THE WINDS. 107 



Mezo giorno) commonly is raynie and boisterous, and in the LlB - IIJ - 

 same Citie whereof I speak, it is wholesome and pleasant. 

 Plinie reports that in Affricke it raines with a Northerne 

 winde, and that the Southerne winde is cleere. Hee, then, 

 that shall well consider what I have spoken of these windes, 

 may conceive, that in a smal distance of land or sea 

 one winde hath many and diverse qualities, yea some 

 times quite contrary whereby we may inferre that he 

 draweth his property from the place where he passeth, 

 the which is in such sort true (although we may not say 

 infallibly), as it is the onely and principall cause of the 

 diversitie of the windes. For in a single region containing 

 fiftie leagues in circuite (I putte it thus for an example), 

 it may clearly be seen that the winde which blowes of 

 the one parte is hote and moist, and that which blowes 

 on the other is colde and drie. Notwithstanding this 

 diversitie is not found in places by which it passeth, the 

 which makes mee rather to say that the windes bring these 

 qualities with them, whereby they give vnto them the names 

 of these qualities. For example, we attribute to the 

 Northerne winde, otherwise called Cier^o, the property to 

 be colde and drie, and to dissolve mists ; to the Southerne 

 wind, his contrary, called Leveche, wee attribute the con 

 trary qualitie, which is moist and hote, and ingenders 

 mists. This being generall and common, we must seeke out 

 another vniversall cause to give a reason of these effects. 

 It is not enough to say that the places by which they passe 

 give them these qualities, seeing that passing by the same 

 places we see contrary effects. So as we must of force 

 confesse that the region of the heaven where they blowe gives 

 them these qualities, as the Septentrionall is colde, because 

 it commes from the North, which is the region farthest from 

 the Sunne. The Southerne, which blows from the Midday 

 or South, is hote, and for that the heate drawes the vapours. 

 It is also moist and raynie, and contrariwise the north is drie 



