CHAP. 20.—WATERS WHICH PETRIFY, THEMSELVES, OR CAUSE OTHER OBJECTS TO PETRIFY.
At Perperena,3001 there is a spring which petrifies3002 the ground wherever it flows, the same being the case also, with the hot waters at Ædepsus, in Eubœa; for there, wherever the stream falls, the rocks are continually increasing in height. At Eurymenæ,3003 chaplets, when thrown into the waters of a certain fountain there, are turned to stone. At Colossæ there is a river, into the water of which if bricks3004 are thrown, when taken out they are found changed into stone. In the mines of Scyros, the trees petrify that are watered by the river, branches and all. In the caverns of Mount Corycus, the drops of water that trickle down the rocks become hard in the form of a stone.3005 At Mieza, too, in Macedonia, the water petrifies as it hangs from the vaulted roofs of the rocks; but at Corycus it is only when it has fallen that it becomes hard.
In other caverns, again, the water petrifies both ways,3006 and so forms columns; as we find the case in a vast grotto at Phausia, a town of the Chersonesus3007 of the Rhodians, the columns of which are tinted with various colours. These instances will suffice for the present.