In archaic art, ear-rings are frequently represented or their traces are left in the perforated ear lobes of early statues. After the 4th century such perforations occur seldom. In one instance, a Greek inscription records the weight of the detachable gold ornaments on a statue, among which a pair of ear-rings is included. Ear-rings of characteristic form are frequently discovered by excavation. In Egypt, a system of pendent chains is found hanging from a disk. In Assyria the decoration consists of pendants or knobs attached to a rigid ring. In the early civilization represented by Dr Schliemann’s Trojan investigations, pieces of gold plate are suspended by parallel chains. In the Mycenaean period, ear-rings are infrequent in Greece, but have been found in abundance in the Mycenaean finds of Enkomi (Cyprus) in the form of pendent bulls’-heads, or of decorative forms based on the bull’s head. In the tombs of the Greek settlers in the Crimea (4th century B.C.), ear-rings are found of marvellous complexity and beauty. The lexicographer Pollux, speaking of the names given to ear-rings, derived from their forms, mentions caryatids, hippocamps and centauresses. Jewels of the same class, of exquisite beauty and of workmanship that is truly wonderful, have been rescued from the sepulchres of ancient Etruria. Ear-rings of comparatively simple forms, but set with pearls and other stones, were the mode in Rome. In some instances, the stones were of fabulous value. During the Byzantine period they once more attained an extravagant size. Researches among the burial places of Anglo-Saxon Britain have led to the discovery of jewels in considerable numbers, which among their varieties include ear-rings executed in a style that proves the Anglo-Saxons to have made no inconsiderable advances in the arts of civilization.
These same ornaments, which never have fallen into disuse, enjoy at the present day a considerable degree of favour, and the tide of fashion has set towards their increased use. Like all other modern jewels, however, the ear-rings of our own times as works of art can claim no historical attributes, because they consist as well of reproductions from all past ages and of every race as of fanciful productions that certainly can be assigned to no style of art whatever. As one of the curiosities of the subject it may be mentioned that Antonia, wife of Drusus, is said by Pliny to have attached a pair of ear-rings to her pet lamprey.
EARTH (a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Erde, Dutch aarde, Swed. and Dan. jord; outside Teutonic it appears only in the Gr. ἔραζε, on the ground; it has been connected by some etymologists with the Aryan root ar-, to plough, which is seen in the Lat. arare, obsolete Eng. “ear,” and Gr. ἀροῦν, but this is now considered very doubtful; see G. Curtius, Greek Etymology, Eng. trans., i. 426; Max Müller, Lectures, 8th ed. i. 294). From early times the word “earth” has been used in several connexions—from that of soil or ground to that of the planet which we inhabit, but it is difficult to trace the exact historic sequence of the diverse usages. In the cosmogony of the Pythagoreans, Platonists and other philosophers, the term or its equivalent denoted an element or fundamental quality which conferred upon matter the character of earthiness; and in the subsequent development of theories as to the ultimate composition of matter by the alchemists, iatrochemists, and early phlogistonists an element of the same name was retained (see [Element]). In modern chemistry, the common term “earth” is applied to certain oxides:—the ”alkaline earths” (q.v.) are the oxides of calcium (lime), barium (baryta) and strontium (strontia); the ”rare earths” (q.v.) are the oxides of a certain class of rare metals.
The Earth
The terrestrial globe is a member of the Solar system, the third in distance from the Sun, and the largest within the orbit of Jupiter. In the wider sense it may be regarded as composed of a gaseous atmosphere (see [Meteorology]), which encircles the crust or lithosphere (see [Geography]), and surface waters or hydrosphere (see [Ocean and Oceanography]). The description of the surface features is a branch of Geography, and the discussions as to their origin and permanence belongs to Physiography (in the narrower sense), physiographical geology, or physical geography. The investigation of the crust belongs to geology and of rocks in particular to petrology.
