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 Chap. 60.] THE EAINBOW. 89 time, a stone would Ml from the sun^ And tlie tiling ac- cordingly happened, in the daytime, in a part of Thrace, at the river ^gos. The stone is now to be seen, a waggon- load in size and of a burnt appearance ; there was also a comet shining in the night at that time'. But to believe that tliis had been predicted would be to admit that the di- vining powers of Anaxagoras were still more wonderful, and that our knowledge of the nature of things, and indeed every thing else, would be thrown into confusion, were we to sup- pose either that the sun is itself composed of stone, or that there was even a stone in it ; yet there can be no doubt that stones have frequently fallen from the atmosphere. There is a stone, a small one indeed, at this time, in the Grymna- sium of Abydos, which on this account is held in veneration, and which the same Anaxagoras predicted would fall in the middle of the earth. There is another at Cassandria, formerly called Potidsea^, which from this circumstance was built in that place. I have myself seen one in the country of the Yocontii'*, which had been brought from the fields only a short time before. CHAP. 60. (59.) THE RAINBOW. "What we name Eainbows frequently occur, and are not considered either wonderful or ominous ; for they do not predict, with certainty, either rain or fair weather. It is obvious, that the rays of the sun, being projected upon a hollow cloud, the light is thrown back to the sun and is re- ^ There is some variation in the exact date assigned by diflferent authors to this event ; in the Chronological table in Brewster's Encyc. vi. 420, it is said to have occurred 467 B.C. 2 Aristotle gives us a similar accoimt of this stone ; that it feU in the daytime, and that a comet was then visible at night ; Meteor, i. 7. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the authority for this fact must be re- ferred entirely to Ai'istotle, without receiving any adchtional weight from our author. The occurrence of the comet at the same time with the aerohte must have been entirely incidental. 3 " Dcductis eo sacri lapidis causa colonis, extructoque oppido, cui nomen a colore adusto lapidis, est inditum, Potidrea. Est onim ttotl Dorice Trpds, ad, apud ; caiofiai^ uror." Hardouin, in Lemaire, i. 361. It was situated in the peninsula of Pallcne, in Macedonia. tion of the modem Dauphine.
 * The Vocontii were a people of GaUia Narbonensis, occupying a por-