|
TRANSLATION
|
||
|
|
||
|
absence of moisture, as is true of pumice and ashes. For these cannot be set on fire and burnt, because the moisture has been removed, and some think that pumice is formed entirely as a result of burning, with the exception of the kind that is produced from the foam of the sea. Their belief is due to observation and is based on what is produced in craters of volcanoes and also on the porous stone14 which changes15 to pumice when it is fired. And the places where it is produced seem to prove this, for pumice is found especially in places that... .1β
But perhaps one kind is made in this way, and others in another way, and there are many methods of producing it; for the pumice found in Nisyros seems to consist of a kind of sand. And it is regarded as proof of this that some of the stones which are found break into pieces in one's hands and crumble into sand, as it were, because they have not yet become compact and solid. People find them in groups but in small amounts," mostly about a handful in size or a little larger, whenever they scrape off the surface covering them. And the sand is very light. The kind found in Melos is all . . . ,18 but some are produced in a stone of a different sort, as has been mentioned before.
They differ from one another in color, density, and weight. They differ in color because the kind that comes from the lava stream in Sicily is black, and this stone and the malodes1* differ in density and weight; for a pumice of this kind, having both weight and density, is also produced, and this is more valuable than the other in its practical use. The one that comes from the lava stream can cut better than the white kind, which is light in weight, but the kind that comes from the sea itself cuts best of all. So much for pumice. But we must consider elsewhere the causes
14 diabaros, perhaps diaboros.
15 The Aldine text has ού (i.e., "which does not change"). Wimmer accepts this, but f) is found in the manuscripts (i.e., "which changes").
1β The emendation καιομ,ίνοΐί would mean "places that are burning"; νυρικαύστοα would mean "places that have been subjected to burning."
17 κατά μικρά is used sometimes by Aristotle in this sense. Cf. Meteorologica, 370B, 5.
18 The emendation σχεδάχ dis ec Ήισύρφ would mean "almost like the kind in Nisyros," but ήθραυστοί, in \ίβφ Si . . . would mean "easily broken, but is produced in a stone."
18 Malodes is unknown; melodes would suggest a pale-yellow stone, and mylodes would be a millstone.
|
||
|
|
||
|
• 49 ·
|
||
|
|
||