858 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



Snow crystal. 



Photomicrograph by 

 W. A. Bentley. 



THE TEMPLE OF THE WINDS AT ATHENS 



The Temple of the Winds, erected probably 

 about five hundred years B. C., indicates the 

 knowledge of the weather possessed by the 

 ancient Greeks. This temple is a little octagon 

 tower, the eight sides of which face the eight 

 principal winds. On each of its eight sides is a 

 human figure cut in the marble, symbolizing 

 the kind of weather the wind from that particu- 

 lar direction brought to Athens. 



Boreas, the cold north wind, is represented 

 by the figure of an old man wearing a thick 

 mantle, high buskins (boots) and blowing on 

 a "weathered horn. " The northeast wind, which 

 brought, and still brings to Athens, cold, snow, sleet and hail, is symbolized 

 by a man with a severe countenance who is rattling slingstones in a 

 shield, thus expressing the noise made by the falling hail and sleet. 



The east wind, which brought weather favorable to the growth of vegeta- 

 tion, is shown by the figure of a beautiful youth bearing fruit and flowers in 

 his tucked-up mantle. 



Natos, the warm south wind, brought rain, and he is about to pour the 

 water over the earth from the jar which he carries. 



Lips, the southwest wind, beloved of the Greek sailors, drives a ship 

 before him, while Zephros, the gentle west wind, is represented by a youth 

 lightly clad, scattering flowers as he goes. 



, The northwest wind, which brought dry and sometimes hot weather to 

 Athens, is symbolized in the figure of a man holding a vessel of charcoal 

 in his hands. Thus, the character of the weather brought by each separate 

 wind is fixed in stone, and from this record we learn that, even with the 

 lapse of twenty centuries, there has come no material change. 



HISTORICAL 



There is no record of any rational progress 

 having been made in the study of the weather 

 until about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, when Torricelli discovered the principles 

 of the barometer. This was a most important 

 discovery and marks the beginning of the 

 modem science of meteorology. Soon after 

 Torricelli 's discovery of the barometer his great 

 teacher, Galileo, discovered the thermometer, 

 and thus made possible the collection of data 

 upon which all meteorological investigations 

 are based. About one hundred years after 

 the discovery of the barometer, Benjamin 

 Franklin made a discovery of equal import- 

 ance. He demonstrated that storms were 

 eddies in the atmosphere, and that they pro- 

 gressed or moved as a whole, along the surface of the earth. 



It might be interesting to learn how Franklin made this discovery. 

 Franklin, being interested at that time in astronomy, had arranged with a 



Snow crystal. 



Photomicrograph by 

 W. A. Bentley. 



