Slidrugtanni, in Norse mythology, was a sur- name of the golden boar, Gullin Bursti, made by the dwarfs.
Slidur, in Norse mythology, was one of the Eli- vogs, rivers wliich tiow from the well Hoergelmer.
Slime is the constant rendering in the A. V. of the Heb. "T^iPI, chemur, the kommiir of the Arabs, translated rt(T0oXro(: by the Sept., and hilvmen in the Vulg. That our translators understood by this word the sul)stance now known as bitumen is evident from the following passages in Holland's Pliny (ed. 1634): "The very clammy dime IJitumen, which at certaine times of the yere fioteth and swimmeth upon the lake of Sodom, called Asphaltites in Jury" (vii, 15; vol. i, p. 1()3). "The Bitumen whereof I spcake is in some places in maimer of a muddy slime; in others, very earth or niin- erall" (xxxv, 15; vol. ii, p. 557).
The three instances in which it is mentioned in the Old Test, are al)undantly illustrated by travellers and historians, ancient and modern. It is first spoken of as used for cement by the builders in the plain of Shi- nar, or Babylonia (Gen. xi, 3). The bitumen pits in the vale of Siddim are mentioned in the ancient fragment of Canaanitish history (xiv, 10); and the ark of papy- rus in which Moses was ])laced was maile impervious to water by a coating of bitumen and [litch (Kxod. ii, 3).
Herodotus (i, 179) tells us of the bitumen found at Is, a town of Babylonia, eight days' journey from Baby- lon. The captive Eretrians (Herod, vi, 11'.)) were sent by Darius to collect asphaltum, salt, and oil at Arderic- ca, a i)lace two hundred and ten stadia from Susa, in
the district of Cissia. The town of Is was situated on a river or small stream of the same name which flow- ed into the Euphrates and carried down with it the lumps of bitumen which were used in the building of Babylon. It is probably the bitumen springs of Is which are described in Strabo (xvi, 743). Eratosthe- nes, whom he quotes, says that the li(|uid bitumen, which is called naphtha, is found in Siisiana, and the dry in Babylonia. Of the latter there is a spring near the Euphrates, and when the river is flooded by the melting of the snow the spring also is filled and over- flows into the river. The masses of bitumen thus pro- duced are fit for buildings which are made of baked brick. Diodorus Siculus (ii, 12) speaks of the abun- dance of bitumen in Babylonia. It proceeds from a spring, and is gathered by the people of the country, not only for building, but, when dry, for fuel instead of wood. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii, 6, 23) tells us that Babylon was built with bitumen by Semiramis (comp. Pliny, xxxv, 51 ; Berosus, quoted by Josephus, Ant. X, 11, 1 ; Contra Apion. i, 19; Arrian, Erp. A I. vii, 17, 1, etc.). The town of Is, mentioned by Herodotus, is, without doubt, the modern Hit, on the west, or right, bank of the Euphrates, and four days' journey north- west, or rather west-northwest, of Bagdad (Sir K. Ker Porter, T7-<ii: ii, 361, ed. 1822). The principal bitumen pit at Hit, says Mr. Rich {Memoir on the Ruins of Bab- ylon, p. 63, ed. 1815), has two sources, and is divided by a wall in the centre, on one side of which the bitumen bubbles up, and on the other the oil of naphtha. Sir K, K. Porter (ii, 315) observed " that bitumen was chief- ly confined, by the Chakhvan builders, to the founda- tions and lower parts of their edifices, for the purpose of preventing the ill effects of water." " With regard to the use of bitumen," he adds, " I saw no vestige of it whatever on any remnant of building on the higher ascents, and therefore drier regions." This view is in- directly confirmed by Mr. Kich, who says that the te- nacity of bitumen l)ears no proportion to that of mor- tar. The use of bitumen appears to have been con- fined to the Babylonians, for at Nineveh, Mr. Layard observes (^Nin. and Bab. ii, 278), " Bitumen and reeds were not employed to cement the layers of bricks as at Babylon ; although both materials are to be found in abundance in the immediate vicinity of the city." At Nimrud bitumen was found under a pavement (ibid, i, 29), and "the sculpture rested simply upon the plat- form of sun-dried bricks without any other substructure, a mere layer of bitumen about an inch thick having been placed under the plinth" {ibid. p. 208). In his de- scription of the firing of the bitumen ))its at Nimritd by his Arabs, Mr. Layard falls into the language of our translators. " Tongues of flame and jets of gas, driven from the burning pit, shot throui^^h the murky canopy. As the fire brightened, a thousand fantastic forms of light played amid tlie smoke. To break the cindered crust and to bring fresh slime to the surface, the Arabs threw large stones into the spring. ... In an hour the bitumen was exhausted for the time, the dense smoke gradually died away, and the i)ale lifrht of the nioon again shone over the black slime pits" {ibid, p. 202). See Bahvi-on.
The bitumen of the Dead Sea is described by Strabo, Josephus, and- Pliny. Strabo (xvi, 703) gives an ac- count of the volcanic action by which the bottom of the sea was disturbed and the bitumen thrown to the surface. It was at first li(|uefied by the heat, and then changed into a thick, viscous 8ul)stance by the cold water of the sea, on the surface of which it floated in lumps QiuiXot). These lumps are descril)cd liy Jose- phus ( War, iv, 8, 4) as of the size and shape of a head- less ox (comp. Pliny, vii, 13). The semi-liipiid kind of bitumen is that which Pliny says is found in the Dead Sea, the earthy in Syria ai)out Sidon. Litpiid bitiinien, such as the Zacynthian, the Babylonian, and the ApoUoniatic, he adds, is known by the Cireeks by the name of pis -asphaltum (comp. Exod. ii, 3, Sept.).