Page:Theophrastus - History of Stones - Hill (1774).djvu/107

  of writing in thoe early Times, had given Occaion to be ranked among them. What they really were is not eay, at this ditance of Time, to determine; but the mot probable Conjecture is, that they were Pyritæ; Specimens of which I have at this Time, that bear ome rude external Reemblance of the Pumice Kind; and we hall preently ee this Author decribing a Pumice, which he ays is omething like one Species of the Pyritæ, called Molaris; it may give ome Light into this Cae to oberve, that Strabo, mentioning this Iland, ays, ''Saxoa et & molaris lapidis copia prædita. De Laet imagines the Stone decribed by our Author mut have been very different from that of Strabos, becaue it was liable to crumble to pieces in the Fingers; but as I have already oberved, that the Molaris of the Antients was a Species of the Pyrites, and as no Stone is o liable to crumble in pieces as the Pyrites, when it has lain ome time expoed to the Air, and the Salts have hot and got looe, I am o far from being of his Opinion, that I look upon it as a Certainty, that the Niura Pumice of our Author, and Molaris of Strabo, are the very ame Subtance; and that Strabos Words are a great Confirmation of my Conjecture; as is alo the Size our Author allots the Stone, and its Property of crumbling in pieces, which he alo oberves was not univeral, but only happened to ome of them, thoe, I imagine, which had lain mot expoed, and the Salts of which had been let looe by the Humidity of the Air, while the others continued firm and olid, as thoe in England'' and other Places do, while lodged in the Strata they were originally depoited amongt. This I take to have been the Occaion of the different Degrees of Hardnes of this Subtance which our Author has decribed, though the Philoophy of his Times for they appear to have been formed by a light Coalecence only of an arenaceous Matter: What is eteemed a Proof of this is, that ome of the Pumices found there crumble in the handling into a kind of Sand, as if they never had been thoroughly concreted or bound into a Mas.

XXXVII. Thee are found in Heaps,