Chaps. 84-99.

Chap. 84. (82.)—Preservatives Against Future Earthquakes.

These same places [“In iisdem;” “Iidem, inquit, putei inclusum terra spiritum libero meatu emittentes, terræ motus avertunt.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 406.], however, afford protection, and this is also the case where there is a number of caverns, for they give vent to the confined vapour, a circumstance which has been remarked in certain towns, which have been less shaken where they have been excavated by many sewers. And, in the same town, those parts that are excavated [“Quæ pendent.” M. Ajasson translates this passage, “qui sont comme suspendues.” Hardouin’s explanation is, “Structis fornice cameris imposita ædificia intelligit; quod genus camerarum spiramenta plerumque habet non pauca, quibus exeat ad libertatem aer.” Lemaire, i. 407.] are safer than the other parts, as is understood to be the case at Naples in Italy, the part of it which is solid being more liable to injury. Arched buildings are also the most safe, also the angles of walls, the shocks counteracting each other; walls made of brick also suffer less from the shocks [Many of these circumstances are referred to by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 30. On the superior security of brick buildings, M. Alexandre remarks, “Muri e lateribus facti difficilius quam cæteri dehiscunt, unde fit ut in urbibus muniendis id constructionum genus plerumque præferatur. Ex antiquæ Italiæ palatiis templisve nihil fere præter immensas laterum moles hodie superest.”]. There is also a great difference in the nature of the motions [These remarks upon the different kinds of shocks are probably taken from Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 8.], where various motions are experienced. It is the safest when it vibrates and causes a creaking in the building, and where it swells and rises upwards, and settles with an alternate motion. It is also harmless when the buildings coming together butt against each other in opposite directions, for the motions counteract each other. A movement like the rolling of waves is dangerous, or when the motion is impelled in one direction. The tremors cease when the vapour bursts out [This observation is also in Aristotle, ii. 8.]; but if they do not soon cease, they continue for forty days; generally, indeed, for a longer time: some have lasted even for one or two years.

Chap. 85. (83.)—Prodigies of the Earth Which Have Occurred Once Only.

A great prodigy of the earth, which never happened more than once, I have found mentioned in the books of the Etruscan ceremonies, as having taken place in the district of Mutina, during the consulship of Lucius Martius and Sextus Julius [In the year of the city 663; A.C. 90.]. Two mountains rushed together, falling upon each other with a very loud crash, and then receding; while in the daytime flame and smoke issued from them; a great crowd of Roman knights, and families of people, and travellers on the Æmilian way, being spectators of it. All the farm-houses were thrown down by the shock, and a great number of animals that were in them were killed; it was in the year before the Social war; and I am in doubt whether this event or the civil commotions were more fatal to the territory of Italy. The prodigy which happened in our own age was no less wonderful; in the last year of the emperor Nero [In the year of the city 821; A.D. 68.], as I have related in my history of his times [The continuation of Aufidius Bassus’ history; our author refers to it in the first book.], when certain fields and olive grounds in the district of Marrucinum, belonging to Vectius Marcellus, a Roman knight, the steward of Nero, changed places with each other [We have no authentic accounts of this mutual change of place between two portions of land, nor can we conceive of any cause capable of effecting it. Our author mentions this circumstance again in book xvii. ch. 38.], although the public highway was interposed.

Chap. 86. (84.)—Wonderful Circumstances Attending Earthquakes.

Inundations of the sea take place at the same time with earthquakes [See Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 8.]; the water being impregnated with the same spirit [“Eodem videlicet spiritu infusi (maris) ac terræ residentis sinu recepti.”], and received into the bosom of the earth which subsides. The greatest earthquake which has occurred in our memory was in the reign of Tiberius [U.C. 770; A.D. 17. We have an account of this event in Strabo, xii. 57; in Tacitus, Ann. ii. 47; and in the Universal History, xiv. 129, 130. We are informed by Hardouin, that coins are still in existence which were struck to commemorate the liberality of the emperor on the occasion, inscribed “civitatibus Asiæ restitutis.” Lemaire, i. 410.], by which twelve cities of Asia were laid prostrate in one night. They occurred the most frequently during the Punic war, when we had accounts brought to Rome of fifty-seven earthquakes in the space of a single year. It was during this year [U.C. 537; A.C. 217.] that the Carthaginians and the Romans, who were fighting at the lake Thrasimenus, were neither of them sensible of a very great shock during the battle [This circumstance is mentioned by Livy, xxii. 5, and by Floras, ii. 6.]. Nor is it an evil merely consisting in the danger which is produced by the motion; it is an equal or a greater evil when it is considered as a prodigy [“Præsagiis, inquit, quam ipsa clade, sæviores sunt terræ motus.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 410.]. The city of Rome never experienced a shock, which was not the forerunner of some great calamity.

