NOTES. XI 



engaged in an 'eternal course' (o-w/ua oet d-e'o?) and 'divine' (i^eTov), alluded 

 to in the Meteorologica, is strikingly indicative of Greek fancy, and gives an 

 additional evidence of the far from happy treatment of etymologies by the 

 ancients." Professor Buschmann calls attention to a Sanscrit word, aschtra, 

 for sether, atmosphere, which resembles much in appearance the Greek a&np, 

 and had been compared with it by Vans Kennedy, in his " Researches into 

 the Origin and Affinity of the principal Languages of Asia and Europe," 1828, 

 p. 279. There may be assigned to this word, also, a root (as, asch), to which 

 the Indians attached the idea of " shilling." 



( M ) p. 34. Aristot. de Coelo, iv. 1 and 34, p. 308 and 311312, 

 Bekk. If Aristotle refused to the sether the name of a fifth element which, 

 indeed, Hitter and Martin deny (vide Hitter, Geschichte der Philosophic, 

 Th. iii. S. 259 ; and Martin, Etudes sur le Time'e de Platon, T.ii. p. 150) 

 it was only because the sether, as a state of matter, appeared to him to want 

 a counterpart (compare Biese, Philosophic des Aristoteles, Bd. ii. S. 66). 

 With the Pythagoreans, aether as a fifth element was represented by the fifth 

 of the regularly-formed bodies, the dodecahedron, composed of twelve penta- 

 gons (Martin, T. ii. p. 245250). 



( 65 ) p. 34. See on this subject the passages collected by Biese, Bd. ii. 

 S. 93. 



( 6G ) p. 35. Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 159 and 416, Note 88 (English edition, 

 Vol. i. p. 143, Note 118). 



( 67 ) p. 35. Compare the fine passage on the rays of the sun in Sir John 

 Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, p. 237 : By the vivifying action of the 

 sun's rays vegetables are enabled to draw support from inorganic matter, and 

 become, in their turn, the support of animals and of man, and the sources of 

 those great, deposits of dynamical efficiency which are laid up for human use 

 in our coal strata. By them the waters of the sea are made to circulate in 

 vapour through the air, and irrigate the laud, producing springs and rivers. 

 By them are produced all disturbances of the chemical equilibrium of the 

 elements of nature, which, by a series of compositions and decompositions, 

 give rise to new products, and originate a transfer of materials." 



( 68 J p. 35. Phil. Trans, for 1795, Vol. Ixxxv. p. 318; John Herschel, 

 Outlines of Astronomy, p. 238 ; Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 195 and 436, Note 33 

 (English edition, Vol. i. p. 177 and Note 163). 



( 69 ) p. 36. Bessel, in Schumacher's Astr. Nachr. Bd. xiii. 1836, 

 No. 300, S. 201. 



(70) p. 36. Bessel, in the same, S. 186192 aud 229. 



