BOOK II.] History of Nature. 99 



only after a calm and clear Night. Frosts dry up moisture ; 

 for when the Ice is thawed the like Proportion of Water is 

 not found. 



CHAPTER LXI. 



Of the Shapes of Clouds. 



A VARIETY of Colours and Shapes are seen in Clouds, 

 according as the Fire intermingled therein is either more or 

 less. 



CHAPTER LXII. 

 Of the Properties of Weather in various Places. 



MOREOVER there are many Properties of the Weather 

 peculiar to certain Places. The Nights in Africa be dewy in 

 Winter; in Italy, about Locri and the Lake Velinus, there is 

 not a Day but a Rainbow is seen. At Rhodes and Syracuse, 

 the Air is never so cloudy, but one Hour or other the Sun 

 shineth out. But such Things as these shall be related more 

 fitly in due Place. Thus much of the Air. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

 Of the Nature of the Earth. 



THE Earth followeth next : unto which alone of all Parts 

 of the World, for her especial Benefits, we have given the 

 reverend Name of Mother 1 . For like as the Heaven is the 



1 The earth was so commonly termed Mother by Greek and Roman 

 writers, in prose and verse, that it is unnecessary to refer to particular in- 

 stances. And it is not to be regarded as merely a poetic metaphor or 

 idle declamation, for it was their belief that the earliest origin of mankind 

 was from the ground, by an inherent property ; as explained by Lucre- 

 tius in his Second Book on the " Nature of Things : " so that each primi- 

 tive nation arose from its own soil. And even the renewal of the earth 

 with inhabitants after the flood, from the stones cast by Deucalion and 

 Pyrrha, was not popularly regarded as a fable ; although it is probable 

 that a mystical meaning was also supposed to be couched in the narrative. 

 But by Pliny this idea of maternity was extended more widely through 

 his adoption of the Pythagorean notion of the earth's being a living 



