st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

to the Canobic mouth of the Nile, is 209,252 stades ;
ON NATURAL SCIENCE.
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senses, sight, hearing, and smell. Wind is an agita
tion, or current of air ;
and according to the quarter
from which it sets, we give it in each case a special
name. The names of the winds, twelve in all, are
then set down. This is followed by an account of
water, and the chief collections of water on the globe.
By ocean the "refluent ocean stream" of Miltonis
meant "a kind of river encircling the whole earth,
about which Holy Scripture seems to speak, in the
words a river went out of Eden, having sweet and
drinkable water. This supplies water to the various
seas. But from the water remaining a long time in
them without change,
it becomes brackish ;
the more
rarefied part being constantly drawn off by the sun
and by waterspouts. It is from this that clouds are
formed and rain ensues, the water becoming sweet by
percolation through the air." The four rivers of
Paradise he identifies with the Ganges, the Nile, the
Tigris, and the Euphrates. The different seas, or
parts of seas, then known, are next named in order,
beginning with the ^gaean. Lastly, the measure
ments of the three continents are given. The l
length
of Europe, as one coasts along from the mouth of
the Tanais (Don) to the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar),
is 609,709 stades ;
that of Africa, from Tingis (Tangier)
and that of Asia, from Canobus to the Don, is 4, 1 1 T
stades. It is plain that some error has here crept
into the text, possibly by a misinterpretation of the
1
Taking length in its
distance east and west.
geographical sense of longitude, or
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