124 THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY. 
them with enlivening effect, and representing them 
as a direct encroachment of the gods on the esta- 
blished laws of nature. 
The Greek and Roman classics frequently make 
mention of the Red Sea, as deriving its name from 
the red colour exhibited by its waters at different 
periods, owing to the showers of blood, which they 
considered as the immediate operations of superna- 
tural powers, and as direct violations of the establish- 
ed laws of nature. Cicero was the first to question 
the preternatural origin of these phenomena, and 
endeavoured to account for them by physical means. 
The red colour of water he accounts for from its 
holding in solution a mixture of red-coloured earthy 
ingredients, and the express traces of blood drops on 
plants and stones to the bloody colouring of mois- 
ture. 
From the time of Cicero till the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, we have many records of such 
natural phenomena; but no accurate or philosophical 
investigations of them have been offered. There was 
an absurd doctrine supported by the Hippocratic 
believers, among whom was the physician Garceeus, 
who, in 1568, says, blood-rain is rain boiled by the 
sun, 
The aim of Chladnei was, the advancement of the 
study of truly cosmical and atmospherical bodies. 
It would he foreign to our subject, although ex- 
tremely interesting, to introduce, in chronological 
