BOOK II.] History of Nature. \ 3 1 



CHAPTER XCVI. 



In what Lands it never raineth. Also, Wonders of the Earth, 

 and other Elements heaped together. 



PAPHOS hath in it a famous Temple of Venus: upon a 

 certain Floor and Altar whereof it never raineth 1 . Likewise 

 in Nea, a Town of Troas, it never rains about the Image of 

 Minerva. In the same, also, the Beasts killed for Sacrifice, 

 if they be left there, never putrify. Near to Harpasa, a 

 Town in Asia, there stands a craggy and awful Rock, movable 

 with one Finger, but if you thrust it with your whole Body, 

 it will stiffly resist 2 . In the Peninsula of the Tauri and City 

 Parasinum, there is a kind of Earth that healeth all Wounds, 

 But about Assos, in Troas, there grows a Stone by which all 

 Bodies are consumed, and thereupon it is termed Sarco- 

 phagus. There be two Mountains near the River Indus : the 

 Nature of the one is to hold fast all Manner of Iron, and of 

 the other, to reject it : and r therefore, if the Sole of a Man's 

 Shoes be clouted with Nails, in the one of them a Man can- 

 not pluck away his Foot, and in the other he cannot take 

 any footing. It is noted, that in Locri and Crotone the Pes- 

 tilence was never known, nor any Danger by Earthquake. 

 And in Lycia, after an Earthquake, it is fair Weather for 

 forty Days. In the Territory of Arda, if Corn be sowed, it 

 never groweth. At the Altars Murtiae in the Veientian 

 Country, and in Tusculanum, and the Wood Cyminia, there 

 be certain Places, wherein whatever is pitched into the 

 Ground can never be plucked up again. In the Crustumin 

 Country all the Hay there growing is hurtful in the same 

 Place : but if removed, it is good and wholesome. 



1 Tacitus alludes to the same circumstance, b. xviii. Wern. Club. 



2 The Logan stone, near the Land's End, in Cornwall, is a well-known 

 example of the same thing. The simple fact is, that a very large stone is 

 poised very nearly on its centre of gravity, while the limit of oscillation is 

 narrow. Wern. Club. 



