[114] PAGE 47, LINE 34. Page 47, line 40. _Commemorant antiqui quod succinum festucas et paleas attrahit._--Pliny (book xxxvii., chap. ii., p. 606 of the English edition of 1601) thus narrates the point:
"Hee [_Niceas_] writeth also, that in Aegypt it [amber] is engendered.... Semblably in Syria, the women (saith hee) make wherves of it for their spindles, where they use to call it Harpax, because it will catch up leaves, straws, and fringes hanging to cloaths."
p. 608. "To come to the properties that Amber hath, If it bee well rubbed and chaufed betweene the fingers, the potentiall facultie that lieth within, is set on work, and brought into actual operation, whereby you shall see it to drawe chaffe strawes, drie leaves, yea, and thin rinds of the Linden or Tillet tree, after the same sort as loadstone draweth yron."
[115] PAGE 47, LINE 36. Page 47, line 42. _Quod etiam facit Gagates lapis._--The properties of Jet were well known to the mediæval writers. _Julius Solinus_ writes in _De Mirabilibus_, chapter xxxiv., _Of Britaine_ (English version of 1587 by A. Golding):
"Moreover to the intent to passe the large aboundance of sundry mettals (whereof Britaine hath many rich mynes on all sides), Here is store of the stone called Geate, and y^e best kind of it. If ye demaund y^e beautie of it, it is a black Jewell: if the qualitie, it is of no weight: if the nature, it burneth in water, and goeth out in Oyle; if the power, rubbe it till it be warme, and it holdeth such things as are laide to it; as Amber doth. The Realme is partlie inhabited of barbarous people, who even frõ theyr childhoode haue shapes of divers beastes cunninglye impressed and incorporate in theyr bodyes, so that beeing engraued as it were in theyr bowels, as the man groweth, so growe the marks painted vpon him...."
Pliny describes it as follows (p. 589, English edition of 1601):
"The Geat, which otherwise we call Gagates, carrieth the name of a toune and river both in Lycia, called Gages: it is said also, that the sea casteth it up at a full tide or high water into the Island Leucola, where it is gathered within the space of twelve stadia, and no where else: blacke it is, plaine and even, of a hollow substance in manner of the pumish stone, not much differing from the nature of wood; light, brittle, and if it bee rubbed or bruised, of a strong flavour." (Book xxxvi., chap. xviii.)