Astronomical Myths Part 15

To the south of this river, and to the north of Hyrcania, is represented a monster having the body of a man, the head, tail, and feet of a bull: this is the Minotaur. Further on are the mountains of Armenia, and the ark of Noah on one of its plateaux. Here, too, is seen a large tiger, and we read: "The tiger, when he sees that he has been deprived of his young, pursues the ravisher precipitately; but the latter, hastening away on his swift horse, throws a mirror to him and is safe."

Elsewhere appears Lot's wife changed into a pillar of salt; the lynx who can see through a stone wall; the river Lethe; so called because all who drink of it forget everything.

Numerous other details might be mentioned, but enough has been said to show the curious nature and exceeding interest of this map, in which matters of observation and imagination are strangely mixed. Another very curious geographical doc.u.ment of that epoch is the map of the world of the _Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis_. This belongs to the fourteenth century. The capitals here too are represented by edifices. The Mediterranean is a vertical ca.n.a.l, which goes from the Columns of Hercules to Jerusalem. The Caspian Sea communicates with it to the north, and the Red Sea to the south-east, by the Nile. It preserves the same position for Paradise and for the land of Gog and Magog that we have seen before. The geography of Europe is very defective. Britannia and Anglia figure as two separate islands, being represented off the west coast of Spain, with Allemania and Germania, also two distinct countries, to the north. The ocean is represented as round the whole, and the various points of the compa.s.s are represented by different kinds of winds on the outside.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49.--COSMOGRAPHY OF ST. DENIS.]

This was the general style of the maps of the world at that period, as we may perceive from the various ill.u.s.trations we have been able to give, and it curiously initiates us into the mediaeval ideas. Sometimes they are surrounded by laughable figures of the winds with inflated cheeks, sometimes there are drawn light children of Eolus seated on leathern bottles, rotating the liquid within; at other times, saints, angels, Adam and Eve, or other people, adorn the circ.u.mference of the map. Within are shown a profusion of animals, trees, populations, monuments, tents, draperies, and monarchs seated on their thrones--an idea which was useful, no doubt, and which gave the reader some knowledge of the local riches, the ethnography, the local forms of government and of architecture in the various countries represented; but the drawings were for the most part childish, and more fantastic than real. The language, too, in which they were written was as mixed as the drawings; no regularity was preserved in the orthography of a name, which on the same map may be written in ten different ways, being expressed in barbarous Latin, Roman, or Old French, Catalan, Italian, Castilian, or Portuguese!

During the same epoch other forms of maps in less detail and of smaller size show the characters that we have seen in the maps of earlier centuries.

Marco Polo, the traveller, at the end of the fourteenth century, has preserved in his writings all the ancient traditions, and united them in a singular manner with the results of his own observations. He had not seen Paradise, but he had seen the ark of Noah resting on the top of Ararat. His map of the world, preserved in the library at Stockholm, is oval, and represents two continents.

In that which we inhabit, the only seas indicated are the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Asia appears at the east, Europe to the north, and Africa to the south. The other continent to the south of the equator, which is not marked, is Antichthonia.

In a map of the world engraved on a medal of the fifteenth century during the reign of Charles V. there is still a reminiscence of the ideas of the concealed earth and Meropides, as described by Theopompus.

We see the winds as cherubim; Europe more accurately represented than usual; but Africa still unknown, and a second continent, called Brumae, instead of Antichthonia, with imaginary details upon it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50--THE MAP OF MARCO POLO.]

If such were the ideas entertained amongst the most enlightened nations, what may we expect among those who were less advanced? It would take us too long to describe all that more Eastern nations have done upon this point since the commencement of our present era, but we may give an example or two from the Arabians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51.--MAP ON A MEDAL OF CHARLES V.]

