134 



Marcellinus Ammianus states, that the Persians were used to 

 anoint their arrows with it; and, when lighted, to shoot them i ,to 

 the roofs of their enemies houses, to set them on fire. 



Josephus* describes the lake Asphaltitis, or lake of Sodom; 

 and particularly mentions no fish being able to live in it, the buoy- 

 ancy of substances thrown on it, and of large lumps of bituminous 

 matter floating on it, not unlike the bodies of bulls without heads. 

 The length of this lake is five hundred and eighty furlongs, the 

 breadth of it an hundred and fifty. It runs out from the river 

 Jordan, as far as Zoar, in Africa, and borders upon the land of So- 

 dom ; where, he says, are yet to be seen the remains of five abomi- 

 nable cities, that perished in the conflagration produced by a judg- 

 ment of fire from heaven. 



In Samosata, a town of Syria, Pliny relates, there was a pool 

 which yielded an inflammable substance, called maltha f. Of the 

 same nature, he observes, is naphtha, which flows in the manner of a 

 liquid bitumen, and is*found in Austragena, in Parthia . He also 

 informs us, that the lake Asphaltitis produces nothing but bitumen, 

 whence its name. It will not receive into it the bodies of any ani- 

 mal ; oxen and camels therefore float on it : and hence the report 

 that nothing sinks in it. 



^lian, Dion Cassius, and other writers, have dwelt with admira- 

 tion on the wonders of Nymphaeum, on the confines of Appollonia ; 

 where, they say, there is a pit which is kept filled with bitumen, 

 which rises from the earth in the same manner as a spring of water. 

 Not far from thence is a place where continual flames are seen 

 arising from the earth ; notwithstanding which, the earth is not 

 burnt, nor do the plants and trees, which grow there, wither from 

 the effects of the fire ; but flourish and grow to a Considerable 

 height 



* Lestrange's Translation, Wars of the Jews, book v. cap. 4. 



t Lib. ii, cap. 104. J Lib. ii. cap. 105. Lib. v, cap. 16. 



