54 8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



How the earth is supported was ever a perplexing question 

 among ignorant nations. Thus, in the opinion of the old Greenland- 

 ers, as handed down from antiquity, the earth is upheld by pillars, 

 which are so consumed by time that they often crack, and, were it not 

 that they are sustained by the incantations of the magicians, the earth 

 would long since have broken down. 



It is hardly possible for us now to enter into that gross anthropo- 

 morphic state of mind by which, in primitive times, the phenomena 

 of the universe were all represented in terms of human personality ; 

 nor can we even say how literally such views were held. But cer- 



Fig. 9 The Cosmography of Cosmas. 



tainly some of the representations are funny and fantastic. Thus, 

 " an ancient Egyptian papyrus in the Library of Paris gives a very 

 curious hieroglyphical representation of the universe. The earth is 

 here imaged under the form of a reclining figure, and is covered with 

 leaves. The heavens are personified by a goddess, who forms the 

 vault by her star-bespangled body, which is elongated in a very pe- 

 culiar manner. Two boats, carrying one the rising sun and the other 

 the setting sun, are represented as moving along the heavens over the 

 body of the goddess. In the centre of the picture is the god Maon, 

 a divine intelligence, which presides over the equilibrium of the uni- 

 verse." 



Strabo, one of the greatest geographers of antiquity born a. d. 

 19 held to the sphericity of the earth, but of course regarded it as 

 the motionless centre of the universe. He considered the moon and 

 stars as only meteors, nourished by the exhalations of the ocean, and 

 firmly maintained that no part of the earth can be inhabited save 

 that which was known to the ancients. The form of the habitable 

 world he held to be like that of a cloak, measuring in length from 

 east to west 70,000 stadia (about 8,000 miles), while its breadth is 

 less than 30,000 stadia (3,600 miles). It is bounded by regions unin- 



