66 MEM O IRS of the 
it is much like our fummer, being mitigated by gentle breezes, 
that arile about 9 o'clock, and decreaie and decline as the fun rifes 
and falls ; in ^uly and ^ugufi thefe breezes ceafe, and the air 
becomes llagnant, fo that the heat is violent and troublclbrae 5 in 
September the weather ufually breaks fuddenly, and there falls 
generally very confiderable rains ; when the weather breaks, many 
fall fick, this being ihe time of an endemical ficknefs, for fea- 
ibnings, cachexies, fluxes, fcorbutic dropfies, gripes, and the like 5 
which are owing to this, that the fciment of the blood being 
railed too high by the extraordinary heat, and the tone of the 
ftomach relaxed, when the weather breaks, the blood palls, and 
like overfermented liquors is depauperated, or turns eager and 
fharp, and there is a crude digeftion, whence the above difeales 
may be fuppofed to arife : The influence of the air on human 
bodies is very fur priling, not the leaft alteration or change therein 
but feniibly affefls thole troubled with the gripes, and the fmall- 
efl black fleeting cloud that ariles, as it comes nigher encreafes 
the pain 5 thunder and lightning there are very dreadful, fome- 
times burfting out of the cloud, and dividing it into two, which 
feem to be fliot a mile afunder^ it is incredible how it will ftrikc 
down large oaks, fhatter and fhiver them, and lometimes twift a 
tree round 3 formerly, when the country was not ib open, the 
thunder was fiercer, and the roads would feem to have entire calls 
of brimflone, and the air have a perfect fulphureous liiiell^ little 
forts of whirl-winds are frequent there, whole diameter lome- 
times exceeds not two or three yards, fometimes 40, which 
whirling round in a circle, pals along the earth, according to 
tfcff motion of the cloud, from whence they iffuc, and as they pafs 
along in their gyrous or circular motion, they carry aloft the dry 
leaves into the air, which often fall again in j)kces very remote ; 
Mr. Clayton had leen them delcend in a calm lun-fniny day, as if 
they had come from the heavens in great fhowers3 and hence 
many preternatural fliowers may be accounted for. 
Between the two capes, the Ibutherly adled cape Henry and 
the more northerly, cape Charles^ there runs up a great bay, called 
the bay of Cbsefefeak^ in Ibme places nine leagues over, in moH 
places feven, dividing Virginia into two unequal parts 3 on the 
eaft lide of this bay, there lies a narrow neck of land, which 
makes the counties of ]<Iorthampton and udccomack 3 on the well: 
iide of the bay four great rivers arile from a ridge of mountains, 
"viz. jfaraes river, Tork river, Rapabanack, and 'Totcmack-t and 
thefe rivers plentifully water all the other parts of Virginia, 
emptying ttcmielves into the great bay 5 Tutomack is a very 
large 
