Kitap 15
1.38
In the mountainous country is a river, the Silas, on the surface of which nothing will float. Democritus, who had travelled over a large part of Asia, disbelieves this, and Aristotle does not credit it, although atmospheres exist so rare, that no bird can sustain its flight in them. Vapours also, which ascend (from some substances), attract and absorb, as it were, whatever is flying over them; as amber attracts straw, and the magnet iron, and perhaps there may be in water a similar power.
1.38
As these matters belong to physics and to the question of floating bodies, these must be referred to them. At present we must proceed to what follows, and to the subjects more nearly relating to geography.
1.39
It is said that the Indians are divided into seven castes. The first in rank, but the smallest in number, are the philosophers. Persons who intend to offer sacrifice, or to perform any sacred rite, have the services of these persons on their private account; but the kings employ them in a public capacity at the time of the Great Assembly, as it is called, where at the beginning of the new year all the philosophers repair to the king at the gate, and anything useful which they have committed to writing, or observed, tending to improve the productions of the earth or animals, or of advantage to the government of the state, is then publicly declared.
