254 NATURAL HISTORY 



cular places, which notwithstanding should not have been, 

 that observation being profitable for many things. I re 

 member, 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. 



6. The west winds are attendants of the pomeridian or 

 afternoon hours : for towards the declining of the sun, the 

 winds blow oftener from the east than from the west. 



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 day time. 



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 

 every where, winds are also engendered indifferently every 

 where, 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 south wind to them is a land wind, as 

 likewise 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 



