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CXIII. They uſe this in Buildings, caſing them with it, or putting it on any particular Place they would ſtrengthen. They prepare it for Uſe, by reducing it to Powder, and then pouring Water on it, and ſtirring and mixing the Matter well together with wooden Inſtruments: For they cannot do this with the Hand becauſe of the Heat. They prepare it in this Manner immediately before the Time of uſing it; for in a very little While after moiſtening, it dries and becomes hard, and not in a Condition to be uſed.
to obſerve in ſome other Places, that he is too apt to be guilty of. In this Paſſage, however, I am of Opinion he is not juſtly to be accuſed of it; for, with his Commentators Leave, I muſt obſerve, that it appears very plainly, from this and the Context, that he did not take it from Theophraſtus. This Author does not ſay, that they choſe in Syria the hardeſt Stones, but ἀπλουστέρους, thoſe of the ſimpleſt Texture; and the Remainder of the Sentence in Pliny, which is, coquuntque fimo bubulo ut celerius urantur, being evidently from ſome other Source, as there is not the leaſt Syllable of any Thing like it in this Author, 'tis probable, that he had it together from ſome other Writer, or from the common Tradition of his Time. I muſt confeſs, the Word ϛερεοτατȣς coming ſo cloſe after the μαρμάρȣς καὶ ἁπλȣϛέρȣς, would have made me very naturally ſuſpect Pliny of taking his Account careleſly from this Author; but the Context, which is evidently not hence, may very reaſonably clear him. This I have been the more particular in obſerving here, as it may be a Means of clearing that Author in ſome, at leaſt, of the many Paſages in which he may be, even more than he deſerves, ac-
