BOOK II.] History of Nature. 143 



CHAPTER CVI. 

 Of Places continually burning. 



BUT amongst the Wonders of Mountains, JStna burneth 

 always in the Nights : and for so long Continuance of Time 

 yieldeth sufficient Matter to maintain those Fires : in Winter 

 it is full of Snow, and covereth the Ashes cast up with Frosts. 

 Neither in it alone doth Nature rage, threatening the con- 

 suming of the whole Earth by Fire. For in Phaselis the 

 Mountain Chimaera likewise burneth, and that with a con- 

 tinual Fire both Night and Day : Ctesias of Gnidos writeth, 

 that the Fire thereof is inflamed with Water, but quenched 

 with Earth. In the same Lycia the Mountains Hephaestii 

 being touched with a flaming Torch, do so burn that the 

 very Stones of the Rivers and the Sand in the Waters are 

 set on Fire ; and the same Fire is maintained with Rain. 

 They report that if a Man make a Furrow with a Staff that 

 is set on Fire by them, there follow Gutters of Fire. In 

 the Bactrians' Country, the Top of the Cophantus burneth 

 by Night. Amongst the Medians, also, and the Caestian 

 Nation, the same Mountain burneth : but principally in the 

 Confines of Persis. At Susis, indeed, in a Place called the 

 White Tower, the Fire proceeds out of fifteen Chimneys, and 

 the greatest of them, even in the Daytime, carrieth Fire. 

 There is a Plain about Babylonia 1 , in Manner of a Fish-pond, 

 which, for the Quantity of an Acre, burneth likewise. Also, 

 near the Mountain Hesperius in Ethiopia, the Fields in the 

 Night-time shine like Stars. The like is to be seen in the 

 Territory of the Megapolitans, although the Field there 

 be pleasant within, and not burning the Boughs of the thick 

 Grove above it. And near a warm Spring the hollow, 



1 These natural fires were objects of idolatrous veneration by the in- 

 habitants of this country, from a very early period : and opinions of a 

 similar nature have continued in the East to the present day. Zoroaster, 

 if not the author, is believed to have been the great reformer of this doc- 

 trine ; which by some is supposed to have had its origin in times before 

 the Flood. Wern. Club. 



