OF WINDS. 251 



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 places, 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 



