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http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/14/healthscience/web.1114meteor.php?page=1

 
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Meteorology By Aristotle

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Author Topic: Meteorology By Aristotle  (Read 2794 times)
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Bathos
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« Reply #30 on: August 30, 2009, 11:47:06 pm »

The drinkable, sweet water, then, is light and is all of it drawn
up: the salt water is heavy and remains behind, but not in its natural
place. For this is a question which has been sufficiently discussed
(I mean about the natural place that water, like the other elements,
must in reason have), and the answer is this. The place which we see
the sea filling is not its natural place but that of water. It seems
to belong to the sea because the weight of the salt water makes it
remain there, while the sweet, drinkable water which is light is carried
up. The same thing happens in animal bodies. Here, too, the food when
it enters the body is sweet, yet the residuum and dregs of liquid
food are found to be bitter and salt. This is because the sweet and
drinkable part of it has been drawn away by the natural animal heat
and has passed into the flesh and the other parts of the body according
to their several natures. Now just as here it would be wrong for any
one to refuse to call the belly the place of liquid food because that
disappears from it soon, and to call it the place of the residuum
because this is seen to remain, so in the case of our present subject.
This place, we say, is the place of water. Hence all rivers and all
the water that is generated flow into it: for water flows into the
deepest place, and the deepest part of the earth is filled by the
sea. Only all the light and sweet part of it is quickly carried off
by the sun, while herest remains for the reason we have explained.
It is quite natural that some people should have been puzzled by the
old question why such a mass of water leaves no trace anywhere (for
the sea does not increase though innumerable and vast rivers are flowing
into it every day.) But if one considers the matter the solution is
easy. The same amount of water does not take as long to dry up when
it is spread out as when it is gathered in a body, and indeed the
difference is so great that in the one case it might persist the whole
day long while in the other it might all disappear in a moment-as
for instance if one were to spread out a cup of water over a large
table. This is the case with the rivers: all the time they are flowing
their water forms a compact mass, but when it arrives at a vast wide
place it quickly and imperceptibly evaporates.
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