* 

 380 APPENDIX. NOTES. 



My venerated friend, the late Rev. Wm. Jones, of Nay- 

 land well known for his knowledge of the Hebrew, and 

 the variety and ability of his researches on every subject 

 connected with the interpretation of Scripture in his 

 Physiological Disquisitions thus expresses himself, con- 

 cerning the term in question. " We suppose then that 

 the air was driven downwards, for this purpose, through 

 those passages which are called windows of heaven. These 

 may seem very obscure terms to express such a sense by ; 

 but heaven is the firma mentj or expanded substance of the 

 atmosphere; and windows, as they are here called, are 

 holes, or channels of any kind. The same word is used 

 for chimneys, 1 through which smoke passes, and for the 

 holes, probably cliffs of a rock, in which the doves of the 

 eastern countries have their habitation." 2 



It strikes me as not very improbable that the term I am 

 speaking of may allude to volcanos and their craters, 

 which may be called the chimneys of this globe, by which 

 its subterranean fires communicate^ with the atmosphere, 

 and by which the air rushing into the earth, when circum- 

 stances are favourable, may possibly act the part of the 

 fabled Cyclops, and blow them up previous to an erup- 

 tion: thus they become literally channels or chimneys, 

 through which the matter constituting the expanse or 

 firmament passes, either from heaven, or, in an eruption, 

 toivards heaven. The expression, in Isaiah, quoted above, 

 The windows from on high 3 are opened, and the founda- 

 tions of the earth do shake seems to indicate that earth- 

 quakes are connected with the opening of the windows of 



1 Hosea, xiii. 3. 



2 Isai. Ix. 8. See Jones' Works, x. 264. See also Park- 

 hurst, Heb. Lex. under ni II. 



* Heb. DVIDD 



