476 pltnt's katural history. [Book XXXI* 
Gaul, has a spring of great renown, which sparkles as it 
bursts forth with bubbles innumerable, and has a certain 
ferruginous taste, only to be perceived after it has been 
drunk. This water is strongly purgative, is curative of tertian 
fevers, and disperses urinary calculi : upon the application of 
fire it assumes a turbid appearance, and finally turns red. The 
springs*^ of Leucogaea, between Puteoli and I^eapolis, are 
curative of eye diseases and of wounds. Cicero, in his work 
entitled Admiranda,"^^ has remarked that it is only by the 
waters of the marshes of Eeate^^ that the hoofs of beasts of 
burden are hardened. 
CHAP. 9. WATERS WHICH COLOUR THE HAIR. 
E adieus informs us that in Hestiaeotis there are two 
springs ; one of which, Cerona, renders sheep black that drink 
of it, while the other, called JS'eleus, turns them white : if, 
again, a sheep should happen to drink their waters mixed, its 
fleece will be mottled. According to Theophrastus, the water 
of the Crathis,*^ a river of Thurii, makes sheep and cattle 
white, while that of the river Sybaris turns them black. 
CHAP. 10. WATERS WHICH COLOrR THE HUMAN BODY. 
And not only this, but human beings even, Theophrastus 
tells us, are sensible of this difference : for persons who drink 
the water of the Sybaris, he says, become more swarthy and 
more hardy, the hair inclining to curl : while those, again, 
who drink of the Crathis become fair and more soft- skinned, 
with the hair growing straight and long. So, too, in Mace- 
donia, persons who wish the produce to be white, drive their 
cattle to the river Haliacmon, while those who desire a black 
or tawny colour, take them to water at the Axius. Upon the 
Spa ; but it is more probable that he alludes to the spring still in existence 
at the adjacent town of Tongres, which was evidently well known to the 
Eomans, and is still called the " Fountain of Pliny." 
*i The springs on the present Monte Posilippo. 
*2 This work is lost. Chifflet suggests that ^' Varro " should be read. 
See, however, B. vii. c. 2, E. xxix. c. 16 and c. 28 of this Book. It was 
a common-place book, probably,, of curious facts. 
43 See B. ii. c. 106, where a growing rock in the marsh of Reate is 
mentioned. 
In Thessaly. A mere fable, no doubt. 
*5 Ovid, Met. xv. 315, et seq., tells very nearly the same fabulous story 
about the rivers Cruthis and Sybaris. 
