DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0171
161
statue of Apollo sitting upon a great number of eggs, with a serpent
toiled round them, exactly as he is upon the veiled cone or cortina,
round w hicb the serpent is occasionally coiled, upon the coins above
cited. A tonic pile of eggs is also placed by the statue of him,
draped, as he apptars on a silver tetradrachm of Lanipsacus,1 en-
graved in pi. Ixii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens.
197- Stones of a similar conic form are represented upon the
colonial medals of Tyre, and called ambrosial stones ; from which,
probably, came the amberics, so frequent all over the northern
hemisphere. These, from the remains still extant, appear to have
been composed of one of these cones let into the ground, with ano-
ther stone placed upon the point of it, and so nicely balanced, that
the wind could move it, though so ponderous that no human
force, unaided by machinery, can displace it: whence they are now
called logging rocks, and pendre stones,1 as they were anciently
firing stones, and stones of God ;3 titles, which differ but little in
meaning from that on the Tyrian coins. Damascius saw several of
them in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis or Baalbeck, in Syria;
particularly one which was then moved by the wind ; + and they are
equally found in the western extremities of Europe, and the east-
ern extremities of Asia, in Britain and in China.5 Probably the
stone which the patriarch Jacob anointed with oil, according
to a mode of worship once generally practised,6 as it still is
by the Hindoos, was of this kind. 7 Such immense masses-
being moved by causes seeming so inadequate, must naturally have
conveyed the idea of spontaneous motion to ignorant observers, and
persuaded them that they were animated by an emanation of the
1 In the cabinet of Mr. Payne Knight.
1 Norden's Cornwall, p. 79.
3 Ai0m (^"X0' et &atrv\ia. I'seudc-Sanclion. Fragm. apud Euseb. The last
title seems to be a corruption of lhe scriptural name Bethel.
* EiSov -rov0airv\ov Siarov aepos Kivovfuvov. In Vita Isidori'apud Phot. Bibliotii.
Cod. J4S.
3 Norden.ib. Kercheri China illustrata. p. 270.
6 Clem. Alex.Strom, lib.vii. p.713.: Arnob. lib.i.: Hcroclian.in Macrino.
' Cleric. Comm. in Genes, c. xxviii. v. 82.
statue of Apollo sitting upon a great number of eggs, with a serpent
toiled round them, exactly as he is upon the veiled cone or cortina,
round w hicb the serpent is occasionally coiled, upon the coins above
cited. A tonic pile of eggs is also placed by the statue of him,
draped, as he apptars on a silver tetradrachm of Lanipsacus,1 en-
graved in pi. Ixii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens.
197- Stones of a similar conic form are represented upon the
colonial medals of Tyre, and called ambrosial stones ; from which,
probably, came the amberics, so frequent all over the northern
hemisphere. These, from the remains still extant, appear to have
been composed of one of these cones let into the ground, with ano-
ther stone placed upon the point of it, and so nicely balanced, that
the wind could move it, though so ponderous that no human
force, unaided by machinery, can displace it: whence they are now
called logging rocks, and pendre stones,1 as they were anciently
firing stones, and stones of God ;3 titles, which differ but little in
meaning from that on the Tyrian coins. Damascius saw several of
them in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis or Baalbeck, in Syria;
particularly one which was then moved by the wind ; + and they are
equally found in the western extremities of Europe, and the east-
ern extremities of Asia, in Britain and in China.5 Probably the
stone which the patriarch Jacob anointed with oil, according
to a mode of worship once generally practised,6 as it still is
by the Hindoos, was of this kind. 7 Such immense masses-
being moved by causes seeming so inadequate, must naturally have
conveyed the idea of spontaneous motion to ignorant observers, and
persuaded them that they were animated by an emanation of the
1 In the cabinet of Mr. Payne Knight.
1 Norden's Cornwall, p. 79.
3 Ai0m (^"X0' et &atrv\ia. I'seudc-Sanclion. Fragm. apud Euseb. The last
title seems to be a corruption of lhe scriptural name Bethel.
* EiSov -rov0airv\ov Siarov aepos Kivovfuvov. In Vita Isidori'apud Phot. Bibliotii.
Cod. J4S.
3 Norden.ib. Kercheri China illustrata. p. 270.
6 Clem. Alex.Strom, lib.vii. p.713.: Arnob. lib.i.: Hcroclian.in Macrino.
' Cleric. Comm. in Genes, c. xxviii. v. 82.