OF WINDS. 261 



the vastness of rivers, and exceeding great and high hills, 

 hath abundance of winds and blasts blowing there) may 

 contend with Europe for a temperate and sweet air. 



42. It is no wonder if the force and power of winds be 

 so great, as it is found to be ; vehement winds being as 

 inundations, torrents, and Sowings of the spacious air, 

 neither (if we attentively heed it) is their power any great 

 matter. They can throw down trees, which with their 

 tops, like unto spread sails, give them advantage to do it, 

 and are a burden to themselves. Likewise they can blow 

 down weak buildings ; strong and firm ones they cannot 

 without earthquakes join with them. Sometimes they will 

 blow all the snow off the tops of hills, burying the valley 

 that is below them with it ; as it befell Solomon in the 

 Sultanian fields. They will also sometimes drive in waters, 

 and cause great inundations. 



43. Sometimes winds will dry up rivers, and leave the 

 channels bare. For if after a great drought a strong wind 

 blows with the current for many days, so that it as it were 

 sweeps away the water of the river into the sea, and keeps 

 the sea water from coming in, the river will dry up in many 

 places where it doth not use to be so. 



Monition. Turn the poles, and withal turn the observa 

 tions as concerning the north and south. For the presence 

 and absence of the sun being the cause, it must vary ac 

 cording to the poles. But this may be a constant thing, 

 that there is more sea towards the south, and more land 

 towards the north, which doth not a little help the winds. 



Monition. Winds are made, or engendered a thousand 

 ways, as by the subsequent inquisition it will appear ; so 

 to fix that observation in a thing so various is not very 

 easy. Yet those things which we have set down are, -for 

 the most part, most certain. 



Local Beginnings of Winds. 



To the eighth article. Connexion. 



To know the local beginnings of winds, is a thing which 

 requires a deep search and inquisition, seeing that the 

 whence and whither of winds are things noted even in 

 scripture to be abstruse and hidden. Neither do we now 

 speak of the fountains or beginnings of particular winds 

 (of which more shall be said hereafter), but of the matrixes 

 of winds in general. Some fetch them from above, some 

 search for them in the deep : but in the middle (where they 



