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THEOPHRASTUS ON STONES
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exposed to the sun, and it does this all the more if it is moistened and sprinkled with water.
14 But the Liparean stone12 is made porous when it is burnt, and becomes like pumice, so that both its color and density are altered; for before it has been burnt it is black, smooth, and compact. This stone is found in pumice, appearing separately in various places and not continuously, as if it were in a cell of a honeycomb. In the same way it is said that in Melos pumice is found in another kind of stone, and so the Liparean stone corresponds to this in the opposite way, as it were, except that this stone is not the same as the Liparean stone.
15 The stone which is found at Tetras in Sicily also becomes porous. This place is in the neighborhood of Lipara, and the stone is plentiful in the promontory called Erineas. Like the stone found at Binai, it releases a bituminous odor when it is burnt, and what remains after the burning is similar to burnt earth.
16 Among the substances that are dug up because they are useful, those known simply as coals are made of earth, and they are set on fire and burnt like charcoal. They are found in Liguria, where amber also occurs, and in Elis as one goes by the mountain road to Olympia; and they are actually used by workers in metals.
17 In the mines at Scapte Hyle a stone was once found which was like rotten wood in appearance. Whenever oil was poured on it, it burnt, but when the oil had been used up, the stone stopped burning, as if it were itself unaffected. These are roughly the differences in the stones that burn.
18 But there is another kind of stone which seems to be of an exactly opposite nature, since it cannot be burnt. It is called anthrax, and seals are cut from it; it is red in color, and when it is held towards the sun it has the color of a burning coal. One might say that it has great value; for a very small one costs forty pieces of gold. It is brought from Carthage and Massalia.
19 The stone found near Miletus does not burn; it is angular and there are hexagonal shapes on it. It is also called anthrax, and this is remarkable, for in a way the nature of adamas13 is similar.
This power of resisting fire does not seem to be due to the
12 Obsidian.
13 Probably corundum. See Commentary, sees. 19 and 44.
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