Chap. 87. (85.)—In What Places the Sea Has Receded.

The same cause produces an increase of the land; the vapour, when it cannot burst out forcibly lifting up the surface [This phænomenon is distinctly referred to by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 21. It presents us with one of those cases, where the scientific deductions of the moderns have been anticipated by the speculations of the ancients.]. For the land is not merely produced by what is brought down the rivers, as the islands called Echinades are formed by the river Achelous, and the greater part of Egypt by the Nile, where, according to Homer, it was a day and a night’s journey from the main land to the island of Pharos [Odyss. iv. 354-357; see also Arist. Meteor. i. 14; Lucan, x. 509-511; Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 26; Herodotus, ii. 4, 5; and Strabo, i. 59.]; but, in some cases, by the receding of the sea, as, according to the same author, was the case with the Circæan isles [These form, at this day, the Monte Circello, which, it is remarked, rises up like an island, out of the Pontine marshes. It seems, however, difficult to conceive how any action of the sea could have formed these marshes.]. The same thing also happened in the harbour of Ambracia, for a space of 10,000 paces, and was also said to have taken place for 5000 at the Piræus of Athens [See Strabo, i. 58.], and likewise at Ephesus, where formerly the sea washed the walls of the temple of Diana. Indeed, if we may believe Herodotus [ii. 5. et alibi.], the sea came beyond Memphis, as far as the mountains of Æthiopia, and also from the plains of Arabia. The sea also surrounded Ilium and the whole of Teuthrania, and covered the plain through which the Mæander flows [The plain in which this river flows, forming the windings from which it derives its name, appears to have been originally an inlet of the sea, which was gradually filled up with alluvial matter.].

Chap. 88. (86.)—The Mode in Which Islands Rise Up.

Land is sometimes formed in a different manner, rising suddenly out of the sea, as if nature was compensating the earth for its losses [“Paria secum faciente natura.” This appears to have been a colloquial or idiomatic expression among the Romans. See Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 412.], restoring in one place what she had swallowed up in another.

Chap. 89. (87.)—What Islands Have Been Formed, and at What Periods.

Delos and Rhodes [It may be remarked, that the accounts of modern travellers and geologists tend to confirm the opinion of the volcanic origin of many of the islands of the Archipelago.], islands which have now been long famous, are recorded to have risen up in this way. More lately there have been some smaller islands formed; Anapha, which is beyond Melos; Nea, between Lemnos and the Hellespont; Halone, between Lebedos and Teos; Thera [Brotier remarks, that, according to the account of Herodotus, this island existed previous to the date here assigned to it; Lemaire, i. 412, 413: it is probable, however, that the same name was applied to two islands, one at least of which was of volcanic origin.] and Therasia, among the Cyclades, in the fourth year of the 135th Olympiad [U.C. 517, A.C. 237; and U.C. 647, A.C. 107; respectively.]. And among the same islands, 130 years afterwards, Hiera, also called Automate [Hiera, Automata; ab ἱερὰ, sacer, et αὐτομάτη, sponte nascens. Respecting the origin of these islands there would appear to be some confusion in the dates, which it is difficult to reconcile with each other; it is, I conceive, impossible to decide whether this depends upon an error of our author himself, or of his transcribers.], made its appearance; also Thia, at the distance of two stadia from the former, 110 years afterwards, in our own times, when M. Junius Silanus and L. Balbus were consuls, on the 8th of the ides of July [July 25th, U.C. 771; A.C. 19.].

(88.) Opposite to us, and near to Italy, among the Æolian isles, an island emerged from the sea; and likewise one near Crete, 2500 paces in extent, and with warm springs in it; another made its appearance in the third year of the 163rd Olympiad [U.C. 628; A.C. 125.], in the Tuscan gulf, burning with a violent explosion. There is a tradition too that a great number of fishes were floating about the spot, and that those who employed them for food immediately expired. It is said that the Pithecusan isles rose up, in the same way, in the bay of Campania, and that, shortly afterwards, the mountain Epopos, from which flame had suddenly burst forth, was reduced to the level of the neighbouring plain. In the same island, it is said, that a town was sunk in the sea; that in consequence of another shock, a lake burst out, and that, by a third, Prochytas was formed into an island, the neighbouring mountains being rolled away from it.

