2. Red earths are found in abundance in many places, but the best in only a few, for instance at Sinope in Pontus, in Egypt, in the Balearic islands of Spain, as well as in Lemnos, an island the enjoyment of whose revenues the Senate and Roman people granted to the Athenians.

3. Paraetonium white gets its name from the place where it is dug up. The same is the case with Melian white, because there is said to be a mine of it in Melos, one of the islands of the Cyclades.

4. Green chalk is found in numerous places, but the best at Smyrna. The Greeks call it qeodotei=on because this kind of chalk was first found on the estate of a person named Theodotus.

5. Orpiment, which is termed a)rseniko/n in Greek, is dug up in Pontus. Sandarach, in many places, but the best is mined in Pontus close by the river Hypanis.

1. I SHALL now proceed to explain the nature of cinnabar. It is said that it was first found in the Cilbian country belonging to Ephesus, and both it and its properties are certainly very strange. First, before getting to the vermilion itself by methods of treatment, they dig out what is called the clod, an ore like iron, but rather of a reddish colour and covered with a red dust. During the digging it sheds, under the blows of the tools, tear after tear of quicksilver, which is at once gathered up by the diggers.