Prof. Blumenbach on the Genuine Opsian Stone. $69 
the very learned work of Vincentius, I fell upon the remarkable 
place where Nearchus, in his description of a sea voyage, re- 
lates, regarding the island Cataia, which was desert, and conse- 
crated to Mercury and Venus, situated on the coast of Carma- 
nia, that the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands carried 
thither sheep and goats yearly, and sacrificed them to the god 
and goddess, and that these animals, in course of time, became 
wild in the deserts Concerning the wild sheep in Phrygia, 
of which Varro f mentions that many flocks are seen there, I 
cannot presume to decide. In the mean time, however, even 
these may be considered as domestic sheep run wild, with 
greater probability, than as being of the Capra Ammon species, 
as was the opinion of Pennant. 
6. The Genuine Opsian Stone. 
Not to leave Mineralogy altogether untouched in these mis- 
cellaneous notices, we embrace the opportunity of adding a few 
words regarding the Opsian Stone, afforded by the Periplus Maris 
Erythraei, which accurately points out the native place in which 
this fossil occurs on the coast of the Arabian Sea j. And, as 
I learned from the classical commentaries of the Dean of 
Westminster on the subject §, that the illustrious Salt, so cele- 
brated for his travels in Ethiopia as well as in Arabia and the 
Indian Peninsula, had visited that place, found the opsian stone 
there, and brought it to England, and being desirous of seeing 
this hitherto problematical fossil, I was presented by our accom- 
plished colleague with two of his specimens, which the above 
celebrated traveller had gathered on the sandy shores of the 
Ethiopian Gulph Howakih, North Lat. 15° 10', in the month 
of January 1809 || ; and which I was convinced would, at first 
sight, settle the various dissensions regarding the opsian and op- 
* Eg rctvTViv (vjjo-ov) orot, stjj atytirou tx. T6JV tt&^ioixcjv 7rf>ofietToi x.oti ouyzg, 
i^et, rco 'E ^cvi xai rfi A<pgo^r*j. K oti tocZtol ec7trriy^ia^ivoi qv oqtiv vko %(>ovov 
n km egyptng. (p. 59-) 
f Page 238. Gesner’s Edition, 
$ Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean , in two 
volumes, London, 1807, to which are added the Voyage of Nearchus , and the 
Periplus of the Erythean Sea , Oxford, 1809, by William Vincent. 
§ Ibid. |J Salt’s Voyage to Abyssinia , London, 1814, p. 192, 
