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 124 flint's nattjeal histoet. [Book IT. earth wMcli 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 oif 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 Ljcia 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 pushed into the ground cannot be pulled out again. The hay which is growTi in Crustuminium is noxious on tlie spot, but elsewhere it is wholesome ^ CHAP. 99. (97.) CONCEENIlfG THE CAUSE OE THE rLOWIF& AISTD EBBINa OF 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, 1 Perhaps the author may refer to some land of earth, possessed of absorbent or astrmgent properties, Hke the Terra Sigillata or Armenian Eole of the old Pharmacopoeias. ^ A (TcipE, caro, and (pdyoj, edo. We may conceive this stone to have contained a portion of an acrid ingredient, pei'haps of an alkahne natm-e, wliich, 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 workmanslnp of which is so much an object of admiration, are any of them possessed of this propei'ty. 3 Alexandre rejnarks on this statement, " Montes istae videntur ori- ginem dechsse fabulae quae in Arabicis Noctibus legitvir . . . . ;" Lemaire, i. 425. Fouche, indeed, observes, that there are mountams composed principally of natural loadstone, which might sensibly attract a shoe containmg 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 kind here described. "* We may remark generally, that of the " mu-acida" related in this chapter, the greatest part are entirely without foundation, and the I'e- mainder much exaggerated.