124 PLIJfT's FATUEAL HISTOET. [Book IT, 
earth wliicli 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 corn which is 
sown never springs up. At the altars of Mucins, in the 
country of the Yeii, and about Tusculum, and in the Cim- 
merian Forest, there are places in which things that are 
ushed into the ground cannot be pulled out again. The 
ay which is grown in Crustuminium is noxious on tlie spot, 
but elsewhere it is wholesome''. 
CHAP. 99. (97.) — COIfCEEI^IIs^a the cause OE the EL0WI1T(3^ 
AIs^H EBBINa OE 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, 
^ Perhaps the author may refer to some kind of earth, possessed of 
absorbent or astrmgent properties, Hke the Terra Sigiliata or Armenian 
[Bole of the old Pharmacopoeias. 
^ A crdp^, caro, and <pdyw, edo. We may conceive this stone to have 
contained a portion of an acrid ingredient, perhaps of an alkaline nature, 
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 quae in Arabicis Noctibus legitur . . . . ;" 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 kmd 
here described. 
We may remark generally, that of the " miracula" related in this 
chapter, the greatest part are entirely without foundation, and the re- 
mainder much exaggerated. 
