HIERAPOLIS is chiefly remarkable for waters so loaded with petrifying materials as to have completely changed, by their deposits, the face of the country in the course of centuries; a result, noticed by many ancient authors, as Vitruvius, Pausanias, &c. Chandler states that a cliff near the town is one entire incrustation, and describes its appearance as that of “an immense frozen cascade, the surface wavy, as of water at once fixed, or in its headlong course suddenly petrified.”[103] An excellent view of this curious scene is given in Mr. Davis’s “Anatolica,” p. 100. Besides its remarkable petrifying power, Strabo states also that the waters of Hierapolis were famous for dyeing; and it is curious confirmation of this statement, that an early English traveller (Dr. Smith, in 1671) copied an inscription referring to a “_company of dyers_” (ἡ ἐργασία τῶν βαφέων). The position of Hierapolis must have been very imposing, placed as it was on a high piece of ground, “200 paces wide, and a mile in length.” Abundant ruins still remain, consisting of the relics of three Christian churches, one 300 feet long, and of a gymnasium, considered by Leake to be one of the only three “which are in a state of preservation sufficient to give any useful information on the subject of these buildings,” together with a prodigious number of fallen columns, in the wildest state of confusion. It seems a pity that no efficient steps have been taken to excavate thoroughly such a site as that of Hierapolis, where monuments of much historical interest, possibly, too, of surpassing excellence as sculpture, might reasonably be anticipated. Hierapolis is specially noticed in St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians (iv. 13), which shows clearly that, at that time, there were many converts to Christianity, probably owing to the zeal of Epaphras, who had been long a common labourer with the Apostle. Somewhat later, Hierapolis appears in Hierocles as the metropolis of Phrygia; and Arundell gives a list of the bishops of the see whose names have been preserved. The present ruins are called _Pambouk Kalessi_. Footnote 103: Mr. Hamilton says he could distinctly trace six different cascades, each of which had left a separate incrustation. The ancient city itself was built on a terrace entirely formed by this or similar incrustations. He adds: “But if the appearance of the encrusted cliff was curious when seen from below, it became infinitely more so when we looked down upon it from the road, and the detail of its structure became more apparent. The wavy and undulating lines of solid matter which extend over the surface look as if a large river had been suddenly arrested in its course and converted into stone.”