124 plint's nattieal histobt. [Book IT. 



earth which cures all wounds ^ About Assos, in Troas, a 

 stone is found, by which all bodies are consumed ; it is called 

 Sarcophagus^. There are two mountains near the river 

 Indus ; the nature of one is to attract iron, of the other to 

 repel it : hence, if there be nails in the shoes, the feet cannot 

 be drawn off the one, or set down on the other^. It has 

 been noticed, that at Locris and Crotona, there has never 

 been a pestilence, nor have they ever suffered from an earth- 

 quake ; in Lycia there are always forty calm days before an 

 earthquake. In the territory of Argyripa the com which is 

 sown never springs up. At the altars of Mucins, in the 

 country of the Veii, and aboat Tusculum, and in the Cim- 

 merian Forest, there are places in which things that are 

 pushed into the ground cannot be pulled out again. The 

 nay which is grown in Crustuminium is noxious on the spot, 

 but elsewhere it is wholesome*. 



CHAP. 99. (97.) — CONCEBNING THE CAUSE OF THE FLOWTKO 

 AND EBBIiTg of THE SEA. 



Much has been said about the nature of waters ; but the 

 most wonderful circumstance is the alternate flowing and 

 ebbing of the tides, which exists, indeed, under various forms, 

 but is caused by the sun and the moon. The tide flows 

 twice and ebbs twice between each two risings of the moon, 



1 Perhaps the author may refer to some kind of earth, possessed of 

 absorbent or astringent properties, like the Terra Sigillata or Armenian 

 Bole of the old Pharmacopoeias. 



2 A adpK, caro, and <pdyw, edo. We may conceive this stone to have 

 contained a portion of an acrid ingredient, perhaps of an alkaline natm«, 

 which, in some degree, might produce the effect here described. It does 

 not appear that the material of which the stone coffins are composed, to 

 which tliis name has been appHed, the workmanship of which is so much 

 an object of admiration, are any of them possessed of this property. 



3 Alexandre remarks on this statement, " Montes istse videntur ori- 

 ginem dedisse fabulse qusD in Arabicis Noctibus legitvir. ... ;" Lemaire, 

 i. 425. Fouche, indeed, observes, that there are mountains composed 

 principally of natural loadstone, which might sensibly attract a shoe 

 containing iron nails. Ajasson, ii. 386. But I conceive that we have no 

 evidence of the existence of the magnetic iron pyrites having ever been 

 found in sufficient quantity to produce any sensible effect of the kind 

 here described. 



'^ We may remark generally, that of the " miraciJa" related in this 

 chapter, the greates£ part are entirely without foundation, and the re- 

 mainder much exaggerated. 



