The Anatomy of Melancholy · Chapter 62Air rectified. With a digression of the Air. (1)
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As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I may freely expatiate and exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove, wander round about the world, mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and celestial spheres, and so descend to my former elements again. In which progress I will first see whether that relation of the friar of [2997] Oxford be true, concerning those northern parts under the pole (if I meet obiter with the wandering Jew, Elias Artifex, or Lucian's Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such 4. Euripes, and a great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass still to bend that way, and what should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, [2998]is it a magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magnetical meridian, as Maurolieus; Vel situs in vena terrae, as Agricola; or the nearness of the next continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbricenses, Peregrinus contend; why at the Azores it looks directly north, otherwise not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the Baltic Seas, near Rasceburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any ships come that way, though [2999]Martin Ridley write otherwise, that the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from his direction. 'Tis fit to be inquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11. grad. Lond. variat. alibi 36. &c. and that which is more prodigious, the variation varies in the same place, now taken accurately, 'tis so much after a few years quite altered from that it was: till we have better intelligence, let our Dr. Gilbert, and Nicholas [3000]Cabeus the Jesuit, that have both written great volumes of this subject, satisfy these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open and navigable by the Pole arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of Bartison the Hollander, under the Pole itself, which for some reasons I hold best: or by Fretum Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether [3001]Hudson's discovery be true of a new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in 50. degrees, Hubberd's Hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roe's welcome in Northwest Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15. foot in 12. hours, as our [3002]new cards inform us that California is not a cape, but an island, and the west winds make the neap tides equal to the spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the straits of Anian to China, by the promontory of Tabin. If there be, I shall soon perceive whether [3003]Marcus Polus the Venetian's narration be true or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there be any such places, or that as [3004]Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath written, China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the king of China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of Cambalu be that new Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from Tartary: whether [3005]Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts him in Asia, [3006]the most received opinion is, that he is emperor of the Abyssines, which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia, under the equator in Africa. Whether [3007]Guinea be an island or part of the continent, or that hungry [3008]Spaniard's discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius Britannius, or his of Utopia, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the tropic of Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did unto the Spaniards. Shouten and Le Meir have done well in the discovery of the Straits of Magellan, in finding a more convenient passage to Mare pacificum: methinks some of our modern argonauts should prosecute the rest. As I go by Madagascar, I would see that great bird [3009]ruck, that can carry a man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix described by [3010]Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian gryphes in Asia: and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus, whether Herodotus, [3011]Seneca, Plin. lib. 5. cap. 9. Strabo. lib. 5. give a true cause of his annual flowing, [3012]Pagaphetta discourse rightly of it, or of Niger and Senegal; examine Cardan, [3013]Scaliger's reasons, and the rest. Is it from those Etesian winds, or melting of snow in the mountains under the equator (for Jordan yearly overflows when the snow melts in Mount Libanus), or from those great dropping perpetual showers which are so frequent to the inhabitants within the tropics, when the sun is vertical, and cause such vast inundations in Senegal, Maragnan, Oronoco and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which have all commonly the same passions at set times: and by good husbandry and policy hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled, as fruitful, as Egypt itself or Cauchinthina? I would observe all those motions of the sea, and from what cause they proceed, from the moon (as the vulgar hold) or earth's motion, which Galileus, in the fourth dialogue of his system of the world, so eagerly proves, and firmly demonstrates; or winds, as [3014] some will. Why in that quiet ocean of Zur, in mari pacifico, it is scarce perceived, in our British seas most violent, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea so vehement, irregular, and diverse? Why the current in that Atlantic Ocean should still be in some places from, in some again towards the north, and why they come sooner than go? and so from Moabar to Madagascar in that Indian Ocean, the merchants come in three weeks, as [3015]Scaliger discusseth, they return scarce in three months, with the same or like winds: the continual current is from east to west. Whether Mount Athos, Pelion, Olympus, Ossa, Caucasus, Atlas, be so high as Pliny, Solinus, Mela relate, above clouds, meteors, ubi nec aurae nec venti spirant (insomuch that they that ascend die suddenly very often, the air is so subtile,) 1250 paces high, according to that measure of Dicearchus, or 78 miles perpendicularly high, as Jacobus Mazonius, sec. 3. et 4. expounding that place of Aristotle about Caucasus; and as [3016]Blancanus the Jesuit contends out of Clavius and Nonius demonstrations de