supplies its fires with fuel sufficient '"""""»"" 

 for a vast period, though in winter cloaked with snow 

 and covering its output of ashes with hoar frost. 

 Nor does nature's WTath employ Mount Etna only to 

 threaten the lands with conflagration. Mount 

 Chimaera in the countiy of Phaselis "■ is on fire, and 

 indeed burns with a flame that does not die by day 

 or night ; Ctesias of Cnidos states that water increases 

 its fire but earth or dung puts it out. Also the 

 Mountains of Hephaestus in Lycia flare up when 

 touched with a flaming torch, and so violently that 

 even the stones of the rivers and the sands actually 

 under water glow ; and rain only serves to feed this 

 fire. They say that if somebody hghts a stick at it 

 and draws a furrow with the stick, streams of fire 

 follow it. At Cophantium in Bactria ^ a coil of flame 

 blazes in the night, and the same in Media and in 

 Sittacene the frontier of Persia : indeed at the White 

 Tower at Susa it does so from fifteen smoke-holes, 

 from the largest in the daytime also. The Baby- 

 lonian Plain sends a blaze out of a sort of fishpool 

 an acre in extent ; also near Mount Hesperius in 

 Ethiopia the plains shine at night hke stars. Like- 

 wise in the territory of Megalopolis : for if that agree- 

 able Bowl of Nymphaeus, which does not scorch the 

 foHage of the thick wood above it and though near 

 a cold stream is always glowing hot, ceases to flow, 

 it portends horrors to its neighbours in the town of 

 Apollonia, as Theopompus has recorded. It is 

 augmented by rain, and sends forth asphalt to 

 mingle with that unappetizing stream, which even 

 without this is more hquid than ordinary asphalt. 

 But who would be surprised by these things ? During 



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