BOOK II. xLiv. 114-XLV. 116 



and in more ways as vrell. For we see winds arising 

 both from rivers and bays and from the sea even 

 when calm, and others, called altani, arising from the 

 land ; the latter when they come back again from the 

 sea are called turning winds, but if they go on, off- 

 shore winds. 



The windings of mountains and their clustered 

 peaks and ridges curved in an elbow or broken off 

 into shoulders, and the hollow recesses of valleys, 

 cleavino- with their irregular contours the air that is 

 consequently reflected from them (a phenomenon 

 that in many place causes words spoken to be end- 

 lessly echoed) are productive of winds. So again 

 are caverns, Uke the one with an enormous gaping 

 mouth on the coast of Dalmatia, from which, if 

 you throw some Hght object into it, even in calm 

 weather a gust like a whirlwind bursts out ; the name 

 of the place is Senta. Also it is said that in the 

 province of Cyrenaica there is a certain cHff, sacred 

 to the South wind, which it is sacrilege for the hand 

 of man to touch, the South wind immediately causing 

 a sand-storm. Even manufactured vessels in many 

 houses if shut up in the dark have pecuHar exhalations. 

 Thus there must be some cause for this. 



XLV. But there is a great difference between a cansesoj 

 gust of air and a wind. The latter, regular and ""■'^- 

 blo^ving steadily, and felt not by some particular 

 tract only but by whole countries, and not being 

 breezes nor tempests but winds — even their name 

 being a masculine word — whether they are caused 

 by the continuous motion of the world and the 

 impact of the stars travelUng in the opposite direction 

 or whether wind is the famous ' breath ' that gener- 

 ates the universe by fluctuating to and fro as in a 



257 



