BOOK XVIII. Lxviii. 277-Lxix. 280 



summer she must necessarily run ■vvith the sun in an 

 orbit very near to our earth, glowing with the heat 

 that she receives from his fire close at hand, whereas 

 in winter she must be further away at her con- 

 junction, because the sun also w'ithdraws, and like- 

 wise when at the full in sunimer she niust retire a 

 long way from the earth, being in opposition to the 

 sun, whereas in ^nnter the full moon comes towards 

 us following the same orbit as in summer. Con- 

 sequenth', being herself naturally humid, whenever 

 she is cold she freezes up the hoar-frosts falUng at 

 that season to an unhmited extent. 



LXIX. But before all things we ought to remember Damageby 

 that there are two kinds of damage done by the aiffere/T' 

 heavens. One we entitle tempests, a term under- 

 stood to include hail-storms, hurricanes and the other 

 things of a similar nature, the occurrence of which 

 is tei-med exceptionally violent weather ; these take 

 their origin from certain noxious constelhitions, as 

 we have said more than once, for instance Arcturus, ri. loe, 

 Orion, the Kids. The other are those that occur ^^ ^^^- ""''■ 

 when the sky is quiet and the nights fine, nobody 

 perceiving them except after they have taken place ; 

 these are universal, and widely different from the 

 former ones, being termed by some people rust, 

 by others burning and by others coal-blight, though 

 steriUty is a term universally appUed to them. Of 

 these last we wiU now speak, as they have never 

 been treated by any writer before us ; and we wiH 

 begin by stating their causes. 



These are two in number, in addition to that ^iii/fit <i«-f 

 depending 011 the moon, and they are situatcd in ofTtarsT'^'^ 

 only a few quarters of the heavens. For the Pleiads 

 speciaUy concern farm produce, inasmuch as their 



365 



