Page:Theophrastus - History of Stones - Hill (1774).djvu/109

 many of them at leat as big as can be graped in a Man’s Hand, and ometimes larger than that, when the uperficial Part is taken off.

XXXVIII. All the Pumices of the Iland of Melos are alo light and The beginning of this Sentence appears to have been always hitherto faultily printed in the Editions which have come to our Knowledge; the Honour of etting it right, by the Emendation according to which I have given it, belongs to De Laet; whom it is much more Pleaure to me to name thus with Repect than Cenure; though an earnet Deire of doing the Author Jutice, and finding his true Meaning, the only End I have in view in thee Annotations on him, ometimes obliges me to peak in that manner. What is here, is in the other Editions ; which, as Sand was not the Subtance here treated of, could never have been the original Reading.

The Iland of Melos, ometime called alo Mimalis, has been always known to abound with Pumices, and thoe of the very finet Kind; which it did alo in this Author's Time, as appears by his Decription of their being light and andy, or eaily rubbed to Powder; from which lat Quality, poeed in ome Circumtances in a much greater degree, it was principally, I uppoe, that the Pyritæ of Niuros obtained the Name of Pumice: As from ome like Similitude of Subtances did the Stones next mentioned here under the Pumice Name, and aid to be produced in other Stones; and which, whatever they were, as it is not eay at this ditance of Time, and with the little Light we have from the Writings of the Antients, to acertain, I am perfectly convinced, however, from the Account of their being found in other Stone, and that as we cannot but conclude from the Detail, unaltered in its own Texture, were no genuine Pumices.

The Differences afterwards aigned to the andy; and ome Kinds there are which are produced, as was before oberved, in other Stones.