According to a later tradition, not known to Homer, the Moerae appeared to Althaea when Meleager was seven days old, and announced that the child would only live as long as the log blazing on the hearth remained unconsumed.
By the term " ash " is understood the mineral matter remaining unconsumed after the complete combustion of the carbonaceous portion of a coal.
Even the statement that the bodies of Sennacherib's soldiers were burned while their garments and armour remained unconsumed has its parallel in Sanh.
In an oxidizing atmosphere it is indifferent to silica, and therefore siliceous bricks containing a considerable proportion of ferric oxide, when used in flues of boilers, brewers' coppers, &c. and similar situations, are perfectly fire-resisting so long as the heated gas contains a large proportion of unconsumed air.
The more resistant rocks, even though dissected by Tertiary erosion, retain in their summit tiplands an indication of the widespread peneplain of Cretaceous tinie, now standing at the altitude given to it by the Tertiary upwarping and post-Tertiary uplift; and the most resistant rocks surmount the Cretaceous peneplain as unconsumed monadnocks of the Mesozoic cycle.