in Ancient Geography, a town at the mouth of the Palus Maeotis; from which the Bosphorus Cimmerius is named; that strait which joins the Euxine and the Palus Maeotis. Cimmerii was the name of the people, (Homer); and here stood the Promontorium Cimmerium, (Ptolemy); and hence probably the modern appellation Grim.

in Ancient Geography, a place near Baiae, in Campania, where formerly stood the cave of the sibyl. The people were called Cimmerii, who living in subterranean habitations, from which they issued in the night to commit robberies and other acts of violence, never saw the light of the sun (Homer). To give a natural account of this fable, Festus says, there was a valley surrounded with a pretty high ridge, which precluded the morning and evening sun.

CIMOLIA TERRA, in Natural History, a name by which the ancients expressed a very valuable medicinal earth; but which later ages have supposed to be no other than our tobacco-pipe clay and fuller's earth.

The cimolia terra of the ancients was found in several of the islands of the Archipelago, particularly in the island of Cimolus, from whence it has its name. It was used with great success in the erysipelas, inflammations, and the like, being applied by way of cataplasm to the part. They also used, as we do, what we call cimolia, or fuller's earth, for the cleansing of clothes. This earth of the ancients, though so long disregarded, and by many supposed to be lost, is yet very plentiful in Argentiere (the ancient Cimolus), Sphanto, and many of those islands. It is a mass of a lax and crumbly texture, and a pure bright white colour, very soft to the touch. It adheres firmly to the tongue, and, if thrown into water, raises a little hissing and ebullition, and moulders to a fine powder. It makes a considerable effervescence with acids, and suffers no change of colour in the fire. These are the characters of what the ancients called simply terra cimolia; but besides this, they had from the same place another earth which they called by the same general name, but distinguished by the epithet purple, purpureo-reflexus. This they described to be fatihi, cold to the touch, of a mixed purple colour, and nearly as hard as a stone. And this was evidently the substance we call fleatites, or the soap-rock, common in Cornwall, and also in the island of Argentiere, or Cimolus.