Note 17 — BOOK II.

Diodorus Siculus (V., 35). "These places being covered with woods, it is said that in ancient times these mountains were set on fire by shepherds, and continued burning for many days, and parched the earth, so that an abundance of silver ore was melted, and the metal flowed in streams of pure silver like a river." Aristotle, nearly three centuries before Diodorus, mentions this same story (De Mirabilibus, 87): "They say that in Ibernia the woods were set on fire by certain shepherds, and the earth thus heated, the country visibly flowed silver; and when some time later there were earthquakes, and the earth burst asunder at different places, a large amount of silver was collected." As the works of Posidonius are lost, it is probable that Agricola was quoting from Strabo (III., 2, 9), who says, in describing Spain: "Posidonius, in praising the amount and excellence of the metals, cannot refrain from his accustomed rhetoric, and becomes quite enthusiastic in exaggeration. He tells us we are not to disbelieve the fable that formerly the forests having been set on fire, the earth, which was loaded with silver and gold, melted and threw up these metals to the surface, for inasmuch as every mountain and wooded hill seemed to be heaped up with money by a lavish fortune." (Hamilton's Trans. I., p. 220). Or he may have been quoting from the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus (VI.), where Posidonius is quoted: "And the mountains ... when once the woods upon them had caught fire, spontaneously ran with liquid silver."