J, Lawrence Smith on the Thermal Waters of Asia Minor. 371 



among the dyers in a purple color made from a kind of root, and 

 owing to the remarkable adaptation of this water for that purpose, 

 the tint obtained is said to have rivalled the more costly purple, 

 and to have constituted the principal source of riches to the city. 

 The company of dyers is alluded to in the inscription on a square 

 building among the sepulchres. These waters also seem to have 

 possessed medical virtuesj if we are to judge from some of their 

 medals, on which you find Apollo (the tutelar deity of Hiera- 

 polis) with ^sculapius and Hygeia. 



Strabo alludes to a circumstance connected with these waters 

 that I inquired into while there, but without success. It is the 

 existence of what that author calls a Plutonium^ described as an 

 opening about the size of a man in the side of the hill, with a 

 kind of enclosure of half an acre in front of it; from the open- 

 ing there issued constantly a dark vapor, that filled the enclosure 

 in front of it. He states that all animals entering this enclosure 

 became suffocated, but that the sacred eunuchs who attended in 

 the temples could enter with impunity. 



I sought to discover this phiionium but without success, it 

 was doubtless an opening in the rock, from which issued a mix- 

 ture of carbonic acid and vapor of water, that has subsequently 

 become obstructed. 



Thermal Waters of Eski-Sliehr. 



Eski Shehr is the ancient Dorylseum, the plains of which are 

 very extensive. It is mentioned by the Byzantine writers as 

 the field of the first battles between the soldiers of the East- 

 ern empire and the Turks. It is situated on the river Purs- 

 ceck or Thymbius, which empties into the Sangarius, that flows 

 into the Black Sea, and is equidistant from that sea and the sea of 

 Marmora, being a little over one hundred miles from each. 



Eski- Shehr is a city of some importance to the Turks, and it 

 is from here that Europe derives the greater portion of that min- 

 eral called Meerschaum, used in making pipes. 



In a certain quarter of this city, by excavating to the depth of 

 a few feet, hot water is obtained, which is a matter o( great an- 

 noyance to the inhabitants, as they can have no wells of drinking 

 water. It is in this quarter that are situated the celebrated hot 

 baths, doubtless used for more than two thousand years, with 

 such change in structure as time and the habits of the people re- 

 quired. There is here a large excavation sixty or eighty feet 

 square, closed in with stone and roofed over; its depth I did not 

 "measure, but am told that it is twelve or fifteen feet. The wa- 

 ter arrives from many sources at the bottom of this reservoir. 



The reservoir was made by the Greeks and repaired some 

 years ago by the Turks. The amount of water furnished is 



