Chap. 98.] 
EEMAEKABLE OBJECTS. 
123 
only driven about by tbe wind, but may be even pushed at 
pleasure from place to place, by poles : many citizens saved 
themselves by this means in the Mithridatic war. There are 
some small islands in the ISTymphsBus, called the Dancers \ 
because, when choruses are sung, they are moved by the 
motions of those who beat time. In the great Italian lake of 
Tarquinii, there are two islands with, groves on them, which 
are driven about by the wind, so as at one time to exhibit 
the figure of a triangle and at another of a circle ; but they 
never form a square^. 
CHAP. 97. (96.) — PLACES m which it IS^EVEE, BAIKS. 
There is at Paphos a celebrated temple of Venus, in a 
certain court of which it never rains : also at N ea, a town 
of Troas, in the spot which surrounds the statue of Minerva : 
in this place also the remains of animals that are sacrificed 
never putrefy^. 
CHAP. 98.- — THE WOTOEES OF YABIOUS COUOTBIES 
COLLECTED TOGETHEB. 
IN'ear Ilarpasa, a town of Asia, there stands a terrific rock, 
which may be moved by a single finger ; but if it be pushed 
by the force of the whole body, it resists^. In the Tauric 
peninsula, in the state of the Parasini, there is a kind of 
1 "Saltuares." In some of the MSS. the term here employed is 
Sahares, or Saltares ; but in all the editions which I am in the habit of 
consulting, it is Saltuares. 
^ There is, no doubt, some truth in these accounts of floating islands, 
although, as we may presume, much exaggerated. There are frequently 
small portions of land detached from the edges of lakes, by floods or 
rapid currents, held together and rendered buoyant by a mass of roots 
and vegetable matter. In the lake of Keswick, in the county of Oum- 
berland, there are two small floating islands, of a few yards in cu'cum- 
ference, which are moved about by the wind or by currents ; they appear 
to consist, principally, of a mass of vegetable fibres. 
3 It has been observed, that there are certain places where bodies 
remain for a long time without undergoing decomposition ; it depends 
principally upon a dry and cool condition of the air, such as is occa- 
sionally found in vaults and natural caverns. See the remarks of 
Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 424. 
^ We may conceive of a large mass of rock being so balanced upon the 
fine point of another rock, as to be moved by the slightest touch ; but, 
that if it be pushed with any force, it may be thrown upon a plane sur- 
face, and will then remain immovable. 
