Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
If however you think that earth is black, while the three
other elements [air, fire, water] are bright, there will be others
who regard them as the same. Why? They reply: vision gives
to Vulcan the glow that is inherent, but what does that glow
mean? The powerful force of Nature, the friendly companion
of things, binds together matter and fire.9
What he seems to be trying to say is that all the elements are
bound up together in nature, which is proved by the glowing of
Vulcan's mountain.
The German scholar saint Albertus Magnus (
c.
1200-1280)
made the first experimental model of a volcano, using an enclosed
brass vase with two stoppers. Filling this with water and bring-
ing it to the boil, he found that the pressure inside made either
the upper cork fly out, followed by a plume of steam, or the lower
cork, followed by a fountain of boiling water. This experiment, one
of the earliest recorded, was fully in line with Albertus's assertion
that 'natural science does not consist in ratifying what others
have said, but in seeking the causes of phenomena'. These words
are direct precursors of the motto of the Royal Society,
nullius in
verba
, which means 'do not take anybody's word for it', or 'find
out for yourself '. That is what the first secretary of the Royal
Society, Henry Oldenburg, tried to do when he wrote in 1668 to
Thomas Harpur, a resident of Aleppo, Syria, on behalf of the
Society. He sought answers to some perplexing questions about
the geology and geography of Asia Minor, and asked Harpur
'whether Mount Sinai is known ever to be a volcano', and 'whether
there be any volcano in your parts, or nearby'.ยน0
The event that may have prompted Oldenburg's question
was the coming English-language publication in 1669 of
The
Vulcanos: or, Burning and Fire-Vomiting Mountains
. This was a
translation of parts of
Mundus Subterraneus
by the German Jesuit
Athanasius Kircher (
c.
1601-1680), first published in Latin in
1665. Kircher was driven by the admixture of extraordinary
genius and religious obligation to become the most learned
and active savant of his age. While he may not, as traditionally
claimed, have been the last man to know everything, he did
