Book 11
14.8
The next is Arsene,The lake Arsissa, Thospitis or Van. which is also called Thopitis. Its waters contain nitre, and are used for cleaning and fulling clothes. It is unfit by these qualities for drinking. The Tigris passes through this lakeThis is an error; one of the branches of the Tigris rises among the mountains on the S. W. of the lake Van, and which form part of the range of Nepat-Learn or Niphates. after issuing from the mountainous country near the Niphates, and by its rapidity keeps its stream unmixed with the water of the lake, whence it has its name, for the Medes call an arrow, Tigris. This river contains fish of various kinds, but the lake one kind only. At the extremity of the lake the river falls into a deep cavity in the earth. After pursuing a long course under-ground, it re-appears in the Chalonitis; thence it goes to Opis, and to the wall of Semiramis, as it is called, leaving the GordyaeiThe Kurds. and the whole of Mesopotamia on the right hand. The Euphrates, on the contrary, has the same country on the left. Having approached one another, and formed Mesopotamia, one traverses Seleucia in its course to the Persian Gulf, the other Babylon, as I have said in replying to Eratosthenes and Hipparchus.
14.9
There are mines of gold in the Hyspiratis,Groskurd proposes Syspiritis. near Caballa. Alexander sent Menon to the mines with a body of soldiers, but he was strangledἀ πήγχθη. Meineke. by the inhabitants of the country. There are other mines, and also a mine of Sandyx as it is called, to which is given the name of Armenian colour, it resembles the Calche.It is doub ful whether this colour was red, blue, or purple.
