BOOK II.] History / Nature. 129 



of the Earth than of the mischievous Freaks of Nature. And 

 surely the History of celestial Things was not more hard to 

 be related : the Wealth is such of Metals, in such Variety, so 

 rich, so fruitful, rising still one under another, for so many 

 Ages ; notwithstanding that daily there is so much consumed 

 throughout the World, with Fires, Ruins, Shipwrecks, Wars, 

 and fraudulent Practices : yea, and so much spent in luxury 

 by so many Men living ! yet how many Sorts of Gems there 

 be still so painted ! In precious Stones, what Variety of 

 Colours! 'and how bespotted ! And among them, the Bril- 

 liancy of some one excluding all else but Light! The Virtue 

 of medicinable Fountains : the continual Burning for so 

 many Ages of Fire issuing forth in so many Places : the 

 deadly Exhalations in some Places, either emitted from Pits 

 when they were sunk, or else from the very Position of the 

 Ground ; present Death in one Place to the Birds only (as at 

 Soracte, in a Quarter near the City) ; in others, to all other 

 living Creatures, save only Man : yea, and sometime to Men 

 also, as in the Territories of Sinuessa and Puteoli. Which 

 damp Holes 1 , breathing out a deadly Air, some call Charonece 

 Scrobes, or Charon's Ditches. Likewise in the Hirpines' 

 Land, that of Amsanctus, a Cave near the Temple of Me- 

 phitesy into which as many as enter die presently. After the 

 like Manner, at Hierapolis in Asia there is another such, 

 fatal to all except the Priest of the great Mother. In other 

 Places there be also Caves possessing a prophetical Power : 

 by the Exhalation of which Men are intoxicated, and so 



1 The nature of the air now denominated carbonic acid gas, which, 

 when attempted to be inhaled, is destructive to animal life, was unknown, 

 except in these effects, to the ancients. It is to this that the well-known 

 Grotto del' Cane in Italy, as well as sometimes deep, moist, and stagnant 

 pits among ourselves, owe their fatal qualities. The inhalations at Delphi 

 were probably artificial ; and those who visited the prophetic cave of 

 Trophonius were observed to be ever afterward affected with constitu- 

 tional gloom ; which, however, might be the effect of the drugs that were 

 given them to drink, under the name of the "Waters of the Mnemosme." 

 In chap. ciii. a reference is made to a natural spring producing similar 

 effects. Wern. Club. 



