[2593]. “This wood,” says William Marsden, “is in many respects preferable to oak, working more kindly, and equal, at least, in point of duration; many ships built of it at Bombay, continuing to swim for so many years that none can recollect the period at which they were launched.” History of Sumatra, p. 130.
[2594]. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 7. 7, seq. At the present day, the water actually found on the island is brackish, while the sea is thought by some to have gained so far upon the land as to cover certain springs which supplied the ancient inhabitants with excellent water. Even now, however, the produce of these fountains is not wholly lost though doubtless deteriorated by the admixture of sea-water. “There are certain springs,” observes Nieuhoff, “arising in the bottom of the sea, at three fathoms and a half deep. Near the city of Manama, certain divers go early in the morning in boats, about three musket shots from the land, and dive to the bottom of the sea, fill their earthen or leathern vessels with the water that issues from the springs, and so come up again and return to the shore.” Churchill’s Collection, Vol. ii. p. 196.
[2595]. For example, near the Oxus, where a Macedonian, named Proxenos, in the act of pitching Alexander’s tent, discovered a spring of pure oil. Even the waters of the Oxus were supposed by the ancients to contain oily particles. Plut. Alexand. § 57. On the Persian sulphur, Polyæn. Stratag. iv. 6. 11.
[2596]. Strab. Casaub. xvi. t. ii. p. 1078. Sir Thomas Herbert’s account of the Persian naphtha is not exactly consistent with that of Plutarch. “This naphtha,” says he, “is an oily or fat liquid substance, in colour not unlike soft, white clay; of quality hot and dry, so as it is apt to inflame with the sunbeams, or heat that issues from fire, as was mirthfully experimented upon one of Alexander’s pages, who, being anointed, with much ado escaped burning.” Some Years’ Travels, p. 182.
[2597]. Plut. Alexand. § 35.
[2598]. Eurip. Med. 1183, sqq. Plin. Nat. Hist. ii. 109. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. x. p. 15, note 18, where, in speaking of the Greek Fire, the historian touches incidentally on the qualities of naphtha.
[2599]. In the mountains near Derabad, in Affghanistân, a kind of naphtha is obtained by placing flocks of wool on the places where it oozes from the earth. It contains a mixture of bitumen, supposed to be mumia, and is less pure than the Persian. Vigne, Affghanistân, p. 61, seq. Masson, Balochistân, &c. i. 115.
[2600]. This expression is Dr. Langhorne’s, t. v. p. 239. Plut. Alexand. § 35. Sympos. iii. 2. 1.
[2601]. Dioscor. iii. 99.
[2602]. Id. iv. 48.