Page:Theophrastus - History of Stones - Hill (1774).djvu/77

 uually brought among the Pumices, of which thoe Ilands always furnihed a large Quantity) is a mall Stone, uually about the Bignes of a Filbert, of an irregular and uncertain Shape, and porous friable Contitution, like that of the Pumices, but more eaily crumbling into Powder between the Fingers than even the ofteft Kinds of them. The Colour is generally of a duky grey, and the whole external Face of it evidently hews that it has uffered a Change by the Fire. The Ancients had thee Stones in great Eteem, and Pliny has recorded an idle Tradition concerning them, which, I uppoe, was then generally believed, uffita ea omnes betias evocari; but at preent they are o little regarded, that the Writers on thee Subjects have even forgot to name them: and Wormius, the only Naturalit of the more late ones, who had actually received them, and gave them a Place in his Mueum, and a Decription in the Hitory of it, eems not to have known that they ever had any Name at all. I don't know that any Body ele has oberved that his lapili cinerei Ætnæ, are the Liparis or Liparæus Lapis of the Antients; but his Decription o exactly agrees with ome Stones I have, which I received with ome Pumices from Hecla, and have always judged to be the Liparæi, that I make not the leat quetion of their being the very ame: His Words are, Ejudem montis (c. Ætnæ) et ab eodem tractu, ad me delati unt Lapilli, cinerei, obcuri & aduti, qui vi ignis naturam uam plane amierunt, & poroi unt redditi, læves & inequales, ita ut ad naturam Pumicum quam proxime accedant, ed friabihores unt & facile in minutiores partes, vel digitorum compre diiliant.

Beides thoe which I have from Iceland, I have ometimes een of them among Quantities of Pumice. I cannot ay I ever had the Fortune to find any one in a Mas of the Pumice; or ever had an Opportunity of oberving their Texture before they had paed the Fire: but the Account this Author gives of them may probably enough be true in both Circumtances; it being very common to oberve mall Stones of the Flint, Pebble, and other Kinds, immered in Maes of a different Texture; and aid, that in Melos the Pumice is produced in this Manner in ome other Stone, as this is on the contrary in it. But the Stone in which the Pumice is found, is not at all like the Lipara Stone, which is found in it.