VI. I may be told, this could not be so, because manifest tokens were found of his having thrown himself into the abyss of Mount Ætna. The principal of these tokens was, that a little while afterwards, one of his shoes, by the emission of the flame, was thrown out of the volcano; so Hippobotus tells us; but this is a glaringly fabulous tale; although it should be affirmed by five hundred Hippobotuses. The flame of Ætna, which the hardness of marble is unable to resist, had such a respect for the shoe of Empedocles, as to leave it unsinged? But they say it was made of metal, which is a subterfuge, that besides being ridiculous, is of no avail in the case; for admitting that that philosopher, either to appear particular and different from other men, or from some other vain motive, should have been so extravagant as to wear metal shoes; would this have indemnified them from being consumed by the voracious flame of the volcano? By no means, for it is well known, that the powerful activity of its heat, in an instant, dissolves the hardest of metals. In the amazing and terrifying vomit of lava, which it emitted in the year 1665, it cast up such a quantity of liquid metal, that it ran down in a river of fire, till it nearly approached the city of Catania. And among other experiments that were made to try the intense heat of that melted metal, was contriving to introduce a sword blade into it, which as far as it was immersed, instantly became liquid. VII. A joke, which Father Dechales tells of a Spaniard, concerning Mount Ætna, seems so applicable to this matter, that I think it will not be amiss to relate it. He had considered, that volcanos had subsisted a great many ages, and that there was no metal except gold, which fire would not consume, and concluded from thence, that all the metal which boiled in the Volcano must be gold. Filled with this conceit, he persuaded himself that he had found out an easy method of acquiring immense riches, which he proposed to do by the following invention. He got a strong iron kettle made, to the handle of which, he fastened a long iron chain, and by that, he let the kettle down till it reached the metal, and hoped by dipping it in, to draw up a large quantity of liquid gold. But what followed? Why, that the moment the kettle entered the burning mass, both that, and a part of the chain were melted, and the poor Spaniard was left with the other part of the chain in his hand, which he was obliged to draw up with the loss of the lower end, and his kettle. So powerful and active is the heat of that burning metal. Thus it would have been better for Hippobotus, to have feigned the shoes of Empedocles to have been made of Salamanders hairs, which it is said can never be consumed by fire. DEMOCRITUS. SECT. II.