The following paragraph in Pliny’s Natural History, xxiv. 72, apparently refers to the Boomerang, with which, according to recent discoveries, the early people of the East were acquainted. See Bonomi’s Nineveh, p. 136. Pliny, speaking of the account given by Pythagoras of the Aquifolia, either the holm-oak or the holly, says:—
Baculum ex eâ factum, in quodvis animal emissum, etiamsi citra ceciderit defectu mittentis, ipsum per sese cubitu proprius adlabi; tam præcipuam naturam inesse arbori.
(If a staff made of this wood, when thrown at any animal, from want of strength in the party throwing it, happens to fall short of the mark, it will fall back again towards the thrower of its own accord—so remarkable are the properties of this tree.)
The readings of the passage vary, cubitu being given in some MSS. for recubitu. Pythagoras probably heard of the baculum during his travels eastward, and being unable to understand how its formation could endow it with the singular property referred to, was induced to believe that this peculiarity was owing to the nature of the tree.
THE ATTRACTION OF GRAVITATION.
Both Dante and Shakspeare preceded Newton in knowledge of the principle, if not the law, of gravitation. In their anticipation of its discovery, the poets may not have deemed it other than a philosophic or poetic speculation. But the following passages attest earlier observations of a physical law than those of Pascal or Newton.
Shakspeare says in Troilus and Cressida:—
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth
Drawing all things to it.—iv. 2.