Natural HistoryBy: Pliny the Elder Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water clock, or the use of asses' milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the