Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

100 pages - You are on Page 73

Next let the horizon be ABG but let H have risen above the horizon. Let the axis now be HI. The proof will be the same for the rest as before, but the pole I of the circle will be below the horizon Ag since the point H has risen above the horizon. But the pole, and the centre of the circle, and the centre of that circle (namely HI) which now determines the position of the sun are on the same line. But since KH lies above the diameter AG, the centre will be at O on the line KI below the plane of the circle AG determined the position of the sun before. So the segment YX which is above the horizon will be less than a semicircle. For YXM was a semicircle and it has now been cut off by the horizon AG. So part of it, YM, will be invisible when the sun has risen above the horizon, and the segment visible will be smallest when the sun is on the meridian; for the higher H is the lower the pole and the centre of the circle will be.

In the shorter days after the autumn equinox there may be a rainbow at any time of the day, but in the longer days from the spring to the autumn equinox there cannot be a rainbow about midday. The reason for this is that when the sun is north of the equator the visible arcs of its course are all greater than a semicircle, and go on increasing, while the invisible arc is small, but when the sun is south of the equator the visible arc is small and the invisible arc great, and the farther the sun moves south of the equator the greater is the invisible arc. Consequently, in the days near the summer solstice, the size of the visible arc is such that before the point H reaches the middle of that arc, that is its point of culmination, the point is well below the horizon; the reason for this being the great size of the visible arc, and the consequent distance of the point of culmination from the earth. But in the days near the winter solstice the visible arcs are small, and the contrary is necessarily the case: for the sun is on the meridian before the point H has risen far.

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