BOOK II.] History of Nature. 97 



the second Year of the Seventy-eighth Olympiad, what Time 

 a Stone would fall from the Sun : and the same happened 

 accordingly, in the Daytime, in a Part of Thracia, near the 

 River .ZEgos ; which Stone is shewed at this Day as big as a 

 Wain-load, carrying a burnt Colour : at which Time a Comet 

 also burned by Night. Which if any Man believe that it 

 was fore-signified, he must needs also confess, that this fore- 

 telling by Anaxagoras was more miraculous than the Thing 

 itself: and that it destroyed the Knowledge of Nature's 

 Works, and confounds all Things, if we should believe that 

 either the Sun were a Stone, or that ever any Stone were in 

 it. But, that Stones fall often, no Man will make any doubt- 

 In the public Place of Exercise in Abydos, there is one at 

 this Day upon the same Cause preserved, and held in great 

 Reverence : it is but of small size, yet it is reported to be the 

 same that Anaxagoras foretold to be about to fall in the 

 midst of the Earth. There is one revered also at Cassandria, 

 which was called Potidsea, a Colony from thence deducted. 

 I myself have seen another in the Territory of the Vocantians, 

 which was brought thither but a little before. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

 Of the Rainbow. 



THOSE which we call Rainbows, are seen often without any 

 Wonder, or betokening Portent : for they foretel not so much 



facts are no longer doubted, the instances recorded by Pliny become 

 valuable evidences of their antiquity. A still more ancient instance is 

 found in the Book of Joshua, x. 11, where, in the conquest of Canaan, 

 the Lord threw down great stones from heaven on the enemy, and dis- 

 comfited them. The miraculous nature of this last transaction does not 

 remove it from the class of natural occurrences ; for Nature itself is only 

 an instrument in the hands of its Creator. With regard to the prognos- 

 tication of Anaxagoras, it can only be taken to signify the high reputation 

 of this philosopber ; which led the public to believe that they could not 

 attribute too much to his insight into the occurrences of Nature. There 

 is reason to suppose that some of the images which were said to have fallen 

 down from Jupiter (Acts of the Apostles, xix. 35) were derived from tbis 

 source. Wern. Club. 



