Since he seems from Pliny
(xi., 52) to have been a physiognomist, we may presume that his numerous
lost works were not confined to history alone. The opinion that air is
forced into the interior of the earth, there to act on the vocanic furnaces,
was connected by the ancients with the supposed influence of winds from
different quarters on the intensity of the fires burning in tna, Hiera, and
Stromboli. (See the remarkable passage in Strabo, liv. vi., Aetna.) The
mountain island of Stromboli (Strongyle) was regarded therefore, as the
dwelling-place of Aeolus, "the regulator of the winds," in consequence of
the sailors foretelling the weather from the activity of the volcanic
eruptions of this island. The connection between the eruption of a small
volcano with the state of the barometer and the direction of the wind is
still generally recognized (Leop. von Buch, 'Descr. Phys. des Iles
Canaries', p. 334; Hoffmann, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xxvi., s. viii),
although our present knowledge of volcanic phenomena, and the slight changes
of atmospheric pressure accompanying our winds, do not enable us to offer
any satisfactory explanation of the fact. Bembo, who during his youth was
brought up in Sicily by Greek refugees, gave an agreeable narrative of his
wanderings, and in his 'Aetna Dialogus' (written in the middle of the
sixteenth century) advances the theory of the penetration of sea water to
the very center of the volcanic action, and of the necessity of the
proximity of the sea to active volcanoes.
Pages:
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515