CHAPTER IV 



THE WINDS 



FROM the dawn of human history until as recently 

 as the middle of the nineteenth century, when old 

 witches in Norway used to sell parcels of wind to 

 superstitious sailors to prevent their ships becoming 

 becalmed, the winds of the world have stirred the im- 

 aginations of men, and have breathed fables and super- 

 stitions regarding themselves in their ears. 



Meteorology as an exact science treating of the motions 

 and phenomena of the atmosphere begins with Hippo- 

 crates, the Greek physician, who in the fifth century B.C. 

 wrote a work on Airs, Waters and Places ; but speculation 

 as to the physical causes of atmospheric changes began a 

 century later, when Aristotle's Meteorologica appeared : it 

 became the text-book of physical science for centuries 

 afterwards, right up to the Middle Ages and the Renais- 

 sance. Only gradually, however, did meteorology be- 

 come a specialized science. For more than a thousand 

 years the men who contributed to the study of the 

 world's winds, waves, whirlpools and other meteorological 

 phenomena were not necessarily scientists. Valuable 

 though their contributions were, they were men of widely 

 diversified occupations, from chemists and mathemati- 

 cians to lawyers and politicians. There were, of course, 

 astronomers and seafaring men among them — men 

 likely to be specially interested in meteorological con- 

 ditions — but some of the most noted names are those of 

 men whose occupations were in no way connected with 

 meteorology. Pliny the Elder, whose Historia Naturalis is 



58 



