'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎163] (194/582)

THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT ECBATANA.
163
describing that event, gives some of the local features of the
place, which mark its identity with Hamadan,—especially the
description of the mountain Orontes, the plain below it, and the
general want of water. # Pliny, in his general description of
Persia, speaks of Darius the king having transferred the city of
Ecbatana to the mountains, as if there had been a place of that
name originally in the lower parts of Persia, near Persepolis and
Pasagarda, or the Tomb of Cyrus, f In another part of his
writings he speaks of a peculiar oily spring near Ecbatana, of
which I could gain no information at the present day, though
such springs are not among the most permanent features of
nature. J The locality of Ecbatana is, however, corroborated by
* When Semiramis came to Ecbatana, which is situated in a low and even plain, she built
there a stately palace, and bestowed more of her care and pains here than she had done at
any other place. For the city wanting water, (there being no spring near,) she plentifully
supplied it with good and wholesome water, brought thither with a great deal of toil and
expense after this manner. There is a mountain called Orontes, twelve furlongs distant from
the city, exceedingly high and steep, for the space of five-and-twenty furlongs up to the top ;
on the other side of the mountain there is a large lake, which empties itself into the river.
At the foot of this mountain she dug a canal fifteen feet in breadth, and forty in depth,
through which she conveyed water in great abundance into the city.— Diod. Sic. b. 2, c. i.
f Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 6, cap. 26.
I Polyclytus (he says) speaks of a certain fountain of Cilicia, near to the city of Soli,
which yielded an unctuous or oleous water, that served instead of oil. Theophrastus reports
the same of another fountain in Ethiopia which had the like quality. And Lycas states that
among the Indians, there is a fountain, the water of which is used in lamps to maintain light.
The same thing (he adds) is reported of another water near Ecbatana^ the capital city of
Media.—PZi/t. Nat. Hint. b. 31, c. 2.
It is more than probable that this is the same substance, not oily water, but petroleum or
bitumen, mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Alexander. He says ' Alexander traversed
all the province of Babylon, which immediately made its submission ; and in the district of
Ecbatana he was particularly struck with a gulph of fire, which streamed continually, as from
an inexhaustible source. He admired also a flood of naptha, not far from the gulph, which
flowed in such abundance that it formed a lake. The naptha in many respects resembles the
bitumen, but is much more inflammable. Before any fire touches it, it catches light from a
flame at some distance, and often kindles all the intermediate air. The barbarians, to show
the King its force and the subtlety of its nature, scattered some drops of it in the street which
led to his lodgings, and standing at one end, they applied their torches to some of the first
drops, for it was night. The flame communicated itself swifter than thought, and the street
was instantaneously on foe.'—Plutarch's Life of Alexander.
y 2