In the ancient Arabian chronicle of Tabari is a system founded on the earth being the solid foundation of all things; we read: "The prophet says, the all-powerful and inimitable Deity has created the mountain of Kaf round about the earth; it has been called the foundation pile of the earth, as it is said in the Koran, 'The mountains are the piles.' This world is in the midst of the mountain of Kaf, just as the finger is in the midst of the ring. This mountain is emerald, and blue in colour; no man can go to it, because he would have to pa.s.s four months in darkness to do so. There is in that mountain neither sun, nor moon, nor stars; it is so blue that the azure colour you see in the heavens comes from the brilliancy of the mountain of Kaf, which is reflected in the sky. If this were not so the sky would not be blue. All the mountains that you see are supported by Kaf; if it did not exist, all the earth would be in a continual tremble, and not a creature could live upon its surface. The heavens rest upon it like a tent."

Another Arabian author, Benakaty, writing in 1317, says: "Know that the earth has the form of a globe suspended in the centre of the heavens. It is divided by the two great circles of the meridian and equator, which cut each other at light angles, into four equal parts, namely, those of the north-west, north-east, south-west, and south-east. The inhabited portion of the earth is situated in the southern hemisphere, of which one half is inhabited."

Ibn-Wardy, who lived in the same century, adopted the idea of the ocean surrounding all the earth, and said we knew neither its depth nor its extent.

This ocean was also acknowledged by the author of the Kaf mountain; he says it lies between the earth and that mountain, and calls it Bahr-al-Mohith.

The end of the fifteenth century saw the dawn of a new era in knowledge and science. The discoveries of Columbus changed entirely the aspect of matters, the imagination was excited to fresh enterprises, and the hardihood of the adventurers through good or bad success was such as want of liberty could not destroy.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, Columbus imagined the earth to have the shape of a pear. Not that he obtained this idea from his own observations, but rather retained it as a relic of past traditions. It is probable that it really dates from the seventh century. We may read in several cosmographical ma.n.u.scripts of that epoch, that the earth has the form of a cone or a top, its surface rising from south to north.

These ideas were considerably spread by the compilations of John of Beauvais in 1479, from whom probably Columbus derived his notion.

Although Columbus is generally and rightly known as the discoverer of the New World, a very curious suit was brought by Pinzon against his heirs in 1514. Pinzon pretended that the discovery was due to him alone, as Columbus had only followed his advice in making it. Pinzon told the admiral himself that the required route was intimated by an inspiration, or revelation. The truth was that this "revelation" was due to a flock of parrots, flying in the evening towards the south-west, which Pinzon concluded must be going in the direction of an invisible coast to pa.s.s the night in the bushes. Certainly the consequences of Columbus resisting the advice of Pinzon would have been most remarkable; for had he continued to sail due west he would have been caught by the Gulf Stream and carried to Florida, or possibly to Virginia, and in this case the United States would have received a Spanish and Catholic population, instead of an English and Protestant one.

The discoveries of those days were often commemorated by the formation of heraldic devices for the authors of them, and we have in this way some curious coats of arms on record. That, for instance, of Sebastian Cano was a globe, with the legend, _Primus circ.u.mdedisti me_. The arms given to Columbus in 1493 consisted of the first map of America, with a range of islands in a gulf. Charles V. gave to Diego of Ordaz the figure of the Peak of Orizaba as his arms, to commemorate his having ascended it; and to the historian Oviedo, who pa.s.sed thirty-four years without interruption (1513-47) in tropical America, the four beautiful stars of the Southern Cross.

We have arrived at the close of our history of the attempts that preceded the actual discovery of the form and const.i.tution of the globe; since these were established our further progress has been in matters of detail. There now remains briefly to notice the attempts at discovering the size of the earth on the supposition, and afterwards certainty, of its being a globe.

The earliest attempt at this was made by Eratosthenes, 246 years before our era, and it was founded on the following reasoning. The sun illuminates the bottom of pits at Syene at the summer solstice; on the same day, instead of being vertical over the heads of the inhabitants of Alexandria, it is 7-1/4 degrees from the zenith. Seven-and-a-quarter degrees is the fiftieth part of an entire circ.u.mference; and the distance between the two towns is five thousand stadia; hence the circ.u.mference of the earth is fifty times this distance, or 250 thousand stadia.

A century before our era Posidonius arrived at an a.n.a.logous result by remarking that the star Canopus touched the horizon at Rhodes when it was 7 degrees 12 minutes above that of Alexandria.