In the ordinary course of things islands are also formed by this means. The sea has torn Sicily from Italy [See Ovid, Metam. xv. 290, 291; also Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 29.], Cyprus from Syria, Eubœa from Bœotia [This event is mentioned by Thucydides, lib. 3, Smith’s Trans, i. 293; and by Diodorus, xii. 7, Booth’s Trans. p. 287, as the consequence of an earthquake; but the separation was from Locris, not from Eubœa. See the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 415.], Atalante and Macris [It is somewhat uncertain to what island our author applied this name; see the remarks of Alexandre in Lemaire.] from Eubœa, Besbycus from Bithynia, and Leucosia from the promontory of the Sirens.

Chap. 91. (89.)—Islands Which Have Been United to the Main Land.

Again, islands are taken from the sea and added to the main land; Antissa [See Ovid, Metam. xv. 287.] to Lesbos, Zephyrium to Halicarnassus, Æthusa to Myndus, Dromiscus and Perne to Miletus, Narthecusa to the promontory of Parthenium. Hybanda, which was formerly an island of Ionia, is now 200 stadia distant from the sea. Syries is now become a part of Ephesus, and, in the same neighbourhood, Derasidas and Sophonia form part of Magnesia; while Epidaurus and Oricum are no longer islands [It is not improbable, from the situation and geological structure of the places here enumerated, that many of the changes mentioned above may have actually occurred; but there are few of them of which we have any direct evidence.].

Chap. 92. (90.)—Lands Which Have Been Totally Changed into Seas.

The sea has totally carried off certain lands, and first of all, if we are to believe Plato [This celebrated narrative of Plato is contained in his Timæus, Op. ix. p. 296, 297; it may be presumed that it was not altogether a fiction on the part of the author, but it is, at this time, impossible to determine what part of it was derived from ancient traditions and what from the fertile stores of his own imagination. It is referred to by various ancient writers, among others by Strabo. See also the remarks of Brotier in Lemaire, i. 416, 417.], for an immense space where the Atlantic ocean is now extended. More lately we see what has been produced by our inland sea; Acarnania has been overwhelmed by the Ambracian gulf, Achaia by the Corinthian, Europe and Asia by the Propontis and Pontus. And besides these, the sea has rent asunder Leucas, Antirrhium, the Hellespont, and the two Bosphori [Many of these changes on the surface of the globe, and others mentioned by our author in this part of his work, are alluded to by Ovid, in his beautiful abstract of the Pythagorean doctrine, Metam. xv. passim.].

Chap. 93. (91.)—Lands Which Have Been Swallowed Up.

And not to speak of bays and gulfs, the earth feeds on itself; it has devoured the very high mountain of Cybotus, with the town of Curites; also Sipylus in Magnesia [See Aristotle, Meteor. ii. 8, and Strabo, i. For some account of the places mentioned in this chapter the reader may consult the notes of Hardouin in loco.], and formerly, in the same place, a very celebrated city, which was called Tantalis; also the land belonging to the cities Galanis and Gamales in Phœnicia, together with the cities themselves; also Phegium, the most lofty ridge in Æthiopia [Poinsinet, as I conceive correctly, makes the following clause the commencement of the next chapter.]. Nor are the shores of the sea more to be depended upon.

Chap. 94. (92.)—Cities Which Have Been Absorbed by the Sea.

The sea near the Palus Mæotis has carried away Pyrrha and Antissa, also Elice and Bura [See Ovid, Metam. xv. 293-295; also the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 418.] in the gulf of Corinth, traces of which places are visible in the ocean. From the island Cea it has seized on 30,000 paces, which were suddenly torn off, with many persons on them. In Sicily also the half of the city of Tyndaris, and all the part of Italy which is wanting [“Spatium intelligit, fretumve, quo Sicilia nunc ab Italia dispescitur.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 419.]; in like manner it carried off Eleusina in Bœotia [See Strabo, ix.].

Chap. 95. (93.)—Of Vents in the Earth.

