80 History of Nature. [BooK II. 



and arched, as it were, into Shoulders, together with the 

 Hollows of Vallies, do cut unequally the Air that reboundeth 

 from them : which is the Cause of reciprocal Voices called 

 Echoes, answering one another in many Places. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

 Of Winds again. 



THERE are, again, certain Caves 1 which breed Winds with- 

 out end : such as that one which is in the Edge of Dalmatia, 

 gaping with a wide Mouth, and leading to a deep Cavern : 

 into which, if there be cast any Matter of light Weight, be 

 the Day never so calm, there ariseth presently a Tempest like 

 a Whirlwind. The Place's Name is Senta. Moreover, in 

 the Province Cyrenaica there is reported to be a Rock con- 

 secrated to the South-wind, which without Profanation may 

 not be touched with Man's Hand ; but if it be, presently the 

 South-wind doth arise and cast up Heaps of Sand. Also in 

 many Houses there be hollow Places devised by Man's Hand 

 for the Receipt of Wind ; which being enclosed with Shade, 

 gather their Blasts. Whereby we may see how all Winds 

 have a Cause. But great Difference there is between such 

 Blasts and Winds. As for these, they be settled, and conti- 

 nually blowing ; which, not some particular Places, but 

 whole Lands do feel ; which are not light Gales nor stormy 

 Puffs of the Sea, named Aurce and Procellce, but properly 



1 That there is an intimate connexion between the interior of the 

 earth and the atmosphere, operating in the production or direction of the 

 nature or force of winds, is exceedingly probable ; although the particular 

 instances here given are either imaginary, or strangely misinterpreted. 

 A simple change in the pressure of the atmosphere a meteorological 

 phenomenon of which the ancients were ignorant, from not being aware 

 that air possessed positive weight will account for many of these sudden 

 gusts from caverns ; and for those hollow murmurs that have been popu- 

 larly remarked in hilly countries, before the approach of a storm ; and 

 the utility of these outbursts will appear when we remember, that with- 

 out them, poisonous exhalations, as marsh miasmata, and carbonic acid 

 gas, would be suffered to accumulate, to the destruction of a neighbour- 

 hood. Wern. Club. 



