190 DISTRICT OF TROAS. 
CHAP, it is not necessary to detain the Reader with 
VI. "^ 
>■ -, any new observations upon them. The water 
has the colour of whey ; it is impregnated with 
iron, and with salt ; and its temperature, when 
ascertained deep in the crevices whence it 
issues, equals 142° o^ Fahrenheit. These baths 
are much resorted to, for the cure of rheumatism, 
leprosy, and every cutaneous disorder. 
Formoftiie JournevinQ: hence towards Alexandria Troas, 
Sepulcliie ^ o 
caikd we observed, upon a granite Soros, part of an 
Inscription, of some importance in determining 
the particular nature of the sort of sepulchre 
whereon it was inscribed ; namely, one of those 
huge stone sepulchres used, in all parts of 
Turkey, as cisterns, beneath the public foun- 
tains'. The Romans began to call them Sar- 
cophagi about the time of Pliny, owing to a 
pecuhar kind of stone used in their construction, 
found at Assos upon the Adramyttian Gulph, and 
supposed to have the property of hastening the 
decomposition of the human body. St. Augustine 
(l) Sandys mistook them for antient cisterns. In his description 
of the Ruins of Alexandria Troas, (See Relation of a Journey, &c. 
p. 24.) he describes them as " ample cisternesfor the receit of raine," 
the city " being seated on a sandie soile, and altogether destitute of 
fountains." They generally consist of two immense masses of stone ; 
one of which, being hollowed, served as the coffin, and the other as 
its operculum. They vary considerably in their dimensions. That to 
which allusion is here made, was nearly seven feet long, and above 
three feet wide ; and this is the common size. 
