100 THERMAL WATERS OF ASIA MINOR. 



The incrustation of the spring was analyzed ; it is remark- 

 ably white, and almost pure carbonate of lime. The composi- 

 tion is as follows : 



Carbonate of lime 98.2 



Silica 00.6 



Magnesia ~\ 



Phosphate of lime.... Y 1.2=100.0 



Fluoride of calcium J 



At the present day these waters are not used, and the 

 neighboring country is quite deserted, with the exception of 

 a miserable village of some half dozen huts. In former times, 

 however, besides the use of this water for the baths, it was 

 greatly in repute among the d}^ers 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 rivaled 

 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 sepul- 

 chers. These waters also seem to have possessed medical 

 virtues, if we are to judge from some of their medals, on which 

 you find Apollo (the tutelar deity of Hierapolis), with Escu- 

 lapius 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 plutoniwn, described as an 

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

 kind of inclosure of half an acre in front of it; from the 

 opening there issued constantly a dark vapor that filled the 

 inclosure in front of it. He states that all animals entering 

 this inclosure became suffocated, but that the sacred eunuchs 

 who attended in the temples could enter with impunity. 



I sought to discover this plutonium, but without success ; it 

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

 mixture of carbonic acid and vapor of water, that had subse- 

 quently become obstructed. . . 



THERMAL WATERS OF ESKI-SHEHR. 



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- 



