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many of them at leaſt as big as can be graſped in a Man’s Hand, and ſometimes larger than that, when the ſuperficial Part is taken off.
XXXVIII. All the Pumices of the Iſland of Melos are alſo light and [1]ſandy; and ſome Kinds there are which are produced, as was before obſerved, in other Stones.
- ↑ The beginning of this Sentence appears to have been always hitherto faultily printed in the Editions which have come to our Knowledge; the Honour of ſetting it right, by the Emendation according to which I have given it, belongs to De Laet; whom it is much more Pleaſure to me to name thus with Reſpect than Cenſure; though an earneſt Deſire of doing the Author Juſtice, and finding his true Meaning, the only End I have in view in theſe Annotations on him, ſometimes obliges me to ſpeak in that manner. What is here καὶ ἀμμώδης, is in the other Editions ἡ καὶ ἄμμος; which, as Sand was not the Subſtance here treated of, could never have been the original Reading.
The Iſland of Melos, ſometime called alſo Mimalis, has been always known to abound with Pumices, and thoſe of the very fineſt Kind; which it did alſo in this Author's Time, as appears by his Deſcription of their being light and ſandy, or eaſily rubbed to Powder; from which laſt Quality, poſſeſſed in ſome Circumſtances in a much greater degree, it was principally, I ſuppoſe, that the Pyritæ of Niſuros obtained the Name of Pumice: As from ſome like Similitude of Subſtances did the Stones next mentioned here under the Pumice Name, and ſaid to be produced in other Stones; and which, whatever they were, as it is not eaſy at this diſtance of Time, and with the little Light we have from the Writings of the Antients, to aſcertain, I am perfectly convinced, however, from the Account of their being found in other Stone, and that as we cannot but conclude from the Detail, unaltered in its own Texture, were no genuine Pumices.
The Differences afterwards aſſigned to the
had not looked far enough into Nature to ſee the Caue.
