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DE NATUBA FO SSI LIU Μ
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the coral that is red, has an odor of algae, is easily crushed, has congealed uniformily and is branching.
Stalks form from a petrifying juice19
in other places than in the sea. For example, thyme, a variety of
laurel, and other similar species are found petrified near the
mountains of Calpe and Abyla at the Straits of Gibraltar, reeds and
bulrushes in India and fungus in the Red Sea. Both Theo-phrastus and
Pliny are the authorities for these things that have been changed into
stone. Calamites named from κάλαμος, a reed, belongs to this genus and syringites which was a hollow stem like a pipe between joints. Also phycites which derives its name from a resemblance to algae.
Enough of this. I shall now take up the stones that are formed within the earth.
19 To explain and rationalize the origin of minerals and certain rocks Agricola developed the theory of a petrifying juice (succus lapidescens, De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum, pp. 51-57). This was a revolutionary concept, far in advance of the contemporary and earlier theories of petrific seed, vis formativa, celestial
influence, and many others. In developing his theory of the origin of
this juice and its action within the earth in producing stones and
minerals, particularly in veins, Agricola apparently had the germ of
the modern concepts of mineral formation. In many passages the proper
translation would be "mineralizing solution."
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