mentions that a stone of this kind was called by some the Heraclean, by others the Lydian, stone. It is very likely, however, that Pliny took his information from this treatise of Theophrastus. Since the term "Heraclean stone" was sometimes used to designate the lodestone, the term "Lydian stone," derived from Lydia in Asia Minor, where it was discovered or first used, was perhaps the more correct ancient name for the touchstone. Moreover, the term "Lydian stone" is the one that has come down into modern mineralogical literature. If, as stated by Hesychius,18 the Heraclean stone derived its name from Heraclea in Lydia, this may account in part for the confusion of the two names in the works of ancient writers. On the other hand, the application of both these names to the same stone in the works of the later writers may have originated entirely from the somewhat ambiguous wording of this passage in Theophrastus. It seems almost certain that Theophrastus really intended to say here that "some have the power of attraction; others can test gold and silver, such as the so-called Heraclean stone and the Lydian stone respectively,,"19 The properties and uses of the touchstone are described in sections 45, 46, and 47. See also the notes on tfiese sections in the commentary.
5. But the greatest and most wonderful power, if this
is true, is that of stones which give birth to young. This curious idea seems to be the result of observing certain kinds of geode-like concretions that consist of an outer shell within which is contained a clayey, sandy, or stony nucleus. Sometimes the internal material is held so loosely that the concretion rattles when shaken. The ancients apparently believed that such stones were pregnant, and that the mineral matter on the inside was in the process of being generated. Bailey20 thinks that the discovery of crystals with other smaller crystals attached was the origin of this idea. Though observations of such crystal growths may have contributed something to its origin, the available literary evidence gives more support to the other explanation.
18 S.v. 'BpaxXeta.
19 Pliny's misunderstanding of this passage was pointed out by Salmasius. See Plinianae Exercitationes (1689), 776aF.
20 The Elder Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects, Part II, p. 253.
