The Egyptians alloyed their silver money with a third part of gypsum, copper, and an equal portion of sulphur. Mines of gold have been in modern times worked in the islands near Nicosia.
The finely tempered steel of Cypros,[[2171]] known by the name of adamant among the ancients, was used in making the best cuirasses and deemed impenetrable.
From this island were obtained the finest spodium and flowers of zinc, which were produced in the following manner: In a building, two stories high, was constructed a furnace, open at top, and having directly over it a small aperture, communicating with the upper room. The bellows were worked in an adjoining apartment, the snout passing through a wall into the furnace, with which the workman was enabled to communicate by a small door. The fossil Cadmian-stone having been broken into small pieces was cast into the fire through an aperture from above, after which the flames having been blown up to greater fierceness, the mineral converted itself into a dense white vapour, and a cloud of fiery sparks ascended through the mouth of the furnace, the lighter particles attaching themselves like white bubbles or flocks of wool to the walls and vaulted roof of the building, while the heavier, after cooling, fell back into the flames or were scattered about the floor, where they indurated and formed a sort of incrustation. This coarser and weightier substance was usually found when scraped off to contain hairs, splinters, and particles of earth, and received the name of spodion, while that detached from the walls or roof was either milk-white or azure, and was what we now denominate flowers of zinc.
Another mode of manufacturing this article was to cast the fossil Cadmia, reduced to powder, on the surface of the liquid metal in bronze furnaces which caused a similar evaporation. Spodion was likewise procured from gold, silver, and lead, and next after the above this last was considered the best.
Near the village of Amianthos was a celebrated asbestos quarry whose produce, a greyish filamentous stone, was carded like wool and spun and woven into cloth[[2172]] which when soiled was cast into the fire instead of being washed, and came forth brilliant and pure as from the loom, though at each burning it lost something of its weight. In cerecloths of asbestos the bodies of kings and illustrious personages were burned, in antiquity, to preserve their remains from mingling with the ashes of the pyre.[[2173]] Matches likewise were made of this substance, more particularly for those durable lamps which were kindled by the Pagans in sepulchres,[[2174]] and supposed to burn on for ever. Other quarries of asbestos were found in Cypros, chiefly at the foot of the precipices bordering the road leading from Gerandium to Soli.
There was found in the island of Siphnos a fossil substance, usually of a spherical form, which was scooped out, and turned into various articles, such as vases, plates, and even pots which would bear the fire. When rubbed with oil and exposed to the action of the air it became black and hard, and resembled the finest pottery:[[2175]] similar stones are in modern times brought from the island of Minorca.[[2176]]
Two kinds of medicinal earths, the one white, the other ash-coloured, were obtained from Eretria, in Eubœa.[[2177]] Chios, likewise, exported a white earth used in cosmetics and at the baths.[[2178]] From time immemorial the Greeks appear to have obtained from the island of Zacynthos[[2179]] tar impregnated with a bituminous scent. It was found anciently in a pool, about seventy feet in circumference, and of very great depth, situated in a small valley on the sea-shore nearly encircled by mountains. The tar ascended from the bottom in bubbles as large as a cannon-ball, through the clear water, and on reaching the surface spread over the pond in a kind of film. It was drawn forth with myrtle branches attached to the end of a pole, and laid in pits to harden, after which it was barrelled and exported. It now sells for about two shillings per cask.
Among the medicinal plants and substances produced in the Grecian islands were the argol,[[2180]] anis,[[2181]] germander,[[2182]] hemlock,[[2183]] hellebore,[[2184]] and dittany, found chiefly in Crete;[[2185]] together with the misletoe, the seeds of which[[2186]] were bruised and beaten into a paste; hyssop,[[2187]] the cyperus comosus which abounded in the Cyclades,[[2188]] from which also an excellent kind of honey[[2189]] was exported; marjoram,[[2190]] scammony, green terebinth; resin from Cypros,[[2191]] aloes from Andros,[[2192]] aspalathos from Nisyros, Crete, and Rhodes;[[2193]] hartwort or seseli[[2194]] and onions[[2195]] from Samothrace, an island much vexed by winds; origany from Tenedos; from Chios hemlock[[2196]] and gum mastic,[[2197]] which the Turkish ladies chew constantly to keep their breath sweet and their teeth white;[[2198]] Chios, also, as well as Cos and Crete, furnished also tragoriganon.[[2199]] The last-mentioned island alone produced the Idæan bramble, whose flowers were used in remedies for ophthalmia.[[2200]] The inhabitants of Rhodes obtained from the Egyptian, or Pharaoh’s fig-tree, a medicinal gum esteemed a remedy against the bite of serpents.[[2201]] In early spring, before the appearance of the fruit, they gently bruised the bark with a stone, upon which, on all sides, there gushed forth a kind of liquor which, collected with flocks of wool or with sponge, was suffered to harden, formed into small round cakes, and preserved in earthen vases.[[2202]]
The modes of collecting the ladanum,[[2203]] of which the best sort appears to have been found in Cypros,[[2204]] was still more curious. It was found in spring exuding from the leaves of a species of costus on which the goats delighted to feed. As they pastured among the plants the gum attached itself to their beards and the long hair about their legs, from whence it was removed by the goatherds, who melted and strained it like honey, after which it was rolled up into balls and sold to the merchants. Sometimes, however, a number of cords were thrown over the shrubs, about which the gum collected.
In addition to the above, the islands furnished numerous other commodities, such as onions,[[2205]] of which the best came from Cypros and Corcyra;[[2206]] beans from Lemnos;[[2207]] from Rhodes ampelitis,[[2208]] pitch,[[2209]] the best white transparent glue,[[2210]] raisins,[[2211]] chalk,[[2212]] carobs,[[2213]] dried figs, which procured agreeable dreams,[[2214]] excellent aphyæ[[2215]] and cabbage-seed, which last was in great request at Alexandria,[[2216]] almonds from Naxos and Cypros,[[2217]] whence also came the best pomegranates,[[2218]] mustard,[[2219]] and excellent lettuces[[2220]] grown in the neighbourhood of Paphos.[[2221]]