250 SEE— '1 EMPERATURE, SECULAR COOLING [April 20, 



" Frequently there is also produced an eruption of fire from the sea, and 

 a spouting up of springs, and a breaking forth of rivers, and an uprooting 

 of trees, terrible eddies and whirlpools, analogous to those due to blasts of 

 wind; some of these phenomena occur on the depths of the sea, others in 

 Euripus and the straits near the land. 



" Many ebbs and flows of waves are said to run in always with the 

 moon, at certain well determined epochs. To speak of the whole in a few 

 words, we may therefore say that the elements mixing together among them- 

 selves, in the air, the earth and the sea, there is only considerable probability 

 of the similar properties combining together, bringing to diverse creatures 

 death or life partially, but on the whole conserving the indestructible uni- 

 verse just as it is uncreated. . . . 



" In reality terrible earthquakes have thrown in confusion many parts 

 of the earth; the rains suddenly falling produce floods, and ominous out- 

 breaks ; inundations of waves, and recessions of the water makes sea where 

 it was land and land where it was sea ; the force of the winds and typhoons, 

 are such as to overturn whole cities ; volcanoes indeed and flames have broken 

 out, which coming as of old from the heavens, just as they say since the 

 time of Phaethon (driver of the sun's chariot), have burned up the parts 

 towards the dawn; but on the other hand towards hesperus, they issue forth 

 and radiate from the earth, just as the craters which have sent forth the 

 flames of ^Etna, and spreading over the ground are carried down as a torrent, 



" It is in the terrible catastrophes arising from such an outpouring that 

 the Diety has conspicuously honored the race of the pious who permit them- 

 selves to be surrounded by fiery streams of lava, when they take upon their 

 shoulders their aged parents and save them; for when it nears them, the 

 stream of fire, having developed as a river, divides, turning aside here, and 

 again there, and spares the young persons along with their parents, with- 

 out harming them. And in general, what the pilot is to the ship, the driver 

 to the chariot, the leader to the choir, the law in the state, the general in the 

 army, this the Diety is in the Cosmos." 



§ 20. The Theory of Strabo (66 B. C.-24 A. D.). 



The translation of Strabo's Geography included in Bohn's 

 Library is acknowledged to be good ; we shall therefore quote from* 

 it some extracts which exhibit Strabo's views. In the introduction 

 to Strabo's ''Geography" (Chap. III., §3-4), this interesting pas- 

 sage occurs : 



" Again, having discoursed on the advance of knowledge respecting the 

 geography of the inhabited earth, between the time of Alexander and the 

 period when he was writing, Eratosthenes goes into a description of the 

 figure of the earth; not merely of the habitable earth, an account of which 

 would have been very suitable, but of the whole earth, which should certainly 

 have been given too, but not in this disorderly manner. He proceeds to 

 tell us that the earth is spheroidal, not however perfectly so, inasmuch as 

 it has certain irregularities, then enlarges on the successive changes of form, 

 occasioned by water, fire, earthquakes, eruptions, and the like; all of which 



