VOL. II.] fHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 175 



SO that old seamen will tell you each island in the afternoon towards evening by 

 the shape of the cloud over it. And not only mountains, but other high parts, 

 such as trees, will also cause a collection of the clouds ; so that if you destroy 

 the woods, you abate or prevent the rains. So Barbadoes has not now half the 

 rains that it had when more wooded. In Jamaica likewise the rain is diminished 

 as the plantations are extended. In the harbour of Jamaica there are many 

 rocks, shaped like bucks' and stags' horns : there grow also several sea plants, 

 whose roots are stony ; of which some are insipid, but others perfectly nitrous. 

 On these plants there gathers a limestone, which fixes not upon other sea fans 

 growing near them. It is observable also, that a Monchinel apple falling into 

 the sea, and lying in the water, will contract a lanugo or down of saltpetre. 



It is commonly affirmed, that the seasons of the year between the tropics are 

 divided by the rains and fair weather, allotting six months to each season. But 

 this observation holds not generally true : For at the Point in Jamaica it hardly 

 rains forty showers in a year, as before observed, beginning in August to 

 October inclusively. From the Point you may look towards Port Morant, and so 

 along to Ligonee, six miles from the Point, and you will scarcely see for eight or 

 nine months, beginning from April, an afternoon in which it rains not. At the 

 Spanish Town it rains only for three months in the year, and then not much. 

 At the time it rains at Mevis, it rains not at Barbadoes. And at Cignateo, 

 otherwise called Eleutheria, in the Gulph of Bahama, it rains not sometimes in 

 two or three years, so that the island has been twice deserted for want of rain 

 to plant in. 



At the Point of Jamaica, wherever you dig five or six feet deep, water will 

 appear, which ebbs and flows with the tide. It is not salt but brackish, is un- 

 wholesome for men, but good for hogs. At the Caymans there is no water but 

 what is brackish also ; yet is that wholesome for men, insomuch that many are 

 recovered there, by feeding on tortoises, and yet drink no other water. 



The blood of tortoises is colder than any water there ; yet is the beating of 

 the heart as vigorous as that of any animal, and their arteries as firm. I'heir 

 lungs lie in their belly, below the diaphragm, extending to the end of their 

 shell. Their spleen is triangular, and of a firm flesh, and floridly red. Their 

 liver is of a dark green, inclining to black. In the oesophagus or gullet are a 

 sort of teeth, with which they chew the grass they eat in the meadows grow ing 

 at the bottom of the sea. 



All the tortoises from the Caribbees to the Bay of Mexico and Honduras, re- 

 pair in summer to the Cayman Islands, to lay their eggs and to hatch there. 

 They coot for fourteen days together, then lay in one night about three hun- 

 tlred eggs, with white and yolk, but no shells : then they coot again, and lay in 