Crepusculis: or rather 32 stadiums, as the most received opinion is; or 4 miles, which the height of no mountain doth perpendicularly exceed, and is equal to the greatest depths of the sea, which is, as Scaliger holds, 1580 paces, Exer. 38, others 100 paces. I would see those inner parts of America, whether there be any such great city of Manoa, or Eldorado, in that golden empire, where the highways are as much beaten (one reports) as between Madrid and Valadolid in Spain; or any such Amazons as he relates, or gigantic Patagones in Chica; with that miraculous mountain [3017]Ybouyapab in the Northern Brazil, cujus jugum sternitur in amoenissimam planitiem, &c. or that of Pariacacca so high elevated in Peru. [3018]The peak of Tenerife how high it is? 70 miles, or 50 as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius demonstrates in his Eratosthenes: see that strange [3019]Cirknickzerksey lake in Carniola, whose waters gush so fast out of the ground, that they will overtake a swift horseman, and by and by with as incredible celerity are supped up: which Lazius and Wernerus make an argument of the Argonauts sailing under ground. And that vast den or hole called [3020]Esmellen in Muscovia, quae visitur horriendo hiatu, &c. which if anything casually fall in, makes such a roaring noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or warlike engine can make the like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland, with many the like. I would examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how it exonerates itself, after it hath taken in Volga, Jaxares, Oxus, and those great rivers; at the mouth of Oby, or where? What vent the Mexican lake hath, the Titicacan in Peru, or that circular pool in the vale of Terapeia, of which Acosta l. 3. c. 16. hot in a cold country, the spring of which boils up in the middle twenty foot square, and hath no vent but exhalation: and that of Mare mortuum in Palestine, of Thrasymene, at Peruzium in Italy: the Mediterranean itself. For from the ocean, at the Straits of Gibraltar, there is a perpetual current into the Levant, and so likewise by the Thracian Bosphorus out of the Euxine or Black Sea, besides all those great rivers of Nile, Po, Rhone, &c. how is this water consumed, by the sun or otherwise? I would find out with Trajan the fountains of Danube, of Ganges, Oxus, see those Egyptian pyramids, Trajan's bridge, Grotto de Sybilla, Lucullus's fishponds, the temple of Nidrose, &c. (And, if I could, observe what becomes of swallows, storks, cranes, cuckoos, nightingales, redstarts, and many other kind of singing birds, water-fowls, hawks, &c. some of them are only seen in summer, some in winter; some are observed in the [3021]snow, and at no other times, each have their seasons. In winter not a bird is in Muscovy to be found, but at the spring in an instant the woods and hedges are full of them, saith [3022]Herbastein: how comes it to pass? Do they sleep in winter, like Gesner's Alpine mice; or do they lie hid (as [3023]Olaus affirms) “in the bottom of lakes and rivers, spiritum continentes? often so found by fishermen in Poland and Scandia, two together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing; and when the spring comes they revive again, or if they be brought into a stove, or to the fireside.” Or do they follow the sun, as Peter Martyr legat Babylonica l. 2. manifestly convicts, out of his own knowledge; for when he was ambassador in Egypt, he saw swallows, Spanish kites, [3024]and many such other European birds, in December and January very familiarly flying, and in great abundance, about Alexandria, ubi floridae tunc arbores ac viridaria. Or lie they hid in caves, rocks, and hollow trees, as most think, in deep tin-mines or sea-cliffs, as [3025]Mr. Carew gives out? I conclude of them all, for my part, as [3026]Munster doth of cranes and storks; whence they come, whither they go, incompertum adhuc, as yet we know not. We see them here, some in summer, some in winter; “their coming and going is sure in the night: in the plains of Asia” (saith he) “the storks meet on such a set day, he that comes last is torn in pieces, and so they get them gone.” Many strange places, Isthmi, Euripi, Chersonesi, creeks, havens, promontories, straits, Lakes, baths, rocks, mountains, places, and fields, where cities have been ruined or swallowed, battles fought, creatures, sea-monsters, remora, &c. minerals, vegetals. Zoophytes were fit to be considered in such an expedition, and amongst the rest that of [3027]Harbastein his Tartar lamb, [3028]Hector Boethius goosebearing tree in the orchards, to which Cardan lib. 7. cap. 36. de rerum varietat. subscribes: [3029]Vertomannus wonderful palm, that [3030] fly in Hispaniola, that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well see to write; those spherical stones in Cuba which nature hath so made, and those like birds, beasts, fishes, crowns, swords, saws, pots, &c. usually found in the metal mines in Saxony about Mansfield, and in Poland near Nokow and Pallukie, as [3031]Munster and others relate. Many rare creatures and novelties each part of the world affords: amongst the rest, I would know for a certain whether there be any such men, as Leo Suavius, in his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. tuend. and [3032]Gaguinus records in his description of Muscovy, “that in Lucomoria, a province in Russia, lie fast asleep as dead all winter, from the 27 of November, like frogs and swallows, benumbed with cold, but about the 24 of April in the spring they revive again, and go about their business.” I would examine that demonstration of Alexander Picolomineus, whether the earth's superficies be bigger than the seas: or that of Archimedes be true, the superficies of all water is even? Search the depth, and see that variety of sea-monsters and fishes, mermaids, seamen, horses, &c. which it affords. Or whether that be true which Jordanus Brunus scoffs at, that if God did not detain it, the sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those mathematical places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many circumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the land, and all the globe of the earth shall be covered with waters; risum teneatis amici? what the sea takes away in one place it adds in another. Methinks he might rather suspect the sea should in time be filled by land, trees grow up, carcasses, &c. that all-devouring fire, omnia devorans et consumens, will sooner cover and dry up the vast ocean with sand and ashes. I would examine the true seat of that terrestrial [3033]paradise, and where Ophir was whence Solomon did fetch his gold: from Peruana, which some suppose, or that Aurea Chersonesus, as Dominicus Niger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and others will. I would censure all Pliny's, Solinus', Strabo's, Sir John Mandeville's, Olaus Magnus', Marcus Polus' lies, correct those errors in navigation, reform cosmographical charts, and rectify longitudes, if it were possible; not by the compass, as some dream, with Mark Ridley in his treatise of magnetical bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus magnet philos. lib. 3. cap. 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I would observe some better means to find them out.
