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Meteorology By Aristotle

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Author Topic: Meteorology By Aristotle  (Read 2828 times)
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Bathos
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« Reply #45 on: August 30, 2009, 11:48:05 pm »

Now in the body stuff of this kind, viz. the sediment of food, is
due to failure to digest: but how there came to be any such thing
in the earth requires explanation. Besides, how can the drying and
warming of the earth cause the secretion such a great quantity of
water; especially as that must be a mere fragment of what is left
in the earth? Again, waiving the question of quantity, why does not
the earth sweat now when it happens to be in process of drying? If
it did so then, it ought to do so now. But it does not: on the contrary,
when it is dry it graws moist, but when it is moist it does not secrete
anything at all. How then was it possible for the earth at the beginning
when it was moist to sweat as it grew dry? Indeed, the theory that
maintains that most of the moisture departed and was drawn up by the
sun and that what was left over is the sea is more reasonable; but
for the earth to sweat when it is moist is impossible.

Since all the attempts to account for the saltness of the sea seem
unsuccessful let us explain it by the help of the principle we have
used already.

Since we recognize two kinds of evaporation, one moist, the other
dry, it is clear that the latter must be recognized as the source
of phenomena like those we are concerned with.

But there is a question which we must discuss first. Does the sea
always remain numerically one and consisting of the same parts, or
is it, too, one in form and volume while its parts are in continual
change, like air and sweet water and fire? All of these are in a constant
state of change, but the form and the quantity of each of them are
fixed, just as they are in the case of a flowing river or a burning
flame. The answer is clear, and there is no doubt that the same account
holds good of all these things alike. They differ in that some of
them change more rapidly or more slowly than others; and they all
are involved in a process of perishing and becoming which yet affects
them all in a regular course.
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