ABSTRACT
FURTHERMORE, the magnitude and fierceness of the cold in binding earth and water and other moist objects is demonstrated in the accompanying picture and the theories I append here; this however must be said first, that the frost (gelu) is so called because the earth is fettered by it: for the earth is called ge. 1 It occurs with greater severity when the nights appear longer and clearer, and the sky is spread with the azure that is left behind after sunset among thick clouds. This kind of cold, or frost, the people of the North call ‘grey’; 2 it is bitterly feared by living creatures and most harmful to them. Glacies (ice) is derived from gelu (frost) and aqua (water), as though the word were gelacies, that is gelata aqua (frozen water). 3 Ice is, too, a bonding of cold and moist which, from its excessive frigidity, takes on such a quality that people quite often name one for the other, that is, ‘frozen’ for ‘cold’.
Gelu
Ge
Signs of cold
Ice, frost, and water
Ice
