ete account of his
theory given in the chapter on Geography in this work. For Isidore, see
the Etymologiae, lib. xiii, cap. 7-9, De ordine creaturarum, cap. 3, 4,
and De natura rerum, cap. 29, 30. (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. lxxxii, pp.
476, 477, vol. lxxxiii, pp. 920-922, 1001-1003).

About a century later appeared, at the other extremity of Europe, the
second in the trio of theological men of science in the early Middle
Ages--Bede the Venerable. The nucleus of his theory also is to be found
in the accepted view of the "firmament" and of the "waters above the
heavens," derived from Genesis. The firmament he holds to be spherical,
and of a nature subtile and fiery; the upper heavens, he says, which
contain the angels, God has tempered with ice, lest they inflame the
lower elements. As to the waters placed above the firmament, lower than
the spiritual heavens, but higher than all corporeal creatures, he says,
"Some declare that they were stored there for the Deluge, but others,
more correctly, that they are intended to temper the fire of the stars."
He goes on with long discussions as to various elements and forces in
Nature, and dwells at length upon the air, of which he says that the
upper, serene air is over the heavens; while the lower, which is coarse,
with humid exhalations, is sent off from the earth, and that in this are
lightning, hail, snow, ice, and tempests, finding proof of this in the
one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm, where these are commanded to "praise
the Lord from the earth."(204)

(204) See Bede, De natura rerum (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xc).

So great was Bede's authority, that nearly all the anonymous
speculations of the next following centuries upon these subjects were
eventually ascribed to him. In one of these spurious treatises an
attempt is made to get new light upon the sources of the waters above
the heavens, the main reliance being the sheet containing the animals
let down from heaven, in the vision of St. Peter. Another of these
treatises is still more curious, for it endeavours to account for
earthquakes and tides by means of the leviathan mentioned in Scripture.
This characteristic passage runs as follows: "Some say that the earth
contains the animal leviathan, and that he holds his tail after a
fashion of his own, so that it is sometimes scorched by the sun,
whereupon he strives to get hold of the sun, and so the earth is shaken
by the motion of his indignation; he drinks in al