How can there be rain in
summer in Ethiopia and Arabia, when there is no moisture that can be dissolved?
The answer is that the
moisture gathers in another place; then the north wind carries the clouds until they come
upon the Mountains of the Moon
or Silver Mountains. They condense by compression and change into rain.
People say this is also the
cause of the rising of the Nile. Three other causes are mentioned: the snow in the
Mountains of the Moon melts in
summer; the source of the Nile is in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter
when it is summer with us,
….
Taken from: The Works of
Aristotle: The Treatises of Aristotle, on the heavens, on generation by Aristotle
… when the Nile is said to
flow from the Silver Mountains, those mountains are called Silver from containing the
metal silver, just as the
river Chrysorrohas, which is also called Pactolus, is so denominated from ...