62 B. K. EMERSON — TETRAHBDRAL EARTH : INTERCONTINENTAL SEAS 



"An<l after this f saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, hold- 

 ing the four winds of the earth." Rev. 7 : 1. 



A Prelude on Influence of Vulcanism of the Mediterranean 



Zone on Thought 



Whether Empedocles, the proud philosopher of Agrigentum, leaving 

 his brazen sandals on the crest of the mountain, cast himself into the 

 crater of Etna, despairing of any solution of the problem of the universe, 

 or whether, as the first of a long line of scientific martyrs, he fell a victim 

 to his zeal for knowledge while searching at the fountain-head to know 

 of the pyriphlegethon — that fj.e<rov -up or -up ev fcevrpio, that central fire of 

 his master, Pythagoras — we may be sure that the volcanic fires of the 

 Mediterranean illuminated the esoteric doctrine of the schools at the very 

 dawn of Greek philosophy. The imagery of religious exaltation has 

 from the beginning borrowed its grandest symbolism from the volcano 

 and the earthquake. We have wandered with iEneas through Avernus 

 in the solfataras of the Phlsegrean fields, have recalled Vulcan as we sailed 

 past Etna, and the goddess Pele beside the caldron of Kilauea. In the 

 presence of the peerless cone of Fuji-san, we could not wonder at the 

 Via Sacra, along which the pious pilgrims, ascending, worshipped the 

 holy mountain. 



The Persian account of the flood adds a volcano to the earthquake of 

 the Gilgamos Epos : 



" Out of .the south arose a great fiery dragon. Day changed to night. The stars 

 disappeared. The zodiac was covered by the great tail. Only sun and moon could 

 be seen in the heaven. Boiling water fell and scorched the trees to their roots. 

 Amidst constant lightning fell drops of rain as big as one's head. After ninety 

 days and ninety nights, the enemy of the earth was destroyed."* 



Saint Johnf the Divine, in his Apocalypse, said : " I, John, who also 

 am your brother and companion in tribulation, . . . was in the 

 isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God. 1 ' This was probably in 

 the year 60, and Doctor Dekigallas, in his history of the eruptions of 

 Santorin, the great submerged crater which rises from the sea like one of 

 the lunar mountains, in plain view of Patmos, tells us, on the authorit} 7, 

 of George of Syngelos, that in an eruption of Santorin which occurred 

 in this year " Palaia Kaumeni," the insula caustica antiqua, was increased 

 by the emergence from the sea of a great volume of lava, which formed 

 a cape stretching toward Patmos. Now Santorin is Saint Irene, but the 



♦ Mayer: l>ic Entstehung der Erde, p. 383. 



f Theodore Bent : What .John saw in Patmos. Nineteenth Century, vol. XXIV, p. 817. 