But let us say no more of earthquakes and of whatever may be regarded as the sepulchres of cities [“Busta urbium.”]; let us rather speak of the wonders of the earth than of the crimes of nature. But, by Hercules! the history of the heavens themselves would not be more difficult to relate:—the abundance of metals, so various, so rich, so prolific, rising up [“Suboriens,” as M. Alexandre explains it, “renascens;” Lemaire, i. 420.] during so many ages; when, throughout all the world, so much is, every day, destroyed by fire, by waste, by shipwreck, by wars, and by frauds; and while so much is consumed by luxury and by such a number of people:—the figures on gems, so multiplied in their forms; the variously-coloured spots on certain stones, and the whiteness of others, excluding everything except light:—the virtues of medicinal springs, and the perpetual fires bursting out in so many places, for so many ages:—the exhalation of deadly vapours, either emitted from caverns [“Scrobibus;” “aut quum terra fossis excavatur, ut in Pomptina palude, aut per naturales hiatus.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 420.], or from certain unhealthy districts; some of them fatal to birds alone, as at Soracte, a district near the city [This circumstance is mentioned by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 28, as occurring “pluribus Italiæ locis;” it may be ascribed to the exhalations from volcanos being raised up into the atmosphere. It does not appear that there is, at present, any cavern in Mount Soracte which emits mephitic vapours. But the circumstance of Soracte being regarded sacred to Apollo, as we learn from our author, vii. 2, and from Virgil, Æn. xi. 785, may lead us to conjecture that something of the kind may formerly have existed there.]; others to all animals, except to man [The author may probably refer to the well-known Grotto del Cane, where, in consequence of a stratum of carbonic acid gas, which occupies the lower part of the cave only, dogs and other animals, whose mouths are near the ground, are instantly suffocated.], while others are so to man also, as in the country of Sinuessa and Puteoli. They are generally called vents, and, by some persons, Charon’s sewers, from their exhaling a deadly vapour. Also at Amsanctum, in the country of the Hirpini, at the temple of Mephitis [Celebrated in the well-known lines of Virgil, Æn. vii. 563 et seq., as the “sævi spiracula Ditis.”], there is a place which kills all those who enter it. And the same takes place at Hierapolis in Asia [Apuleius gives us an account of this place from his own observation; De Mundo, § 729. See also Strabo, xii.], where no one can enter with safety, except the priest of the great Mother of the Gods. In other places there are prophetic caves, where those who are intoxicated with the vapour which rises from them predict future events [See Aristotle, De Mundo, cap. iv.], as at the most noble of all oracles, Delphi. In which cases, what mortal is there who can assign any other cause, than the divine power of nature, which is everywhere diffused, and thus bursts forth in various places?

Chap. 96. (94.)—Of Certain Lands Which Are Always Shaking, and of Floating Islands.

There are certain lands which shake when any one passes over them [“Ad ingressum ambulantium, et equorum cursus, terræ quoque tremere sentiuntur in Brabantino agro, quæ Belgii pars, et circa S. Audomari fanum.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 421, 422.]; as in the territory of the Gabii, not far from the city of Rome, there are about 200 acres which shake when cavalry passes over it: the same thing takes place at Reate.

(95.) There are certain islands which are always floating [See Seneca, Nat. Quæst. iii. 25.], as in the territory of the Cæcubum [Martial speaks of the marshy nature of the Cæcuban district, xiii. 115. Most of the places mentioned in this chapter are illustrated by the remarks of Hardouin; Lemaire, i. 422, 423.], and of the above-mentioned Reate, of Mutina, and of Statonia. In the lake of Vadimonis and the waters of Cutiliæ there is a dark wood, which is never seen in the same place for a day and a night together. In Lydia, the islands named Calaminæ are not only driven about by the wind, but may be even pushed at pleasure from place to place, by poles: many citizens saved themselves by this means in the Mithridatic war. There are some small islands in the Nymphæus, called the Dancers [“Saltuares.” In some of the MSS. the term here employed is Saliares, or Saltares; but in all the editions which I am in the habit of consulting, it is Saltuares.], because, when choruses are sung, they are moved by the motions of those who beat time. In the great Italian lake of Tarquinii, there are two islands with groves on them, which are driven about by the wind, so as at one time to exhibit the figure of a triangle and at another of a circle; but they never form a square [There is, no doubt, some truth in these accounts of floating islands, although, as we may presume, much exaggerated. There are frequently small portions of land detached from the edges of lakes, by floods or rapid currents, held together and rendered buoyant by a mass of roots and vegetable matter. In the lake of Keswick, in the county of Cumberland, there are two small floating islands, of a few yards in circumference, which are moved about by the wind or by currents; they appear to consist, principally, of a mass of vegetable fibres.].

