ANTIGONOS, a Greek writer about the beginning of our era, made a collection of the accounts of the natural wonders of his time. Among them he mentions—I translate from the Greek edition of 1568—that “they say that in the wild (uncultivated) region of Thrace there is a river called Pontos, which brings down in its course stones resembling anthrax (charcoal), and that these burn, but differ in combustion from charcoal, inasmuch as the use of bellows extinguishes the fire. On the other hand, sprinkled with water they burn all the better.” Where was this river? Kiepert does not mention it, but it seems to have flowed into the Black Sea, then called Pontos. It would be interesting to know if anthracite has been found so near Constantinople.