within the tropics) we may find places condemned among the ancients.

It is certain, that to those who sail between the tropics in a free and open sea, there blows a constant and settled wind (which the seamen call a breeze) from east to west. This wind is not of so little force, but that, partly by its own blowing, and partly by its guiding the current of the sea, it hindereth seamen froin coming back again the same way they went to Peru.

2. In our seas in Europe, when it is fair dry weather, and no particular winds stirring, there blows a soft kind of gale from the east, which followeth the sun.

3. Our common observations do admit that the higher clouds are for the most part carried from east to west; and that it is so likewise when here below upon the earth, either there is a great calm, or a contrary wind; and if they do not so always, it is because sometimes particular winds blow aloft which overwhelm this general wind.

A Caution. If there be any such general wind, in order to the motion of the heaven, it is not so firm nor strong but that it gives way to particular winds. But it appears most plainly amongst the tropics, by reason of the larger circles which it makes. And, likewise, it is so when it blows on high, for the same cause, and by reason of its free course. Wherefore, if you will take it without the tropics, and near the earth, (where it blows most gently and slowly,) make trial of it in an open and free air, in an extreme calm, and in high places, and in a body which is very movable, and in the afternoon, for at that time the particular eastern wind blows more sparingly.

Injunction. Observe diligently the vanes and weathercocks upon the tops and towers of churches, whether, in extreme calms, they stand continually towards the west or not.

An indirect experiment.

4. It is certain, that here with us in Europe the eastern wind is drying and sharp; the west wind, contrariwise, moist and nourishing. May not this be by reason that (it being granted that the air moves from east to west) it must of necessity be that the east wind, whose blast goeth the same way, must needs disperse and attenuate the air, whereby the air is made biting and dry; but the western wind, which blows the contrary way, turns the airs back upon itself, and thickens it, whereby it becomes more dull, and, at length, moist.

An indirect experiment.

5. Consider the inquisition of the motion and flowing of waters, whether they move from east to west; for, if the two extremes, heaven and waters, delight in this motion, the air which is in the midst will go near to participate of the same.

Caution. We call the two last experiments indirect, because they do directly show the thing which we aim at but by consequence, which we also gladly admit of when we want direct experi

ments.

Injunction. That the breeze blows plentifully between the tropics, is most certain; the cause is very ambiguous. The cause may be, because the air moves according to the heaven; but without the tropics almost imperceivably, by reason of the smaller circles which it makes; within the tropics manifestly, because it makes bigger circles. Another cause may be, because all kind of heat dilates and extends the air, and doth not suffer it to be contained in its former place; and by the dilatation of the air, there must needs be an impulsion of the contiguous air which produceth this breeze as the sun goes forward; and that is more evident within the tropics, where the sun is more scorching; without it, is hardly perceived. And this seems to be an instance of the cross, or a decisory instance. To clear this doubt you may inquire, whether the breeze blow in the night or no for the wheeling of the air continues also in the night, but the heat of the sun does not. 6. But it is most certain that the breeze doth not blow in the night, but in the morning, and when the morning is pretty well spent; yet that instance doth not determine the question, whether the nightly condensation of the air (especially in those countries where the days and nights are not more equal in their length than they are differing in their heat and cold) may dull and confound that natural motion of the air, which is but weak.

If the air participates of the motion of the heaven, it does not only follow that the east wind concurs with the motion of the air, and the west wind strives against it; but also that the north wind blows, as it were, from above, and the south wind as from below here in our hemisphere, where the antarctic pole is under ground, and the arctic pole is elevated! which hath likewise been observed by the ancients, though staggeringly and obscurely but it agrees very well with our modern experience, because the breeze (which may be a motion of the air) is not a full east, but a north-east wind.

Stayed or Certain Winds.

To the third article. Connexion.

As, in the inquisition of general winds, men have suffered and been in darkness, so they have been troubled with a vertigo or giddiness concerning stayed and certain winds. Of the former, they say nothing; of the latter, they talk up and down at random. This is the more pardonable, the thing being various; for these stayed winds do change and alter according to the places where they be the same do not blow in Egypt, Greece, and Italy.

1. That there are stayed winds in some piaces, the very name that is given them doth declare it, as the other name of etesiaes means anniversary or yearly winds.

2. The ancients attributed the cause of the overflowing of Nilus to the blowing of the etesian (that is to say, northern) winds at that time of the year, which did hinder the river's running into the sea, and turned the stream of it back.

3. There are currents in the sea which can neither be attributed to the natural motion of the ocean, nor to the running down from higher places, nor the straitness of the opposite shores, nor to promontories running out into the sea, but are merely guided and governed by these stayed winds.

