CHAP. 95. (93.)—OF VENTS587 IN THE EARTH.
But let us say no more of earthquakes and of whatever may be regarded as the sepulchres of cities588; let us rather speak of the wonders of the earth than of the crimes of nature. But, by Hercules! the history of the heavens themselves would not be more difficult to relate:—the abundance of metals, so various, so rich, so prolific, rising up589 during so many ages; when, throughout all the world, so much is, every day, destroyed by fire, by waste, by shipwreck, by wars, and by frauds; and while so much is consumed by luxury and by such a number of people:—the figures on gems, so multiplied in their forms; the variously-coloured spots on certain stones, and the whiteness of others, excluding everything except light:—the virtues of medicinal springs, and the perpetual fires bursting out in so many places, for so many ages:—the exhalation of deadly vapours, either emitted from caverns590, or from certain unhealthy districts; some of them fatal to birds alone, as at Soracte, a district near the city591; others to all animals, except to man592, while others are so to man also, as in the country of Sinuessa and Puteoli. They are generally called vents, and, by some persons, Charon’s sewers, from their exhaling a deadly vapour. Also at Amsanctum, in the country of the Hirpini, at the temple of Mephitis593, there is a place which kills all those who enter it. And the same takes place at Hierapolis in Asia594, where no one can enter with safety, except the priest of the great Mother of the Gods. In other places there are prophetic caves, where those who are intoxicated with the vapour which rises from them predict future events595, as at the most noble of all oracles, Delphi. In which cases, what mortal is there who can assign any other cause, than the divine power of nature, which is everywhere diffused, and thus bursts forth in various places?