I would have a convenient place to go down with Orpheus, Ulysses, Hercules, [3034]Lucian's Menippus, at St. Patrick's purgatory, at Trophonius' den, Hecla in Iceland, Aetna in Sicily, to descend and see what is done in the bowels of the earth: do stones and metals grow there still? how come fir trees to be [3035]digged out from tops of hills, as in our mosses, and marshes all over Europe? How come they to dig up fish bones, shells, beams, ironworks, many fathoms under ground, and anchors in mountains far remote from all seas? [3036]Anno 1460 at Bern in Switzerland 50 fathom deep a ship was digged out of a mountain, where they got metal ore, in which were 48 carcasses of men, with other merchandise. That such things are ordinarily found in tops of hills, Aristotle insinuates in his meteors, [3037]Pomponius Mela in his first book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in the Alps, saith [3038]Blancanus the Jesuit, the like is to be seen: came this from earthquakes, or from Noah's flood, as Christians suppose, or is there a vicissitude of sea and land, as Anaximenes held of old, the mountains of Thessaly would become seas, and seas again mountains? The whole world belike should be new moulded, when it seemed good to those all-commanding powers, and turned inside out, as we do haycocks in harvest, top to bottom, or bottom to top: or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon his centre; that which is under the poles now, should be translated to the equinoctial, and that which is under the torrid zone to the circle arctic and antarctic another while, and so be reciprocally warmed by the sun: or if the worlds be infinite, and every fixed star a sun, with his compassing planets (as Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast three or four worlds into one; or else of one world make three or four new, as it shall seem to them best. To proceed, if the earth be 21,500 miles in [3039]compass, its diameter is 7,000 from us to our antipodes, and what shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the centre of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as [3040] Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose chaos is the earth: or with fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with nymphs, or as the air with spirits? Dionisiodorus, a mathematician in [3041]Pliny, that sent a letter, ad superos after he was dead, from the centre of the earth, to signify what distance the same centre was from the superficies of the same, viz. 42,000 stadiums, might have done well to have satisfied all these doubts. Or is it the place of hell, as Virgil in his Aenides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think? In good earnest, Anthony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian College, in Milan, in his great volume de Inferno, lib. 1. cap. 47. is stiff in this tenet, 'tis a corporeal fire tow, cap. 5. I. 2. as he there disputes. “Whatsoever philosophers write” (saith [3042]Surius) “there be certain mouths of hell, and places appointed for the punishment of men's souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living: God would have such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God.” Kranzius Dan. hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth Colerus cap. 12. lib. de immortal animae (out of the authority belike of St. Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, who derive as much from Aetna in Sicily, Lipari, Hiera, and those sulphureous vulcanian islands) making Terra del Fuego, and those frequent volcanoes in America, of which Acosta lib. 3. cap. 24. that fearful mount Hecklebirg in Norway, an especial argument to prove it, [3043]“where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a terror to the auditors; fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily go in and out.” Such another proof is that place near the Pyramids in Egypt, by Cairo, as well to confirm this as the resurrection, mentioned by [3044]Kornmannus mirac. mort. lib. 1. cap. 30. Camerarius oper. suc. cap. 37. Bredenbachius pereg. ter. sanct. and some others, “where once a year dead bodies arise about March, and walk, after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them.” But these and such like testimonies others reject, as fables, illusions of spirits, and they will have no such local known place, more than Styx or Phlegethon, Pluto's court, or that poetical Infernus, where Homer's soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c., to which they ferried over in Charon's boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad Infernos via, which is the shortest cut, quia nullum a mortuis naulum eo loci exposcunt, (saith [3045]Gerbelius) and besides there were no fees to be paid. Well then, is it hell, or purgatory, as Bellarmine: or Limbus patrum, as Gallucius will, and as Rusca will (for they have made maps of it) [3046]or Ignatius parler? Virgil, sometimes bishop of Saltburg (as Aventinus anno 745 relates) by Bonifacius bishop of Mentz was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes (which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away the seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil, Lactantius that held the earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball; and Jerusalem where Christ died the middle of it; or Delos, as the fabulous Greeks feigned: because when Jupiter let two eagles loose, to fly from the world's ends east and west, they met at Delos. But that scruple of Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our latter divines: Franciscus Ribera, in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have hell a material and local fire in the centre of the earth, 200 Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words, Exivit sanguis de terra—per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. But Lessius lib. 13. de moribus divinis, cap. 24. will have this local hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and brimstone: because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square) which will abundantly suffice; Cum cerium sit, inquit, facta subductione, non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum. But if it be no material fire (as Sco. Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius, and others argue) it may be there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes System. Theol. for sure somewhere it is, certum est alicubi, etsi definitus circulus non assignetur. I will end the controversy in [3047]Austin's words, “Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire:” [3048]Vix a mansuetis, a contentiosis nunquam invenitur; scarce the meek, the contentious shall never find. If it be solid earth, 'tis the fountain of metals, waters, which by his innate temper turns air into water, which springs up in several chinks, to moisten the earth's superficies, and that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) or else these fountains come directly from the sea, by [3049]secret passages, and so made fresh again, by running through the bowels of the earth; and are either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which they pass; or as Peter Martyr Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others hold, from [3050] abundance of rain that falls, or from that ambient heat and cold, which alters that inward heat, and so per consequens the generation of waters. Or else it may be full of wind, or a sulphureous innate fire, as our meteorologists inform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those horrible earthquakes, which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow up whole cities. Let Lucian's Menippus consult with or ask of Tiresias, if you will not believe philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes a second voyage.
In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors, alterations, as happen above ground. Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct character (as it were) to several nations? Some are wise, subtile, witty; others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timaeo, Vegetius and Bodine prove at large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civil, black, dun, white, is it from the air, from the soil, influence of stars, or some other secret cause? Why doth Africa breed so many venomous beasts, Ireland none? Athens owls, Crete none? [3051]Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, [3052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place? Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta demands lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six days, or ever in Noah's ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense; no Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut: and which is more, kine, horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in those parts? How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude, to such as are Perioeci, there should be such difference of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the inhabitants about [3054]Caput bonae spei are blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from the equator: nay they that dwell in the same parallel line with these Negroes, as about the Straits of Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's country in Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them again black: Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line, coal black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated. Moscow in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those northern countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long; and in 52. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Button's Bay, &c., or by fits; and yet [3055]England near the same latitude, and Ireland, very moist, warm, and more temperate in winter than Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the sea that causeth this difference, and the air that comes from it: Why then is [3056]Ister so cold near the Euxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace; frigidas regiones Maginus calls them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: [3057] Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in July, that our [3058]Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Noremberga in 45. lat. all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude than ours. New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that noble gentleman Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus junior, describes in his Golden Fleece, is in the same latitude with little Britain in France, and yet their winter begins not till January, their spring till May; which search he accounts worthy of an astrologer: is this from the easterly winds, or melting of ice and snow dissolved within the circle arctic; or that the air being thick, is longer before it be warm by the sunbeams, and once heated like an oven will keep itself from cold? Our climes breed lice, [3059] Hungary and Ireland male audiunt in this kind; come to the Azores, by a secret virtue of that air they are instantly consumed, and all our European vermin almost, saith Ortelius. Egypt is watered with Nilus not far from the sea, and yet there it seldom or never rains: Rhodes, an island of the same nature, yields not a cloud, and yet our islands ever dropping and inclining to rain. The Atlantic Ocean is still subject to storms, but in Del Zur, or Mare pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from tropic stars, apertio portarum, in the dodecotemories or constellations, the moon's mansions, such aspects of planets, such winds, or dissolving air, or thick air, which causeth this and the like differences of heat and cold? Bodin relates of a Portugal ambassador, that coming from [3060]Lisbon to [3061]Danzig in Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de Sylva, legate to Philip III., king of Spain, residing at Ispahan in Persia, 1619, in his letter to