|
THEOPHRASTUS ON STONES
|
||
|
|
||
|
had been treated with gypsos in the form of quicklime, which seems highly improbable, this too would have become hydrated in the process, so that this substance, though it actually can generate enough heat on contact with water to ignite organic materials, could not have caused the fire on the ship. This story is even less plausible than the stories about Kydias and Kallias in sections 53 and 59. It is possible, of course, that a ship with separate cargoes of quicklime and clothing once caught fire because the lime became wet, or that a cargo of clothing that had been treated with gypsos once caught fire from spontaneous combustion or some other cause. Thus the story may have had a real basis, but the true cause was not understood and a wrong explanation was given.
69. Gypsos is also burnt in Phoenicia and in Syria, where it is fired in a furnace.
In section 64 Theophrastus has mentioned that gypsos was made in Phoenicia and Syria by burning stones. Here he explains how this was done.
Schneider and Wimmer bracket the words και καίοντες which occur in the manuscripts, since they seem redundant in addition to the main verb καίονσι. If καίοντες is kept, it could perhaps refer to the initial step of firing the stones, whereas the main verb would describe the whole process of burning them.
69. Marbles especially are burnt, and also the more ordinary kjnds of stones, while cow-manure is placed alongside the hardest ones to ma\e them burn better and more quickjy.
It is important to note that marble was used to produce gypsos; this shows that quicklime, which is obtained when marble is subjected to intense heat, was one of the substances listed under gypsos. The simpler or more ordinary kinds of stones, if the reading απλούστερους is correct, probably consisted of limestone; this was the most abundant rock in ancient Phoenicia and Syria, but marble also occurred there.
Schneider has a most ingenious suggestion about απλούστερους; he thinks that the wording may originally have been και άπλως τους στβρβωτάτους ("and in general the hardest stones"). The
|
||
|
|
||
|
• 220 ·
|
||
|
|
||