4. Those who will not have Columbus to have conceived such a strong opinion concerning the West Indies by the relation of a Spanish pilot, and much less believe that he might gather it out of some obscure footsteps of the ancients, have this refuge; that he might conjecture there was some continent in the west by the certain and stayed winds which blew from them towards the shores of Lusitania or Portugal. A doubtful, and not very probable thing, seeing that the voyage of winds will hardly reach so large a distance. In the mean time there is great honour due to this inquisition, if the finding of this new world be due to one of those axioms or observations, whereof it comprehends many.

5. Wheresoever are high and snowy mountains, from thence blow stayed winds, until that time as the snow be melted away.

6. I believe also that from great pools which are full of water in the winter, there blow stayed winds in those seasons, when as they begin to dry up with the heat of the sun. But of this I have no certainty.

7. Wheresoever vapours are engendered in abundance, and that at certain times, be sure that stayed winds will blow there at the same times.

8. If stayed and certain winds blow anywhere, and the cause cannot be found near at hand, assure yourself that those certain winds are strangers, and come from far.

9. It hath been observed, that stayed winds do not blow in the night-time, but do rise about three hours after sunrising. Surely such winds are tired, as it were, with a long journey, that they can scarcely break through the thickness of the night air, but being stirred up again by the rising of the sun, they go forward by little and little.

10. All stayed winds (unless they blow from some neighbouring places) are weak, and yield unto sudden winds.

11. There are many stayed winds which are not perceivable, and which we do not observe, by reason of their weakness, whereby they are over

thrown by the free winds.

Wherefore in the winter they are hardly taken notice of, when the free winds wander most: but are more observable in the summer, when those wandering winds grow weak.

12. In Europe these are the chief stayed winds, north winds from the solstice, and they are both forerunners and followers of the dogstar. West winds from the equinoctial in autumn, east winds from the spring equinoctial; as for the winter solstice, there is little heed to be taken of it, by reason of the varieties.

13. The winds called ornithii, or bird winds, had that name given them because they bring birds out of cold regions beyond the sea, into warm climates; and they belong not to stayed winds, because they for the most part keep no punctual time: and the birds, they for the convenience of them, whether they come sooner or later and many times when they have begun to blow a little, and turn, the birds being forsaken by it, are drowned in the sea, and sometimes fall into ships.

Injunction. Human diligence hath almost ceased and stood still in the observation of attending winds in particular places, which, notwithstanding, should not have been, that observation being profitable for many things.. I remember, I asked a certain merchant, (a wise and discreet man,) who had made a plantation in Greenland, and had wintered there, why that country was so extreme cold, seeing it stood in a reasonable temperate climate. He said, it was not so great as it was reported; but that the cause was twofold: One was, that the masses and heaps of ice which came out of the Scythian sea were carried thither. The other (which he also thought to be the better reason) was because the west wind there blows many parts of the year, more than the east wind; as also (said he) it doth with us; but there it blows from the continent, and cold, but with us from the sea, and warmish. And (said he) if the east wind should blow here in England so often and constantly as the west wind does there, we should have far colder weather, even equal to that as is there.

Customary or Attending Winds.

Of the fourth and fifth articles. Connexion.

The word of attending wind is ours, and we thought good to give it, that the observation concerning them be not lost, nor confounded. The meaning is this, divide the year if you please (in what country soever you be) into three, four, or five parts, and if any one certain wind blow, then two, three, or four of those parts, and a contrary wind but one; we call that wind which blows most frequently the customary, or attending wind of that country, and likewise of the times.

1. The south and north winds are attendants of the world, for they, with those which are within their sections or divisions, blow oftener over all the world, than either the east or the west.

2. All the free winds (not the customary) are more attendant in the winter than in the summer; but most of all in the autumn and spring.

7. The south wind is attendant on the night; for it rises and blows more strongly in the night, and the north wind in the daytime.

8. But there are many and great differences between winds which are attendant on the sea, and those which are attendant upon the land. That is one of the chief which gave Columbus occasion to find out the new world; namely, that sea winds are not stayed, but land winds are: for the sea abounding in vapours, which are indifferently everywhere, winds are also engendered indifferently everywhere, and with great inconstancy are carried here and there, having no certain beginnings nor sources. But the earth is much unlike for the begetting of winds: some places are more efficacious to engender and increase winds, some less: wherefore they stand most from that part where they have their nourishment, and take their rise from thence.

