[3021] “Salmacidas.”
[3022] “Cænum.”
[3023] Also, Ajasson says, to observe whether soap will melt in it. If it will not, it is indicative of the presence of selenite.
[3024] As drinking water.
[3025] As Plautus says of women, Mostell, A. i. S. 3—“They smell best, when they smell of nothing at all.”
[3026] See B. xv. c. 32.
[3027] In purity and tastelessness. As Ajasson observes, Pliny could hardly appreciate the correctness of this remark, composed as water is of two gases, oxygen and hydrogen.
[3028] Pausanias and Athenæus mention also the well of Mothone in Peloponnesus, the water of which exhaled the odour of the perfumes of Cyzicus. Such water, however, must of necessity be impure.
[3029] More probably Astarte, Fée thinks, Juno being unknown in Mesopotamia.
[3030] “Statera.” Ajasson remarks that it does not require an instrument very nicely adjusted to indicate the difference in weight between pure and very impure water. Synesius, Ep. xv., gives an account of the “hydroscopium” used by the ancients for ascertaining the weight of water. Beckmann enters into a lengthy examination of it, as also an enquiry into the question whether the ancients, and among them Pliny, were acquainted with the hydrometer. See his Hist. Inv. Vol. II. pp. 163-169. Bohn’s Ed.