made upon a point, while
*
front flyleaf (detail, 0.5ยบ ccw; levels 50 1.00 255)
William Gershom Collingwood. Ruskin Relics (London, 1903)
University of Michigan copy, digitized June 15, 2010
from vain online search for Ruskin’s (four) sketches of hailstones in a letter from Milan to his father.
could be weather.
—
“But the meteorologist is impotent if alone; his observations are useless; for they are made upon a point, while the speculations to be derived from them must be on space. It is of no avail that he changes his position, ignorant of what is passing behind him and before; he desires to estimate the movements of space, and can only observe the dancing of atoms; he would calculate the currents of the atmosphere of the world, while he only knows the direction of a breeze.”
John Ruskin, “Remarks on the Present State of Meteorological Science.” Transactions of the Meteorological Society I (1839) : 56-59 (58)
tags:
meteorology; points; speculation; John Ruskin