These measurements, which, though rough, were ingenious, were, followed in the eighth century by similar ones by the Arabian Caliph, Almamoun, who did not greatly modify them.

The first men who actually went round the world were the crew of the s.h.i.+p under Magellan, who started to the west in 1520; he was slain by the Philippine islanders in 1521, but his s.h.i.+p, under his lieutenant, Sebastian Cano, returned by the east in 1522. The first attempt at the actual measurement of a part of the earth's surface along the meridian was made by Fernel in 1528. His process was a singular, but simple one, namely, by counting the number of the turns made by the wheels of his carriage between Paris and Amiens. He made the number 57,020, and accurate measurements of the distance many years after showed he had not made an error of more than four turns.

The astronomer Picard attempted it again under Louis XIV. by triangulation.

The French astronomers have always been forward in this inquiry, and to them we owe the systematic attempts to arrive at a truer knowledge of the length of an arc of the meridian which were made in 1735-45 in Lapland and in Peru; and later under Mechain and Delambre, by order of the National a.s.sembly, for the basis of the metrical system.

Observations of this kind have also been made by the English, as at Lough Foyle in Ireland, and in India.

The review which has here been made of the various ideas on what now seems so simple a matter cannot but impress us with the vast contrast there is between the wild attempts of the earlier philosophers and our modern affirmations. What progress has been made in the last two thousand years! And all of this is due to hard work. The true revelation of nature is that which we form ourselves, by our persevering efforts.

We now know that the earth is approximately spherical, but flattened by about 1/300 at the poles, is three-quarters covered with water, and enveloped everywhere by a light atmospheric mantle. The distance from the centre of the earth to its surface is 3,956 miles, its area is 197 million square miles, its volume is 256,000 millions of cubic miles, its weight is six thousand trillion tons. So, thanks to the bold measurements of its inhabitants, we know as much about it as we are likely to know for a long time to come.

CHAPTER XI.

LEGENDARY WORLDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

The legends that were for so many ages prevalent in Europe had their foundation in the attempt to make the accounts of Scripture and the ideas and dogmas of the Fathers of the Church fit into the few and insignificant facts that were known with respect to the earth, and the system of which it forms a part, and the far more numerous imaginations that were entertained about it.

We are therefore led on to examine some of these legends, that we may appreciate how far a knowledge of astronomy will effect the eradication of errors and fantasies which, under the aspect of truth, have so long enslaved the people. No doubt the authors of the legendary stories knew well enough their allegorical nature; but those who received them supposed that they gave true indications of the nature of the earth and world, and therefore accepted them as facts.

Some indeed considered that the whole physical const.i.tution of the world was a scaffold or a model, and that there was a real theological universe hidden beneath this semblance. No one omitted from his system the spiritual heaven in which the angels and just men might spend their existence; but in addition to this there were places whose reality was believed in, but whose locality is more difficult to settle, and which therefore were moved from one place to another by various writers, viz., the infernal regions, purgatory, and the terrestrial paradise.

We will here recount some of those legends, which wielded sufficient sway over men's minds as to gain their belief in the veritable existence of the places described, and in this way to influence their astronomical and cosmographical ideas.

And for the first we will descend to the infernal regions with Plutarch and Thespesius.

This Thespesius relates his adventures in the other world. Having fallen head-first from an elevated place, he found himself unwounded, but was contused in such a way as to be insensible. He was supposed to be dead, but, after three days, as they were about to bury him, he came to life again. In a few days he recovered his former powers of mind and body; but made a marvellous change for the better in his life.

