The Arab geographers already knew the so-called "stone belt of the earth": "A broad, lower belt extends to Balth , and this the Arab geographers call the stone belt of the earth" (Burnes 1836).
References to the Earth's stone belt can also be found in prose, e.g. in Else Lasker-Schüler's main narrative work: " The effect of the innumerable stones, a world of for instance convoluted star worlds, encircle the land of countries with unopenable stone belts..." (Lasker- Schüler 2002).