Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

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100 pages - You are on Page 52

Democritus says that the earth is full of water and that when a quantity of rain-water is added to this an earthquake is the result. The hollows in the earth being unable to admit the excess of water it forces its way in and so causes an earthquake. Or again, the earth as it dries draws the water from the fuller to the emptier parts, and the inrush of the water as it changes its place causes the earthquake.

Anaximenes says that the earth breaks up when it grows wet or dry, and earthquakes are due to the fall of these masses as they break away. Hence earthquakes take place in times of drought and again of heavy rain, since, as we have explained, the earth grows dry in time of drought and breaks up, whereas the rain makes it sodden and destroys its cohesion.

But if this were the case the earth ought to be found to be sinking in many places. Again, why do earthquakes frequently occur in places which are not excessively subject to drought or rain, as they ought to be on the theory? Besides, on this view, earthquakes ought always to be getting fewer, and should come to an end entirely some day: the notion of contraction by packing together implies this. So this is impossible the theory must be impossible too.

Part 8

We have already shown that wet and dry must both give rise to an evaporation: earthquakes are a necessary consequence of this fact. The earth is essentially dry, but rain fills it with moisture. Then the sun and its own fire warm it and give rise to a quantity of wind both outside and inside it. This wind sometimes flows outwards in a single body, sometimes inwards, and sometimes it is divided. All these are necessary laws. Next we must find out what body has the greatest motive force. This will certainly be the body that naturally moves farthest and is most violent. Now that which has the most rapid motion is necessarily the most violent; for its swiftness gives its impact the greatest force. Again, the rarest body, that which can most readily pass through every other body, is that which naturally moves farthest. Wind satisfies these conditions in the highest degree (fire only becomes flame and moves rapidly when wind accompanies it): so that not water nor earth is the cause of earthquakes but wind-that is, the inrush of the external evaporation into the earth.

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