Curiosities of Science, Past and Present / A Book for Old and Young

by John Timbs

HEIGHT OF FALLS.

The fancy of the Greeks delighted itself in wild visions of the height of falls. In Hesiod’s Theogony it is said, speaking of the fall of the Titans into Tartarus, “if a brazen anvil were to fall from heaven nine days and nine nights long, it would reach the earth on the tenth.” This descent of the anvil in 777,600 seconds of time gives an equivalent in distance of 309,424 geographical miles (allowance being made, according to Galle’s calculation, for the considerable diminution in force of attraction at planetary distances); therefore 1½ times the distance of the moon from the earth. But, according to the Iliad, Hephæstus fell down to Lemnos in one day; “when but a little breath was still in him.”—Note to Humboldt’s Cosmos, vol. iii.