Let the learned people see if they do not disagree among themselves.  The water which the sun consumes is, they say, what prevents the sea from rising and flooding the rivers; the warmth of the sun leaves behind the salts and the bitterness of the waters, and absorbs from them the pure and drinkable particles, cf. Diog. Laert. vii. on Zeno.  Τρέπεσθαι δὲ τὰ ἔμπυρα ταῦτα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἄστρα, τὸν μὴν ἥλιον ἐκ τῆς μεγάλης θαλάττης.  So Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius. thanks to the singular virtue of this planet in attracting all that is light and in allowing to fall, like mud and sediment, all which is thick and earthy.  From thence come the bitterness, the salt taste and the power of withering and drying up which are characteristic of the sea.  While as is notorious, they hold these views, they shift their ground and say that moisture cannot be lessened by the sun. Pliny (ii. 103, 104) writes:  “Itaque solis ardore siccatur liquor;…sic mari late patenti saporem incoqui salis, aut quia exhausto inde dulci tenuique, quod facillime, trahat vis ignea, omne asperius crassiusque linquatur:  ideo summa æquarum aqua dulciorem profundam:  hanc esse veriorem causam asperi saporis, quam quod mare terræ sudor sit æternus:  aut quia plurimum ex arido misceatur illi vapore, aut quia terræ natura sicut medicatas aquas inficiat.”  The first of these three theories was that of Hippocrates (De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, iv. 197) and of Anaximander (Plutarch περὶ τῶν ἀρέσκ, etc. ii. 552).  On the second vide Arist., Prob. xxiii. 30.  The idea of the sea being the earth’s sweat was that of Empedocles.  cf. Arist., Meteor. ii. 1.