Researches about atmospheric phaenomena / By Thomas Forster.

  • Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches about atmospheric phaenomena / By Thomas Forster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wrote on meteorology of any note were Vliny, who in his Natural History, lib. xviii. cap. 35, wherein he treats of the prognosticks of the weather, confounded his observations with abun- dance of fabulous and absurd narrations; Virgil, who in his Georgics imitated the prognosticks of Aratus; Lucretius, who endeavoured to as- sign physical causes for most of the popular phaenomena of the heavens; and, lastly, Seneca, with whose superfluous tautology in his Natural Questions, every one who has read them must have been heartily tired. In the works too of many of their other writers we find traces of their meteorological knowledge. It is a pity we know 0 little of the collateral history of this as well as of the sciences among the Chinese and Arabians; and among other eastern tribes of the present day. Little account of the state Gf our science can be traced from the time of the ancient Romans to the revival of letters in Europe; and it was not till the middle of the last century that any advancement was made in meteorology. Dur- ing the middle ages which elapsed between the decay of the Roman Empire and the general - revival of literature, meteorology like every science, was confined to the monasteries and re-
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