the Marquess of Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Ispahan, whose lat. is 31. gr. than ever he felt in Spain, or any part of Europe. The torrid zone was by our predecessors held to be uninhabitable, but by our modern travellers found to be most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains, and moistening showers, the breeze and cooling blasts in some parts, as [3062]Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile. Arica in Chile is by report one of the sweetest places that ever the sun shined on, Olympus terrae, a heaven on earth: how incomparably do some extol Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil, &c., in some again hard, dry, sandy, barren, a very desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we find great diversity of air in the same [3063]country, by reason of the site to seas, hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil, and the like: as in Spain Arragon is aspera et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited; Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains; Andalusia another paradise; Valencia a most pleasant air, and continually green; so is it about [3064]Granada, on the one side fertile plains, on the other, continual snow to be seen all summer long on the hill tops. That their houses in the Alps are three quarters of the year covered with snow, who knows not? That Tenerife is so cold at the top, extreme hot at the bottom: Mons Atlas in Africa, Libanus in Palestine, with many such, tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus, [3065]Tacitus calls them, and Radzivilus epist. 2. fol. 27. yields it to be far hotter there than in any part of Italy: 'tis true; but they are highly elevated, near the middle region, and therefore cold, ob paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as Serrarius answers, com. in. 3. cap. Josua quaest. 5. Abulensis quaest. 37. In the heat of summer, in the king's palace in Escurial, the air is most temperate, by reason of a cold blast which comes from the snowy mountains of Sierra de Cadarama hard by, when as in Toledo it is very hot: so in all other countries. The causes of these alterations are commonly by reason of their nearness (I say) to the middle region; but this diversity of air, in places equally situated, elevated and distant from the pole, can hardly be satisfied with that diversity of plants, birds, beasts, which is so familiar with us: with Indians, everywhere, the sun is equally distant, the same vertical stars, the same irradiations of planets, aspects like, the same nearness of seas, the same superficies, the same soil, or not much different. Under the equator itself, amongst the Sierras, Andes, Lanos, as Herrera, Laet, and [3066]Acosta contend, there is tam mirabilis et inopinata varietas, such variety of weather, ut merito exerceat ingenia, that no philosophy can yet find out the true cause of it. When I consider how temperate it is in one place, saith [3067]Acosta, within the tropic of Capricorn, as about Laplata, and yet hard by at Potosi, in that same altitude, mountainous alike, extreme cold; extreme hot in Brazil, &c. Hic ego, saith Acosta, philosophiam Aristotelis meteorologicam vehementer irrisi, cum, &c., when the sun comes nearest to them, they have great tempests, storms, thunder and lightning, great store of rain, snow, and the foulest weather: when the sun is vertical, their rivers overflow, the morning fair and hot, noonday cold and moist: all which is opposite to us. How comes it to pass? Scaliger poetices l. 3. c. 16. discourseth thus of this subject. How comes, or wherefore is this temeraria siderum dispositio, this rash placing of stars, or as Epicurus will, fortuita, or accidental? Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, unequally situated in the heavens, and set so much out of order? In all other things nature is equal, proportionable, and constant; there be justae dimensiones, et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent, cur non idem coelo opere omnium pulcherrimo? Why are the heavens so irregular, neque paribus molibus, neque paribus intervallis, whence is this difference? Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum Genios, to make diversity of countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us, ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sidera distrahant ad perniciem, and so by this means fluvio vel monte distincti sunt dissimiles, the same places almost shall be distinguished in manners. But this reason is weak and most insufficient. The fixed stars are removed since Ptolemy's time 26. gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, as their site varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow. But this we perceive not; as in Tully's time with us in Britain, coelum visu foedum, et in quo facile generantur nubes, &c., 'tis so still. Wherefore Bodine Theat. nat. lib. 2. and some others, will have all these alterations and effects immediately to proceed from those genii, spirits, angels, which rule and domineer in several places; they cause storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, ruins, tempests, great winds, floods, &c., the philosophers of Conimbra, will refer this diversity to the influence of that empyrean heaven: for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in Ptolemy's time, the virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, [3068]men grow less, &c. There are that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off, together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a [3069]Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, praecipites, horroris et mortis speciem prae se ferentes, “uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all green trees, plants, and fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, 'tis evident.” Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why should it be so hot in Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those [3070]etesian and northeastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only: here perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a pleasant air; here [3071]terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes (as in [3072]Peru) on the one side of the mountains it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion, but when there is such diversity to such as Perioeci or very near site, how can that position hold?