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Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone

Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Page of 251 Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
66
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
the latter writes that after removing the pitch the working is filled with earth and after a period of time the earth is changed to bitumen.
All bitumen is unctuous and fire and air are mixed with it in all pro­portions so that, as a rule, it will catch fire with ease. The more dense varieties catch fire easily when melted and since they possess the quality of denseness they will congeal again when placed in a cool room. Dry bitumen, whether natural or dried artificially, is used in many ways. Semiramis, using bitumen instead of mortar and without doubt before moistening it with water, erected a brick wall around Babylon. The Egyp­tians used it to preserve the bodies of the dead. The Sabaeans, burning it as incense, inhale the odors as a cure for head ailments. Pliny writes that when burned it is a cure for epilepsy. In medicine it warms and dries in the second degree and therefore coagulates bloody wounds and stops bleeding. Finally bitumen, both within the earth and on the surface, may be hardened and altered until it becomes as hard as a stone.
Let us take up now the earthy mineral to which writers have given various names. Galen called it stone, not realizing that it was the same as the pharmacist's earth he had just discussed. It is called ampelitis earth by those who have written on rural subjects. The Greeks call it κνίτας because, according to Galen, it harasses the worms gna\ving the buds of vines. It is given the same name by physicians and pharmacists because, more than any other earth, it has the efficacious power of healing and cur­ing. Theophrastus calls it carbo because it has the same color as coal; be­cause it catches fire and burns in the same way; and because it is used in the same way as coal. The German name is made up of the words for stone and coal.5 Actually it is just as easy to make up new words in our language as in Greek.
If bitumen is sufficiently hard to take a polish it is called gagates (jet). According to Dioscorides the name comes from the Gagas river in Lycia which empties into the ocean not far from Plagiopolis. It is found near the mouth of this river. However, Galen, who travelled along the entire coast of Lycia in a small boat and should have seen all the known things that have been found there, writes that he himself did not see the mouth of this river. Other writers have related that there was a town of Gagas in Lycia. According to Stephanus, in his first book on Lycia, Alexander called an ancient wall by that name. It is probable that when the town was deserted the name was transferred from the town to the river. Phocion Grammaticus writes that the Rhodians hid in this town. Pliny mentions Gagas and Rhodiopolin as towns of Lycia, each of which is likely to have been founded by the Rhodians. Nicander the grammarian says that this town in Lycia was called Ganga and Gangis and he refers to jet as hyyayyida rerpos. Strabo calls it gangitis. This same hard polished bitumen is called samothracia (gem of Samothrace) by Pliny—again I do not know
* Steinkohle.
Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone Page of 251 Book IV Sulphur, amber, Pliny's gems, jet, bitumen, naphtha, camphor, maltha, Samothracian gem, thracius stone, obsidianus stone
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