In the present article we shall treat the subject matter of the Earth as a planet under the following headings:—(1) Figure and Size, (2) Mass and Density, (3) Astronomical Relations, (4) Evolution and Age. These subjects will be treated summarily, readers being referred to the article [Astronomy] and to the cross-references for details.
1. Figure and Size.—To primitive man the Earth was a flat disk with its surface diversified by mountains, rivers and seas. In many cosmogonies this disk was encircled by waters, unmeasurable by man and extending to a junction with the sky; and the disk stood as an island rising up through the waters from the floor of the universe, or was borne as an immovable ship on the surface. Of such a nature was the cosmogony of the Babylonians and Hebrews; Homer states the same idea, naming the encircling waters Ὠκεανός; and Hesiod regarded it as a disk midway between the sky and the infernal regions. The theory that the Earth extended downwards to the limit of the universe was subjected to modification when it was seen that the same sun and stars reappeared in the east after their setting in the west. But man slowly realized that the earth was isolated in space, floating freely as a balloon, and much speculation was associated about that which supported the Earth. Tunnels in the foundations to permit the passage of the sun and stars were suggested; the Greeks considered twelve columns to support the heavens, and in their mythology the god Atlas appears condemned to support the columns; while the Egyptians had the Earth supported by four elephants, which themselves stood on a tortoise swimming on a sea. Earthquakes were regarded as due to a movement of these foundations; in Japan this was considered to be due to the motion of a great spider, an animal subsequently replaced by a cat-fish; in Mongolia it is a hog; in India, a mole; in some parts of South America, a whale; and among some of the North American Indians, a giant tortoise.
The doctrine of the spherical form has been erroneously assigned to Thales; but he accepted the Semitic conception of the disk, and regarded the production of springs after earthquakes as due to the inrushing of the waters under the Earth into fissures in the surface. His pupil, Anaximander (610-547), according to Diogenes Laërtius, believed it to be spherical (see The Observatory, 1894, P. 208); and Anaximenes probably held a similar view. The spherical form is undoubtedly a discovery of Pythagoras, and was taught by the Pythagoreans and by the Eleatic Parmenides. The expositor of greatest moment was Aristotle; his arguments are those which we employ to-day:—the ship gradually disappearing from hull to mast as it recedes from the harbour to the horizon; the circular shadow cast by the Earth on the Moon during an eclipse, and the alteration in the appearance of the heavens as one passes from point to point on the Earth’s surface.[1] He records attempts made to determine the circumference; but the first scientific investigation in this direction was made 150 years later by Eratosthenes. The spherical form, however, only became generally accepted after the Earth’s circumnavigation (see [Geography]).
The historical development of the methods for determining the figure of the Earth (by which we mean a theoretical surface in part indicated by the ocean at rest, and in other parts by the level to which water freely communicating with the oceans by canals traversing the land masses would rise) and the mathematical investigation of this problem are treated in the articles [Earth, Figure of the], and [Geodesy]; here the results are summarized. Sir Isaac Newton deduced from the mechanical consideration of the figure of equilibrium of a mass of rotating fluid, the form of an oblate spheroid, the ellipticity of a meridian section being 1/231, and the axes in the ratio 230 : 231. Geodetic measurements by the Cassinis and other French astronomers pointed to a prolate form, but the Newtonian figure was proved to be correct by the measurement of meridional arcs in Peru and Lapland by the expeditions organized by the French Academy of Sciences. More recent work points to an elliptical equatorial section, thus making the earth pear-shaped. The position of the longer axis is somewhat uncertain; it is certainly in Africa, Clarke placing it in longitude 8° 15′ W., and Schubert in longitude 41° 4′ E.; W.J. Sollas, arguing from terrestrial symmetry, has chosen the position lat. 6° N., long. 28° E., i.e. between Clarke’s and Schubert’s positions. For the lengths of the axes and the ellipticity of the Earth, see [Earth, Figure of the].