Translation Page 58



	THEOPHRASTUS ON STONES

	of plants. But it would be best to list them according to their colors, which painters also use. These substances, as we said in the beginning, are produced either by some conflux or by percolation. Moreover, some seem to have been set on fire and burnt, such as realgar and orpiment and others of the same kind. To put it plainly, all of these result from a dry and smoky exhalation. 51 They are all found in silver and gold mines, and some of them in copper mines, such as orpiment, realgar, chryso\olla, red ochre, yellow ochre, and \yanos, but the last of these is seldom found and only in small quantities, whereas there are veins of some of the others, and yellow ochre is said to be found in masses. But there are all kinds of red ochre, so that painters can use it for flesh-colored pigments. And yellow ochre can take the place of orpiment, since there is no real difference in tiieir color, though there seems to be. 52 But in some places there are mines that even contain both red ochre and yellow ochre together, as for example in Cappadocia, and large quantities are dug up. But they say that the risk of suffocation is a serious matter for the miners, since this can happen to them quickly and takes a very short time. The best red ochre seems to be that of Ceos; for there are several kinds. One of them comes from mines, since iron mines also contain red ochre. But there is also the Lemnian kind and the one called Sinopic; this is really Cappadocian red ochre, but it is 53 brought down to Sinope. It is dug up by itself in ....** And there are three varieties of it, one very red, one light-colored, and a third whose color is midway between the others. We call this a self-sufficient kind because it does not have to be mixed, whereas the others do. It is also made by burning yellow ochre, but this is an inferior kind and is a discovery of Kydias; for it is said that he became aware of it when an inn burnt down, as he noticed that some yellow ochre was half-burnt and had become red in color. 54 New earthen vessels are covered with clay and placed in ovens; for when the vessels become red-hot, they heat the ochre, and as they become hotter in the fire, they make its color darker and more ⁴⁴ h τφ μικρψ is difficult; έι> rjj Κήμνφ ("in Lemnos") is a possible alternative.

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