Physical science in the time of Nero; being a translation of the Quaestiones naturales of Seneca

Edme Mariotte and the Beginning of Quantitative Hydrogeology

“…For the sea water returns by a secret path, and is filtered in its passage back. Being dashed about as it passes through the endless, winding channels in the ground, it loses its salinity, and purged of its bitterness in such a variety of ground as it passes through, it eventually changes into pure, fresh water” (Seneca , 116 to 117). Seneca's reasoning in part was based on the Doctrine of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, the idea that the body of the individual human being (the microcosm) is analogous to the larger world (the macrocosm).…”

“…In the Earth likewise there are some routes by which water passes, and some by which air. So exactly alike is the resemblance to our bodies in nature's formation of the Earth, that our ancestors have spoken of veins of water” (Seneca , 126).…”

“…It was an old argument. In the first century AD, Seneca noted that “as a diligent digger among my vines, I can affirm from observation that no rain is ever so heavy as to wet the ground to a depth of more than 10 feet [3.0 meters]” (Seneca , 117 to 118). Mariotte concurred.…”

“…Writing in the first century AD, Seneca noted that “some springs well up in the very summit of a mountain. It is plain, therefore, that the water in them is forced up or forms on the spot, since all the rain water runs off” (Seneca , 118).…”

What are “all the colors of the rainbow”?

“…2 Yet as a color standard, the rainbow has an oddly contentious history. For example, arguments about the number of rainbow colors date to antiquity, with observers as keen as Aristotle 3 (who favored three colors) and Seneca the Younger 4 (who favored an indefinite number) among the disputants. That this disagreement still persisted in Georgian England 2 (and indeed to the present) hints that the rainbow poses special perceptual problems.…”