Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

100 pages - You are on Page 54

We must suppose the action of the wind in the earth to be analogous to the tremors and throbbings caused in us by the force of the wind contained in our bodies. Thus some earthquakes are a sort of tremor, others a sort of throbbing. Again, we must think of an earthquake as something like the tremor that often runs through the body after passing water as the wind returns inwards from without in one volume.

The force wind can have may be gathered not only from what happens in the air (where one might suppose that it owed its power to produce such effects to its volume), but also from what is observed in animal bodies. Tetanus and spasms are motions of wind, and their force is such that the united efforts of many men do not succeed in overcoming the movements of the patients. We must suppose, then (to compare great things with small), that what happens in the earth is just like that. Our theory has been verified by actual observation in many places. It has been known to happen that an earthquake has continued until the wind that caused it burst through the earth into the air and appeared visibly like a hurricane. This happened lately near Heracleia in Pontus and some time past at the island Hiera, one of the group called the Aeolian islands. Here a portion of the earth swelled up and a lump like a mound rose with a noise: finally it burst, and a great wind came out of it and threw up live cinders and ashes which buried the neighbouring town of Lipara and reached some of the towns in Italy. The spot where this eruption occurred is still to be seen.

Indeed, this must be recognized as the cause of the fire that is generated in the earth: the air is first broken up in small particles and then the wind is beaten about and so catches fire.

A phenomenon in these islands affords further evidence of the fact that winds move below the surface of the earth. When a south wind is going to blow there is a premonitory indication: a sound is heard in the places from which the eruptions issue. This is because the sea is being pushed on from a distance and its advance thrusts back into the earth the wind that was issuing from it. The reason why there is a noise and no earthquake is that the underground spaces are so extensive in proportion to the quantity of the air that is being driven on that the wind slips away into the void beyond.

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