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CHAP. 59.—GALAXIAS. GALACTITIS, LEUCOGÆA, LEUCOGRAPRITIS, OR SYNNEPHITIS. GALLAICA. GASSINADE. GLOSSOPETRA. GORGONIA. GONIAÆA.

Galaxias,1 by some called "galactitis,"2 is a stone that closely resembles those next mentioned, but is interspersed with veins of blood-red or white. Galactitis3 is of the uniform colour of milk; other names given to it are, leucogæa,4 leucographitis,5 and synnephitis,6 and, when pounded in water, both in taste and colour it marvellously resembles milk. This stone promotes the secretion of the milk in nursing women, it is said; in addition to which, attached to the neck of infants, it produces saliva, and it dissolves when put into the mouth. They say, too, that it deprives persons of their memory: it is in the rivers Nilus and Acheloüs that it is produced. Some persons give the name of "galactitis" to a smaragdus surrounded with veins of white. Gallaica is a stone like argyrodamas,7 but of a somewhat more soiled appearance; these stones are found in twos and threes clustered together. The people of Media send us gassinade,8 a stone like orobus in colour, and sprinkled with flowers, as it were: it is found at Arbela. This stone, too, conceives,9 it is said; a fact which it admits when shaken; the conception lasting for a period of three months. Glossopetra,10 which resembles the human tongue, is not engendered, it is said, in the earth, but falls from the heavens during the moon's eclipse; it is considered highly necessary for the purposes of selenomancy.11 To render all this however, still more incredible, we have the evident untruthfulness of one assertion made about it, that it has the property of silencing the winds. Gorgonia12 is nothing but a coral, which has been thus named from the circumstance that, though soft in the sea, it afterwards assumes the hardness of stone: it has the property of counteracting fascinations,13 it is said. Goniæa,14 it is asserted, and with the same degree of untruthfulness, ensures vengeance upon our enemies.

1 "Galaxy stone." Ajasson thinks that this may possibly have been an Opal, or a dead white Topaz, traversed by lines of other colours.

2 "Milk stone."

3 Probably milk-white Quartz, Ajasson thinks.

4 "White earth."

5 "White-streaked stone."

6 "Clouded."

7 See Chapter 54 of this Book.

8 An Eastern name, probably.

9 A Geodes or Aëtites, probably. See B. xxxvi. c. 39, and Chapter 56 of this Book, Note 92.

10 "Tongue of stone."

11 Divination from the appearance of the moon.

12 "Gorgon stone," The head of the Gorgon Medusa was fabled to turn those into stone who looked upon it.

13 See B. xxxii. c. 11.

14 This reading is very doubtful.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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