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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
BOOK IV
73
probably a bitumen than sulphur. Additional evidence is found when bi­tumen is cooked artificially and part of it turned into oil of a characteristic color, part into black bitumen which is purple when finely ground and so similar to the material found in Judea that it cannot be distinguished from it, part into black ashes and finally part into a white tenuous sub­stance that bears a certain similarity and appearance to salt. This, having been set on fire, decrepitates similar to any other tenuous juice.
Now may we consider what has been written about the places where amber forms and the regions where it is found. The Greeks, especially the Greek poets, were of the opinion that it formed most abundantly in Italy. Some say along the Po river, others on the islands they call Electridas, still others along the cliffs on the shore of the Adriatic Gulf. Sudines and Metrodorus say that it formed in Liguria and that the amber trees can be seen there. Zenothemis writes that it is formed near the Po but says it is the urine of beasts he calls "langae." Theophrastus writes in De Lapidibus that it is found in Liguria. Strabo writes that Liguria abounds in lyncurium which certain ones call electrum, a proper use of the term. As a result of a false idea certain ones have given this mineral the name lyn­curium derived from the name lynx,
"From which, as they relate, whatever comes from the bladder It is turned into stone, and it congeals when it touches the air."
At no time has any amber congealed from the urine of the lynx as Pliny correctly believed. The older Roman writers did not have a correct theory concerning amber although it formed in Italy, nor have our own writers, with their superior mental ability, profited by the formers' thinking when considering natural things. Pliny accepted the creation theory because the peasant women north of the Po wear amber as a necklace both for the sake of beauty (I use his words) and as a remedy since they believed that it prevented tonsilitis and throat troubles by soothing the throat and adjacent flesh. Theophrastus and Xenocrates believed that it was formed in Spain since storms threw it on the beach of a promontory of the Pyrenees. However in Spain as in southern Germany we find jet but no amber. Black bitumen that has been changed into stone is not an amber as the Moors and we Germans have falsely believed. Likewise Sotacus, who believed that it flowed from trees in Britain, is also in error.
The European localities where amber is found have been mentioned by following writers, Pytheas, Timaeus, Nicias, Mithridates, C. Pliny and Cornelius Tacitus. Pytheas and Timaeus have written that the waves of the ocean carry it, in the spring, to an island and that it is the dregs of the sea. Pytheas calls the island Abulus and Timaeus, Bannomanna. The for­mer says that the island is one day's sail from the Mentonomus estuary where the Guttones of Germany live, the latter, the same distance from Scythia. Neither writer says what these congealed dregs of the sea are or whence they come. They only indicate that they are cast up by the sea.
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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