in antiquity, a sort of stone coffin or grave, wherein the ancients deposited the bodies of the dead which were not intended to be burnt.

The word, as derived from the Greek, literally signifies flesh-eater; because originally a kind of stone was used for tombs, which quickly consumed the bodies. See the following article.

One of the most celebrated specimens of antiquity is the great sarcophagus, which is commonly called the tomb of Alexander the Great. It fell into the hands of the British at the capitulation of Alexandria in Egypt in 1801, is now deposited in the British Museum, and is thus described by a writer in the Monthly Magazine*, vol. xxvi, p. 42.

"It was brought from the mosque of St Athanasius, p. 42. at Alexandria, where it had been transformed, by the Mahometans, into a kind of reservoir, consecrated to contain the water for their pious ablutions. It is of considerable magnitude, and would form an oblong rectangle, were not one of the ends or shorter sides of the parallelogram rounded somewhat like a bathing tub. It is probable that formerly it was covered with a lid, but no trace of it is now visible; but is entirely open like an immense layer, of one single piece of beautiful marble, spotted with green, yellow, reddish, &c., on a ground of a fine black, of the species called breccia, a sort of pudding stone, composed of agglutinated fragments of various sizes, which are denominated according to their component parts. This comes under the class of calcareous breccias. But what renders this magnificent fragment of antiquity peculiarly interesting, is the prodigious quantity of small hieroglyphic characters, with which it is sculptured both within and without, as you may perceive by the figure. It would employ me nearly a month to make faithful copies of them: their shape and general appearance is pretty fairly given in the figure; but it can only serve to convey to you an idea of the monument in one view. A correct and faithful copy of all the hieroglyphics, though an Herculean task, is a desideratum; for it can be only by copying with scrupulous accuracy, and of a large size, the figures of this symbolical language, that we can attain the knowledge of a mysterious composition, on which depends that of the history of a country, once so highly celebrated. When that language shall be understood, we may perhaps learn the original purpose of this sarcophagus, and the history of the illustrious man whose spoils it contained. Till then it is but the vain and flitting field of conjecture.

"Many men of science and learning, have examined this memento of Egyptian skill and industry; but no positive..." positive decision of its former application is yet found by the learned. Sonnini and Denon, who both closely and attentively examined it, have pronounced nothing decisive on the subject. Dr Clark of Cambridge, an indefatigable and learned antiquary, has asserted that the sarcophagus of the museum really was the tomb of Alexander; but it requires more talents than I possess, to remove the obstacles that withhold the clear intelligibility of this invaluable antique."

or Lapis Albus, in the natural history of the ancients, a stone much used among the Greeks in their sepultures, is recorded to have always perfectly consumed the flesh of human bodies buried in it in forty days. This property it was much famed for, and all the ancient naturalists mention it. There was another very singular quality also in it, but whether in all, or only in some peculiar pieces of it, is not known: that is, its turning into stone any thing that was put into vessels made of it. This is recorded only by Mutianus and Theophratus, except that Pliny had copied it from these authors, and some of the later writers on these subjects from him. The account Mutianus gives of it is, that it converted into stone the shoes of persons buried in it, as also the utensils which it was in some places customary to bury with the dead, particularly those which the person while living most delighted in. The utensils this author mentions, are such as must have been made of very different materials; and hence it appears that this stone had a power of consuming not only flesh, but that its petrifying quality extended to substances of very different kinds. Whether ever it really possessed this last quality has been much doubted; and many, from the seeming improbability of it, have been afraid to record it. What has much encouraged the general disbelief of it is, Mutianus's account of its taking place on substances of very different kinds and textures; but this is no real objection, and the whole account has probably truth in it.

Petrifications in those early days might not be distinguished from incrustations of sparry and stony matter on the surfaces of bodies only, as we find they are not with the generality of the world even to this day; so the incrustations of spar on moles and other substances in some of our forings, being at this time called by many petrified moles, &c., and incrustations like these might easily be formed on substances enclosed in vessels made of this stone, by water passing through its pores, dislodging from the common mass of the stone, and carrying with it particles of such spar as it contained; and afterwards falling in repeated drops on whatever lay in its way, it might again deposit them on such substances in form of incrustations. By this means, things made of very different matter, which happened to be inclosed, and in the way of the passage of the water, would be equally incrusted with and in appearance turned into stone, without regard to the different configuration of their pores and parts.

The place from whence the ancients tell us they had this stone was Assos, a city of Lycia, in the neighbourhood of which it was dug; and De Boot informs us, that in that country, and in some parts of the East, there are also stones of this kind, which, if tied to the bodies of living persons, would in the same manner consume their flesh. Hill's Notes on Theophratus, p. 14.