FROM THE HIGHER ATMOSPHERE. 495 



exposure under a serene sky. Homer uses the term AiOgog, in 

 speaking of the reception of his hero, when overcome with 

 cold and toil *. The same graphic poet applies the epithet 

 AiOgyiysvqs or Aidgqyevelrig, or Jrigorific, to Boreas, the north windf. 

 The Chorus, in the Antigone of Sophocles, deprecates alike 

 the pelting storm and the cold (aiQgta.) of inhospitable frozen 

 tracts X' The word aiOgios is employed by Herodotus, to signi- 

 fy a chill, as well as a dry, atmosphere ||. Of the same import 

 is the expression in Horace — Sub Jove frigido. 



But the facts discovered by the aethrioscope are nowise at 

 variance with the theory that regulates the gradation of 

 heat from the equator to the pole, and from the level of the 

 sea to the highest atmosphere. The internal motion of the 

 air, by the agency of opposite winds, still tempers the dis- 

 parity of the solar impressions ; but this effect is likewise ac- 

 celerated by the vibrations excited from the unequal distribu- 

 tion of heat, and darted through the atmospheric medium with 

 the celerity of sound. Any surface which sends a hot pulse in 

 one direction, must evidently propel a cold pulse of the same 

 intensity in an opposite direction. The existence of such pul- 

 sations, therefore, is in perfect unison with the balanced system 

 of aerial currents. 



* Ai'^ai x-ot.1 KXflclra dlofi-/if/.ivov qftv 1$ tiKOV. Odyss. Lib. XIV. 318. 

 ■J- £1; o an Tctetpltal vt<puois Aio$ IxwoTEevlaw, 



1rv%£*i v7rxi fizrw xlBg/ifiAos Bogeao. Iliad. Lib. xix. 357-8. 



Kse; Bogsijs xidpiytvent?, puyx kvux xvAuteW. Odyss. Lib. V. 296. 

 ^ AvtrxvXav Trxyan xtSpta 



Kat ^vTOftjigtt (ptvytit jiiXn. Antigone, 857. 



)| ®it>uolti><n y«£ o»i i?i to vo&>(> t»J; ri xi'S^xe x#J tijs i^o<ra. Euterpe, 



XXII. 



