1 69 1.] TRUE PHILOSOPHY. 37 



is a perfect Calm ; the Sea puts on a deceitful Mien, she 

 smooths all her Furrows, and leaves not the least wrinkle 

 on her Brows, but looks on you with a gay and smiling 

 Air. 



I wish those Gentlemen whom we call Philosophers, 

 wouM shew us distinctly the secret Springs of these several 

 wonderful Movements ; instead of filling their famous Writ- 

 ings with their little superficial Eeasons, which are almost 

 always false. True sages humbly confess that Nature has 

 her unsearchable Depths, and that to speak properly, all 

 these are things Divine. They acknowledge also, that one 

 of the greatest Sciences of true Philosophy, is not to be 

 ignorant of ones Ignorance. 



It has been thought that the Eain is salt when the Hurri- 

 cane is at the height ; several Voyagers have written as 

 much, but tho' I will not positively deny the matter of fact, 

 I am very apt to believe they confound the sprinklings of 

 the Waves with the Puain : If 'tis said that the Eain has 

 been found to be Salt a-shoar, in the middle of certain 

 Islands, I answer in the first place, that I doubt it, and add, 

 that the same Whirl-winds that lift up the greatest Vessels, 

 may also raise up great quantities of those broken Waves, 

 and scatter them to a vast distance, in these Isles or other 

 Places far from the Sea, where, falling down in drops, they 

 may easily be mistaken for Eain. 



I shall say one word only of St. Ubnes Fire, which I saw 

 sticking to our Masts when the Storm was at the strongest, 

 because I did not make any particular Observation of that 



seven days, and travel at the rate of from four to twenty miles an hour. 

 These storms are generally limited within a few degrees to the latitude 

 of 40^ 



The gales most to be dreaded are those which are preceded by heavy 

 black clouds, rising from the X.W. and W., sometimes with lightning. 

 The old Dutch commanders were directed by the East India Company 

 to wear and shorten sail when this occurred, as a gale might be ex- 

 pected. 



