Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/166

 ^32 plint's natural history. [Book II. smus m Argolis, and the Tigris' in Mesopotamia, sink into to- eartli and hurst out again. Substances which are thrown into the fountain of ^sculapius at Athens^ are cast up at the fountain of Phalerum. The river which sinks into the ground in the plain of Atinum^ comes up again at the distance of twenty miles, and the Timavus does the same m Aquileia^ In the lake Asplialtites, in Judsea, which produces bitumen, no substance will sink, nor in the lake Arethusa^ in the Greater Armenia : in this lake, although it contains nitre hsh are found. In the country of the Salentini, near the town of Mandui'ia, there is a lake« full to the brim, the waters of which are never diminished by what is taken out of it, nor increased by what is added. Wood, which is thrown into the river of the Cicones^ or into the lake Yelinus m Picenum, becomes coated with a stony crust, while in the Sarins, a river of Colchis, the whole substance becomes as hard as stone. In the same manner, in the Silarus^ beyond 1 This is again referred to by oui^ author, vi. 31 j also by Strabo, and bj Seneca, Nat. Qusest. iii. 26. ^ Pansanias. 3 The river here refen-ed to is the Tanager, the modern Eio Negro. See the remarks of Hardouin and Alexandi-e m Lemaire, i. 439. ^ From a note in Pomsinet, i. 302, we learn that there has been some dgubt respectmg the locahty of this river. It is mentioned by Virgil Mn. 1 244, and it forms the subject of Heyne's 7th Excursus, ii. 124 el seq. ^ u'gil also speaks of the Tunavus, Ec. viii. 6 ; and Heyne, in a note gives the toUowmg description of it : " Timavus in ora Adriee, non longe ab Aqmleia fluvius ex terra novem fontibus seu capitibus progressus brevi cursu, m unum alveimi coUectus, lato altoque flumine in mare exit." i. 127, 128. 5 This remark is not to be taken in its fuU extent ; the water of these lakes contams a large quantity of sahne and other substances dissolved in It, and, consequently, has its specific gravity so much increased, that various substances float on it which sink m pure water. 6 According to Hardouin, this is now caUed the Lake of Andoria, near the town of Casahiuovo ; Lemaire, i. 439. Poinsmet caUs it Anduria 1. 303. ' 7 The petrifying quality of this river is referred to by Ovid, Met. xv. 313, 314 ; Seneca quotes these Imes when treating on this subject Nat Quajst. iii. 20. j > • 8 Ai'istotle, Strabo, and Silius Itahcus, viii. 582, 583, refer to this pro- perty of the SHarus ; but, accordmg to Brotier, it does not appear to be known to the present inliabitants of the district thi-ough which it flows. Lomaire, i. 410.