If the poet Seneca was well informed, mankind, in the infancy of navigation, had no particular names for distinguishing the principal winds[661]. This is not at all incredible; because with their rafts and floats, which were the first vessels, they for a long time ventured out to sea only so far that they could easily return to the shore; and therefore while navigation continued in this state, they had little reason to trouble themselves about the direction of the winds. It is more certain that those nations respecting whom we have the oldest information, distinguished by names the four principal winds only. This is generally proved by a passage in Homer, where he intends to mention all the winds, and names only four[662]; but this proof is of little weight; for what poet at present would, with the like view, think of boxing the compass, or of introducing into a poem the names of all the thirty-two points? Would he not rather be satisfied with the names of the four chief winds alone? If more names, therefore, were usual in Homer’s time, he would not consider it necessary to name them. In another passage he names only two winds[663]; and from these some have endeavoured to prove that no more were then known; but this assertion indeed is completely refuted by the passage first quoted. It can, however, be easily proved, that for a long time names were given to the four principal winds only.
It is easily seen what at first gave rise to this distinction. The sun at noon stands always over one point of the horizon, which appears to the observer as a circle, having the place where he himself is at its centre. This point is called the meridian or south, and the one opposite to it the north. If the observer turns his face towards the north, he will have on his right-hand the east, and on his left the west. The space between these principal winds contains ninety degrees, or a right angle. The number, however, must soon have been raised to eight, and this division was usual in the time of Aristotle[664]. Afterwards twelve points in the heavens were adopted, also as many winds; and in the time of Vitruvius twenty-four were distinguished and named, though this division was very little used. To determine the names, however, employed in the last two divisions is attended with some difficulties; and it almost appears as if writers did not always apply to them the same meaning.
The Greeks considered Æolus as the first person who made navigators acquainted with the winds. He is said to have ruled over the Volcanic islands, afterwards named the Æolian; and if this be true, he would certainly have a good opportunity of observing the weather, and marking the winds by the smoke continually rising up there from burning volcanoes. This celebrated personage, who received Ulysses on his return from the Trojan war, by the knowledge thus obtained may have assisted navigators, who afterwards made known the services which he rendered to them.
The antiquity of the division into thirty-two points, used at present, I am not able to determine. Riccioli thinks that they have been employed since the time of Charles the Great, but I do not know whether this can be proved. That assertion perhaps is founded only on the opinion, that this emperor gave German names to the winds and the quarters of the world. This indeed is stated by his historian Eginhart, who mentions the names, which I shall here insert, together with the Latin names added by Eginhart, and those usual at present[665].
| Subsolanus | Ostroniwind | East. |
| Eurus | Ostsundroni | East-south-east. |
| Euroauster | Sundostroni | South-east. |
| Auster | Sundroni | South. |
| Austroafricus | Sundwestroni | South-south-west. |
| Africus | Westsundroni | South-west. |
| Zephyrus | Westroni | West. |
| Corus | Westnordroni | West-north-west. |
| Circius | Nordwestroni | North-west. |
| Septemtrio | Nordroni | North. |
| Aquilo | Nordostroni | North-north-east. |
| Vulturnus | Ostnordroni | North-east. |
It has however been long since remarked, that these names are much older than Charles the Great[666]; and it is highly probable that they were only more accurately defined, or publicly confirmed by this prince, or that in his time they came into general use. How often have early inventions been ascribed to sovereigns, though they were only made in their reign! Even whole nations have been said to be descended from those princes under whom they first became known to foreigners; as, for example, the Poles from Lech, and the Bohemians from Zech.
Charles, however, did not give names to thirty-two, but to twelve winds. Nor was he the first who added to the four cardinal points eight others, for the same thing is asserted of many. But it deserves to be remarked, that in Charles’s names one can discover traces of that ingenious mode of denoting all the winds with four words; that is to say, by different combinations of East, West, South, and North. It is certain that the names of the different points and winds used by all the European nations, the Italians only excepted, are of German origin, as well as the greater part of the terms of art employed in navigation and naval architecture.
It appears to me not improbable that the division used at present was introduced soon after the invention of the magnetic needle; at least Honorius, surnamed Augustodunensis[667], who must have flourished before the year 1125, speaks only of twelve winds; as do also Gervasius in 1211, and Vincent de Beauvois in the middle of the thirteenth century, who gives from Isidorus, who lived about the year 636, the twelve Latin names used by Eginhart[668].
It can scarcely be doubted that means for indicating the winds were invented at a very early period. I here allude to vanes, flags, and every other apparatus by which the direction of the wind can be conveniently and accurately discovered, and similar to those erected at present on many private houses, on most of our church steeples, and on board ships. I must however confess that I have hitherto scarcely observed any trace of them among the Greeks and the Romans. I can find no account of them in works where all the parts of edifices are named; where ships and everything belonging to them are expressly described; nothing in Pollux, and nothing in any of the poets. I am unacquainted also with any old Greek or Latin word that can be applied to an apparatus for pointing out the wind. In the edition of Kirsch’s German and Latin Dictionary, printed in 1754, we find Wetterhahn (a weathercock) petalum, triton; but the latter term is borrowed from the tower of Andronicus, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; and neither this word nor petulum, or petulæ, arum, which Kirsch gives also, occurs in this sense in any ancient author; and the case is the same with pinnacella, ventilogium, aurologium, and other names which are to be found in some dictionaries.
I am acquainted with no older information in regard to an apparatus for observing the winds, than what is given by Vitruvius respecting the tower built at Athens by Andronicus Cyrrhestes, that is, of Cyrrhus, a town in Syria. This tower, which was built of marble, in an octagonal form, had on each side a representation of that wind opposite to which it was placed. Its summit terminated in a small spire, on which was a copper triton, made to turn in such a manner as to present its front to the wind, and to point with a rod held in its right-hand to the image of the wind blowing at the time[669]. This tower is still standing; and a description and figure of it may be seen in the travels of Spon and Wheeler, and in those also of Pocock[670]. The figures representing the winds, which are larger than the life, are executed in basso-relievo, and correspond to the seasons at which they generally blow. At the top of each side, under the architrave, the name of the wind is inscribed in Greek characters. Boreas, the North wind, holds in his hand a mussel-shell, which seems to denote his peculiar power over the sea. The Zephyr has its bosom full of flowers, because it prevails in March, at the time when the flowers chiefly blow in Greece; and similar attributes are assigned to the rest.