134 
Marcellinus Ammianus states, that the Persians were used to 
anoint their arrows with it ; and, when lighted, to shoot them into 
the roofs of their enemies’ houses, to set them on fire. 
Josephus* describes the lake Asphaltitis, or lake of Sodom; 
and particularly mentions no fish being able to live in it, the buoy- 
ancy of substances thrown on it, and of large lumps of bituminous 
matter floating on it, not unlike the bodies of bulls without heads. 
The length of this lake is five hundred and eighty furlongs, the 
breadth of it an hundred and fifty. It runs out from the river 
Jordan, as far as Zoar, in Africa, and borders upon the land of 
Sodom; where, he says, are yet to be seen the remains of five 
abominable cities, that perished in the conflagration produced by a 
judgment of fire from heaven. 
In Samosata, a town of Syria, Pliny relates, there was a pool 
which yielded an inflammable substance, called maltha f . Of the 
same nature, he observes, is naphtha, which flows in the manner of 
a liquid bitumen, and is found in Austragena, in ParthiaJ. He also 
informs us, that the lake Asphaltitis produces nothing but bitumen, 
whence its name. It will not receive into it the bodies of any animal; 
oxen and camels therefore float on it: and hence the report that 
nothing sinks in it §. 
iElian, Dion Cassius, and other writers, have dwelt with admira- 
tion on the wonders of Nymphceum, on the conflnes of Appollonia ; 
where, they say, there is a pit which is kept filled with bitumen, 
which rises from the earth in the same manner as a spring of water. 
Not far from thence is a place where continual flames are seen arising 
from the earth ; notwithstanding which, the earth is not burnt, nor 
do the plants and trees, which grow there, wither from the effects of 
the fire ; but flourish and grow to a considerable height. 
* Lestrange’s Translation, Wars of the Jews, book v. cap. 4 
f Lib. ii. cap. 104. J Lib. ii. cap. 105. § Lib. v. cap. 16. 