Chap. 97. (96.)—Places in Which It Never Rains.

There is at Paphos a celebrated temple of Venus, in a certain court of which it never rains; also at Nea, a town of Troas, in the spot which surrounds the statue of Minerva: in this place also the remains of animals that are sacrificed never putrefy [It has been observed, that there are certain places where bodies remain for a long time without undergoing decomposition; it depends principally upon a dry and cool condition of the air, such as is occasionally found in vaults and natural caverns. See the remarks of Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 424.].

Chap. 98.—The Wonders of Various Countries Collected Together.

Near Harpasa, a town of Asia, there stands a terrific rock, which may be moved by a single finger; but if it be pushed by the force of the whole body, it resists [We may conceive of a large mass of rock being so balanced upon the fine point of another rock, as to be moved by the slightest touch; but, that if it be pushed with any force, it may be thrown upon a plane surface, and will then remain immovable.]. In the Tauric peninsula, in the state of the Parasini, there is a kind of earth which cures all wounds [Perhaps the author may refer to some kind of earth, possessed of absorbent or astringent properties, like the Terra Sigillata or Armenian Bole of the old Pharmacopœias.]. About Assos, in Troas, a stone is found, by which all bodies are consumed; it is called Sarcophagus [A σὰρξ, caro, and φάγω, edo. We may conceive this stone to have contained a portion of an acrid ingredient, perhaps of an alkaline nature, which, in some degree, might produce the effect here described. It does not appear that the material of which the stone coffins are composed, to which this name has been applied, the workmanship of which is so much an object of admiration, are any of them possessed of this property.]. There are two mountains near the river Indus; the nature of one is to attract iron, of the other to repel it: hence, if there be nails in the shoes, the feet cannot be drawn off the one, or set down on the other [Alexandre remarks on this statement, “Montes istæ videntur originem dedisse fabulæ quæ in Arabicis Noctibus legitur...;” Lemaire, i. 425. Fouché, indeed, observes, that there are mountains composed principally of natural loadstone, which might sensibly attract a shoe containing iron nails. Ajasson, ii. 386. But I conceive that we have no evidence of the existence of the magnetic iron pyrites having ever been found in sufficient quantity to produce any sensible effect of the kind here described.]. It has been noticed, that at Locris and Crotona, there has never been a pestilence, nor have they ever suffered from an earthquake; in Lycia there are always forty calm days before an earthquake. In the territory of Argyripa the corn which is sown never springs up. At the altars of Mucius, in the country of the Veii, and about Tusculum, and in the Cimmerian Forest, there are places in which things that are pushed into the ground cannot be pulled out again. The hay which is grown in Crustuminium is noxious on the spot, but elsewhere it is wholesome [We may remark generally, that of the “miracula” related in this chapter, the greatest part are entirely without foundation, and the remainder much exaggerated.].

Chap. 99. (97.)—Concerning the Cause of the Flowing and Ebbing of the Sea.

Much has been said about the nature of waters; but the most wonderful circumstance is the alternate flowing and ebbing of the tides, which exists, indeed, under various forms, but is caused by the sun and the moon. The tide flows twice and ebbs twice between each two risings of the moon, always in the space of twenty-four hours. First, the moon rising with the stars [“Mundo;” the heavens or visible firmament, to which the stars and planets appear to be connected, so as to be moved along with it.] swells out the tide, and after some time, having gained the summit of the heavens, she declines from the meridian and sets, and the tide subsides. Again, after she has set, and moves in the heavens under the earth, as she approaches the meridian on the opposite side, the tide flows in; after which it recedes until she again rises to us. But the tide of the next day is never at the same time with that of the preceding; as if the planet was in attendance [“Ancillante;” “Credas ancillari sidus, et indulgere mari, ut non ab eadem parte, qua pridie, pastum ex oceano hauriat.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 427.], greedily drinking up the sea, and continually rising in a different place from what she did the day before. The intervals are, however, equal, being always of six hours; not indeed in respect of any particular day or night or place [Not depending on the time of the rising and setting of the sun or the latitude of the place, but determinate portions of the diurnal period.], but equinoctial hours, and therefore they are unequal as estimated by the length of common hours, since a greater number of them [By a conjectural variation of a letter, viz. by substituting “eos” for “eas,” Dalechamp has, as he conceives, rendered this passage more clear; the alteration is adopted by Lemaire.] fall on some certain days or nights, and they are never equal everywhere except at the equinox. This is a great, most clear, and even divine proof of the dullness of those, who deny that the stars go below the earth and rise up again, and that nature presents the same face in the same states of their rising and setting [“In iisdem ortus occasusque operibus;” “Eodem modo utrinque orientibus occidentibusque sideribus,” as interpreted by Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 428.]; for the course of the stars is equally obvious in the one case as in the other, producing the same effect as when it is manifest to the sight.

