END OF BOOK ATLAS. 479 



metheus, and Epimetheus ; according to Apollodorus, his 

 mother's name was Asia ; and, according to Hyginus, he 

 was a son of Aether and Gaea." Other accounts are given 

 of his genealogy. Hesiod says " he bore heaven with his 

 head and hands." From the Homeric poems: " Atlas knows 

 the depth of the sea, and bears the long columns which keep 

 asunder, or carry all around, earth and heaven ; or of the 

 columns which keep asunder heaven and earth, which co- 

 lumns are the mountains." The Homeric description was a 

 " superhuman or divine being, with a personal existence, and 

 blended with the idea of a mountain." 



" The idea of heaven-bearing Atlas is, according to Le- 

 tronne, a mere personification of a cosmographic notion, 

 which arose from the views entertained by the ancients respect- 

 ing the nature of heaven and its relation to earth." (L. S.) 

 Again, he led the Titans in their fight with Zeus, and 

 " being conquered, he was condemned to the labor of bear- 

 ing heaven on his head and hands." Another version is, 

 "he was a man who was metamorphosed into a mountain." 

 Again, Perseus, by the " Medusa's head, changed him into 

 Mount Atlas, on which rested heaven and all its stars." 



This mythico-cosmical origin of mountains, embracing 

 every imaginable formulae, gives a sure and steadfast base- 

 line for the chapters on the natural science of the mountain, 

 by getting as near to the bones or skeleton of the old struc- 

 ture as possible ; or, in other words, of what is under, in, 

 and on the mountain, namely, its geology, upon which must 

 repose its soil, its organized bodies, its waters, and downy- 

 ocean of air above. 



