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in many places, instead of oil, for the supply of lamps. Thus it 

 was employed in Sicily, being found in the plain of Agrigentum, 

 whence it was called Sicilian oil. It was also found, he says, near 

 Soli, in Cilicia ; near Babylon ; at Ecbatania, in JEthiopia ; and in 

 various parts of India. The common people of Saxony employed it, 

 Agricola also tells us, not only in their lamps ; but made with it nup- 

 tial torches, by dipping into it the dried stalks of torch-weed, or 

 mullein. They also employed it to their carriage-wheels ; to defend 

 different articles of iron and copper, from rust; and to protect 

 wooden posts, from the injuries of the weather ; and, for the same 

 purpose, statues were sometimes covered with it. 



Alexander, it is said, for the sake of experiment, set fire to the 

 naphtha, with which he had ordered the body of a boy to be co- 

 vered, by which the youth was extremely burnt; so that he must 

 have perished, if the attendants had not, by pouring over him large 

 quantities of water, overpowered the flame, and thereby saved 

 him. 



We are informed by Valerius Cordus* that in the plains of 

 Brunswick, bitumen is dug in a moderately hard state ; and that 

 there also bitumen, fluid as oil, runs into pits hollowed out for the 

 purpose; the country people adopting it for the uses already men- 

 tioned. Bitumen, he observes, is also found in the Alps of Swit- 

 zerland. 



He also relates, that a hard black bitumen is found, most co- 

 piously, in a certain hill, in the way from Falkenburg to the vil- 

 lage of Sattela. The best, however, is found about Sattela, and in 

 the village itself. 



Yours, &c. 



* Valerii Cordi Observationes quaedam Rerum naturalium variarum, &c. MDLXI. 

 VOL. I. T 