There is a difference in the tides, depending on the moon, of a complicated nature, and, first, as to the period of seven days. For the tides are of moderate height from the new moon to the first quarter; from this time they increase, and are the highest at the full: they then decrease. On the seventh day they are equal to what they were at the first quarter, and they again increase from the time that she is at first quarter on the other side. At her conjunction with the sun they are equally high as at the full. When the moon is in the northern hemisphere, and recedes further from the earth, the tides are lower than when, going towards the south, she exercises her influence at a less distance [It is scarcely necessary to remark, that both the alleged fact and the supposed cause are incorrect. And this is the case with what our author says in the next sentence, respecting the period of eight years, and the hundred revolutions of the moon.]. After an interval of eight years, and the hundredth revolution of the moon, the periods and the heights of the tides return into the same order as at first, this planet always acting upon them; and all these effects are likewise increased by the annual changes of the sun [“Solis annuis causis.” The circumstances connected with the revolution of the sun, acting as causes of the period and height of the tides, in addition to the effect of the moon.], the tides rising up higher at the equinoxes, and more so at the autumnal than at the vernal; while they are lower [“Inanes;” “Depressiores ac minus tumentes.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 429.] about the winter solstice, and still more so at the summer solstice; not indeed precisely at the points of time which I have mentioned, but a few days after [According to the remark of Alexandre, “Uno die et dimidio altero, 36 circiter horis, in Gallia.” Lemaire, i. 429.]; for example, not exactly at the full nor at the new moon, but after them; and not immediately when the moon becomes visible or invisible, or has advanced to the middle of her course, but generally about two hours later than the equinoctial hours [Alexandre remarks on this passage, “Variat pro locis hoc intervallum a nullo fere temporis momento ad undecim horas et amplius;” Lemaire, i. 429.]; the effect of what is going on in the heavens being felt after a short interval; as we observe with respect to lightning, thunder, and thunderbolts.

But the tides of the ocean cover greater spaces and produce greater inundations than the tides of the other seas; whether it be that the whole of the universe taken together is more full of life than its individual parts, or that the large open space feels more sensibly the power of the planet, as it moves freely about, than when restrained within narrow bounds. On which account neither lakes nor rivers are moved in the same manner. Pytheas [Our author has already referred to Pytheas, in the 77th chapter of this book.] of Massilia informs us, that in Britain the tide rises 80 cubits [It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the space here mentioned, which is nearly 120 feet, is far greater than the actual fact.]. Inland seas are enclosed as in a harbour, but, in some parts of them, there is a more free space which obeys the influence [“Ditioni paret;” “Lunæ solisque efficientiæ, quæ ciet æstum.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 430.]. Among many other examples, the force of the tide will carry us in three days from Italy to Utica, when the sea is tranquil and there is no impulse from the sails [The effect here described could not have depended upon the tides, but upon some current, either affecting the whole of the Mediterranean, or certain parts of it. See the remarks of Hardouin in Lemaire.]. But these motions are more felt about the shores than in the deep parts of the seas, as in the body the extremities of the veins feel the pulse, which is the vital spirit, more than the other parts [Pliny naturally adopted the erroneous opinions respecting the state of the blood-vessels, and the cause of the pulse, which were universally maintained by the ancients.]. And in most estuaries, on account of the unequal rising of the stars in each tract, the tides differ from each other, but this respects the period, not the nature of them; as is the case in the Syrtes.