GREEK IDEAS OF VULCAN ISM. 555 



GREEK IDEAS OE VULCAMSM. 



By Dr. CHARLES R. EASTMAN, 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



'/""^ REEK philosophy was born/ as has been aptly remarked, ' on 

 VJX that day when some thinker tried to find a rational explanation 

 of the universe.' Tradition awards the honor of this initiative to 

 Thales of Miletus, who lived in the beginning of the sixth century, B.C. 

 Meager and unsatisfactory as is our knowledge of this early pioneer, 

 his place is none the less honored and secure in the history of natural 

 philosophy. According to common report he was well versed in the 

 astronomical lore of the Chaldeans, predicted eclipses, investigated 

 meteorological phenomena, sought to explain the causes of earthquakes, 

 and attained to the truly sublime height of conceiving that all existing 

 things had a common origin, and that water was the primordial matter 

 of the universe. 



In the teachings of Thales and his followers we discover not only 

 germs of suggestion destined to become extremely fruitful in biological 

 science, but also the first serious attempts at geological speculation 

 during classical antiquity. Previous to the sixth century B.C., neither 

 the Hellenic, Egyptian nor Oriental mind seems to have advanced be- 

 yond intellectual childhood in proposing to itself a rational explana- 

 tion of nature. The ancient feeling for nature amongst the Greeks, 

 as revealed in literature, was decidedly prosaic and practical; only by 

 slow degrees did they come to the idea of nature as a single power or 

 being, more or less personified, and possessing the attributes of beauty 

 and conscious intelligence. With the earlier deistic interpretation of 

 nature, with the numerous legends and ' observation myths ' of an- 

 tiquity, and with the invocation of supernatural agencies by way of 

 explaining vulcanism, we are not now especially concerned. Merely 

 be it noted in passing that the localization of geological myths, such as 

 that of the Chinuera, the Deucalion deluge, the fall of Hephaestus upon 

 Lemnos together with his various subterranean forges, and also signifi- 

 cant place-names like Rhegium, Tempe, Pirasus, Kaimeni, Katakekau- 

 mene (' Burnt Country '), etc., frequently attests the occurrence of geo- 

 logical events which were afterwards forgotten.* 



Volcanoes themselves did not at first engage the attention of Ionian 

 philosophers, for reasons easily understood. In the first place, the 

 eruptions known to have taken place in the Greek Archipelago occurred 



* It has been suggested with much plausibility that all the traditions of 

 certain islands in the Mediterranean having at some time or other shifted their 

 positions, and at length become stationary, originated in the great change pro- 

 duced in their form by earthquakes and submarine eruptions, of which there 



