6 INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURE. 
birds; and the air, earth, and water teemed with unsub- 
stantial gods—the workmanship of a capricious imagi- 
nation. 
To the Greek mind of Homeric days the earth was pic- 
tured as a small, flat, circular plain—extending from 
the inaccessible lands of the happy Hyperboreans on the 
north to the African deserts on the south, and from an 
indefinite India on the east to the Pillars of Hercules on 
the west; while the River Ocean, unruffled by storm or 
tempest, surrounded all. Fancy placed above this plain 
a brazen dome, in which were set the sun, and moon, 
and stars, moving in their courses under and around the 
disk-like earth. 
To the north were the lofty mountains, from whose 
caverns the ‘‘piercing blasts of the north wind” rushed 
forth in their chilling fury, and where Cimmerian dark- 
ness covered all with the gloom of an eternal night. 
The enchanted islands of Circe and Calypso, and the 
floating island of Eolus, lay to the west of Sicily ; and 
the entrance to the infernal regions was north of the 
Pillars of Hercules. The Elysian fields—radiant with 
summer and fanned by gentle zephyrs—were far beyond 
the known boundaries of the earth; where, too, were 
found the gardens of Hesperides, with their golden 
apples guarded by singing nymphs and a sleepless 
dragon. The sea—now known as the Mediterranean— 
divided the earth into two nearly equal parts: Greece 
was the central land, and Olympus, with brow above the 
clouds,—bathed in constant sunshine—was the moun- 
tain home of the gods. 
With the growth of knowledge a restraining influ- 
ence was thrown, by the reason, around the imagination ; 
which, as if seeking to make amends for its own riotous 
workings by giving to the future imperishable records 
of the past, gathered its mystic deities from the field 
and sky, mountain and river; and, with the magic wand 
