Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

100 pages - You are on Page 30

BOOK II

Part 1

Let us explain the nature of the sea and the reason why such a large mass of water is salt and the way in which it originally came to be.

The old writers who invented theogonies say that the sea has springs, for they want earth and sea to have foundations and roots of their own. Presumably they thought that this view was grander and more impressive as implying that our earth was an important part of the universe. For they believed that the whole world had been built up round our earth and for its sake, and that the earth was the most important and primary part of it. Others, wiser in human knowledge, give an account of its origin. At first, they say, the earth was surrounded by moisture. Then the sun began to dry it up, part of it evaporated and is the cause of winds and the turnings back of the sun and the moon, while the remainder forms the sea. So the sea is being dried up and is growing less, and will end by being some day entirely dried up. Others say that the sea is a kind of sweat exuded by the earth when the sun heats it, and that this explains its saltness: for all sweat is salt. Others say that the saltness is due to the earth. Just as water strained through ashes becomes salt, so the sea owes its saltness to the admixture of earth with similar properties.

We must now consider the facts which prove that the sea cannot possibly have springs. The waters we find on the earth either flow or are stationary. All flowing water has springs. (By a spring, as we have explained above, we must not understand a source from which waters are ladled as it were from a vessel, but a first point at which the water which is continually forming and percolating gathers.) Stationary water is either that which has collected and has been left standing, marshy pools, for instance, and lakes, which differ merely in size, or else it comes from springs. In this case it is always artificial, I mean as in the case of wells, otherwise the spring would have to be above the outlet. Hence the water from fountains and rivers flows of itself, whereas wells need to be worked artificially. All the waters that exist belong to one or other of these classes.

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