23.

Among the mountains which are most celebrated, are the Hymettus, Brilessus, Lycabettus, Parnes, and Corydallus.326 Near the city are excellent quarries of Hymettian and Pentelic marble. The Hymettus produces also the finest honey. The silver mines in Attica were at first of importance, but are now exhausted. The workmen, when the mines yielded a bad return to their labour, committed to the furnace the old refuse and scoria, and hence obtained very pure silver, for the former workmen had carried on the process in the furnace unskilfully.

Although the Attic is the best of all the kinds of honey, yet by far the best of the Attic honey is that found in the country of the silver mines,327 which they call acapniston, or unsmoked, from the mode of its preparation.