He said that at the moment that he lost consciousness he found himself like a sailor at the bottom of the sea; but afterwards, having recovered himself a little, he was able to breathe perfectly, and seeing only with the eyes of his soul, he looked round on all that was about him. He saw no longer the accustomed sights, but stars of prodigious magnitude, separated from each other by immense distances. They were of dazzling brightness and splendid colour. His soul, carried like a vessel on the luminous ocean, sailed along freely and smoothly, and moved everywhere with rapidity. Pa.s.sing over in silence a large number of the sights that met his eye, he stated that the souls of the dead, taking the form of bubbles of fire, rise through the air, which opens a pa.s.sage above them; at last the bubbles, breaking without noise, let out the souls in a human form and of a smaller size, and moving in different ways. Some, rising with astonis.h.i.+ng lightness, mounted in a straight line; others, running round like a whipping-top, went up and down by turns with a confused and irregular motion, making small advance by long and painful efforts. Among this number he saw one of his parents, whom he recognised with difficulty, as she had died in his infancy; but she approached him, and said, "Good day, Thespesius." Surprised to hear himself called by this name, he told her that he was called Arideus, and not Thespesius.

"That was once your name," she replied, "but in future you will bear that of Thespesius, for you are not dead, only the intelligent part of your soul has come here by the particular will of the G.o.ds; your other faculties are still united to your body, which keeps them like an anchor. The proof I will give you is that the souls of the dead do not cast any shadow, and they cannot move their eyes."

Further on, in traversing a luminous region, he heard, as he was pa.s.sing, the shrill voice of a female speaking in verse, who presided over the time Thespesius should die. His genius told him that it was the voice of the Sibyl, who, turning on the orbit of the moon, foretold the future. Thespesius would willingly have heard more, but, driven off by a rapid whirlwind, he could make out but little of her predictions. In another place he remarked several parallel lakes, one filled with melted and boiling gold, another with lead colder than ice, and a third with very rough iron. They were kept by genii, who, armed with tongs like those used in forges, plunged into these lakes, and then withdrew by turns, the souls of those whom avarice or an insatiable cupidity had led into crime; after they had been plunged into the lake of gold, where the fire made them red and transparent, they were thrown into the lake of lead. Then, frozen by the cold, and made as hard as hail, they were put into the lake of iron, where they became horribly black. Broken and bruised on account of their hardness, they changed their form, and pa.s.sed once more into the lake of gold, and suffered in these changes inexpressible pain.

In another place he saw the souls of those who had to return to life and be violently forced to take the form of all sorts of animals. Among the number he saw the soul of Nero, which had already suffered many torments, and was bound with red-hot chains of iron. The workmen were seizing him to give him the form of a viper, under which he was destined to live, after having devoured the womb that bore him.

The locality of these infernal regions was never exactly determined. The ancients were divided upon the point. In the poems of Homer the infernal regions appear under two different forms: thus, in the _Iliad_, it is a vast subterranean cavity; while in the _Odyssey_, it is a distant and mysterious country at the extremity of the earth, beyond the ocean, in the neighbourhood of the Cimmerians.

The description which Homer gives of the infernal region proves that in his time the Greeks imagined it to be a copy of the terrestrial world, but one which had a special character. According to the philosophers it was equally remote from all parts of the earth. Thus Cicero, in order to show that it was of no consequence where one died, said, wherever we die there is just as long a journey to be made to reach the "infernal regions."

The poets fixed upon certain localities as the entrance to this dismal empire: such was the river Lethe, on the borders of the Scythians; the cavern Acherusia in Epirus, the mouth of Pluto, in Laodicoea, the cave of Zenarus near Lacedaemon.

In the map of the world in the _Polychronicon_ of Ranulphus Uygden, now in the British Museum, it is stated: "The Island of Sicily was once a part of Italy. There is Mount Etna, containing the infernal regions and purgatory, and it has Scylla and Charybdis, two whirlpools."

Ulysses was said to reach the place of the dead by crossing the ocean to the Cimmerian land, aeneas to have entered it by the Lake of Avernus.

Xenophon says that Hercules went there by the peninsula of Arechusiade.

Much of this, no doubt, depends on the exaggeration and misinterpretation of the accounts of voyagers; as when the Phoenicians related that, after pa.s.sing the Columns of Hercules, to seek tin in Thule and amber in the Baltic, they came, at the extremity of the world, to the Fortunate Isles, the abode of eternal spring, and further on to the Hyperborean regions, where a perpetual night enveloped the country--the imagination of the people developed from this the Elysian fields, as the places of delight in the lower regions, having their own sun, moon, and stars, and Tartarus, a place of shades and desolation.