9. Acosta is unconstant in his own position. He saith that at Peru, and the sea coasts of the south sea, south winds do blow almost the whole year: and he saith in another place, that upon those coasts sea winds do blow chiefliest. But the

4. Also all free winds, especially the strongest and most forcible of them, do blow oftener and more strongly, morning and evening, than at noon and night.

5. Free winds blow frequently in hollow places, and where there be caves, than in solid and firm ground.

the north and east wind also, and the west wind is their only sea wind. We must take that which he sets down more certainly; namely, that the south wind is an attending and familiar wind of those countries: unless, peradventure, in the name of the south sea he hath corrupted his meaning, or his speech, meaning the west by the south, which blows from the south sea. But the sea which they call the south sea is not properly the south

sea; but as a second western ocean, being stretched out in the like situation as the Atlantic sea is.

10. Sea winds are questionless more moist than land winds, but yet they are more pure, and will easilier, and with more equality be incorporated with the pure air. For terrestrial winds are ill composed, and smoky. Neither let any one object, that they ought to be grosser by reason of the saltness of the sea. For the nature of terrestrial salt doth not rise in vapours.

11. Sea winds are lukewarm or cold, by reason of the two foresaid qualities, humidity and pureness. For by humidity they mitigate the colds, (for dryness increaseth both heat and cold,) and with their pureness they cool. Therefore without the tropics they are lukewarm, within the tropics they are cold.

12. I believe that sea winds are everywhere attendant upon particular countries, especially such as stand upon the sea-coasts: that is to say, winds blow more frequently from that side where the sea is, by reason of the greater plenty of matter which winds have in the sea, than in the land; unless there be some firm wind blowing from the land, for some peculiar reason. But let no man confound firm or stayed winds with attendant winds the attendants being always more frequent; but the stayed ones for the most part blowing more seldom. But that is common to them both, namely, to blow from that place from which they receive their nourishment.

1. With us the south wind is rainy, and the northern wind clear and fair, the one gathers together and nourishes the clouds; the other scatters and casts them off. Wherefore the poets, when they speak of the deluge, feign the northern wind at that time to be shut up in prison, and the south wind to be sent out with very large commission.

2. The west wind hath with us been held to be the wind which blew in the golden age, the companion of a perpetual spring, and a cherisher of flowers.

3. Paracelsus his scholars, when they sought for a place for their three principles in Juno's temple also, which is the air, placed three, but found no place for the east wind.

They Mercury ascribe to the south winds,

To the rich western blasts the sulphur mines,
And rugged Boreas' blasts the sad salt finds.

4. But with us in England the east wind is thought to be mischievous, so that it goes for a proverb, " that when the wind is in the east, it is neither good for man nor beast."

5. The south wind blows from the presence of the sun, the north from the absence in our hemisphere. The east wind in order to the motion of the air, the west wind from the sea, the east wind from the continent, most commonly in Europe and the western parts of Asia. These are the most radical and essential differences of winds; from which truly and really depend most of the qualities and powers of the winds.

14. Winds which are called tropei, that is to say, retorted, namely, such as, when they have blown a little way, suddenly turn again, such winds I say blow from the sea towards the shore: but retorted winds and whirlwinds are most commonly in gulfs of seas.

15. Some small gales blow for the most part about all great waters, and they are most felt in a morning; but more about rivers than at sea, because of the difference which is between a land gale and a water gale.

16. In places which are near the sea, trees bow and bend, as shunning the sea air: but that comes not through any averseness to them; but sea winds, by reason of their humidity and thickness, are as it were more heavy and ponderous.

The Qualities and Powers of Winds. To the seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, and thirty-first articles. Connexion.

Concerning the qualities and powers of winds, men have made careless and various observations: we will cull out the most certain, and the rest, as too light, we will leave to the winds themselves.

7. The south wind is lower, and more lateral, and blowing of one side; the northern wind is higher and blows from above; we do not mean the polar elevation and depression of which we have spoken formerly; but because the north wind for the most part hath its beginnings higher, and the south wind for the most part nearer to us.

8. The south wind to us is rain, (as we said before,) but in Africa it causes clear weather, but bringing great heat along with it, and not cold, as some have affirmed. In Africa it is pretty healthful, but to us, if the south wind last long with fair weather and without rain, it is very pestilent.

9. The south winds and west winds do not engender vapours, but they blow from those coasts where there is great store of them, by reason of the increase of the sun's heat, which draws forth the vapours, and therefore they are rainy. But if they blow from dry places, which have no vapours in them, they are fair. But, notwithstanding, sometimes they are pure and sometimes turbulent.

10. The south and west winds here with as, seem to be confederate, and are warm and moist,