[3471] We can only guess at the meaning of this passage, as it is acknowledgedly corrupt.
[3472] Our Obsidian. See B. xxxvi. c. [67], and Chapter [65] of this Book.
[3473] See Chapter [15] of this Book. Ajasson thinks that he has here confounded two different substances, powdered emery and diamond dust.
[3474] See B. iv. c. 26.
[3475] “Trigariis.” “Three-horse chariot races,” literally. See B. xxviii. c. 72, and B. xxix. c. 5.
[3476] It having been in recent times declared unlawful to work them, as he has already informed us.
[3477] “Quacunque ambitur mari.” With these words the Natural History of Pliny terminates in all the former editions. M. Ian was the first among the learned to express a suspicion that the proper termination of the work was wanting; an opinion in which Sillig coincided, and which was happily confirmed, in the course of time, by the discovery of the Bamberg MS., the only copy of the Natural History (or rather the last Six Books) in which the concluding part of this Chapter has been found.
[3478] See B. xix. c. 7.