Timæo, Vegetius and Bodine proves at large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civill, black, dun, white, is it from the aire, from the soyle, influence of stars, or some other secret cause? Why doth Africa breed so many venemous beasts, Ireland none? Athens Owles, Creet none? * Why hath Daulis and Thebes no Swallowes (so Pausanius informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, Ithaca no Hares, Pontus Asses, Scythia Swine? whence comes this variety of complec tions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, 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 dayes, or ever in Noah's Arke? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspence; no Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a chesnut: 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 Perici, there should be such difference of soyle, complexion, colour, metall, aire, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the Inhabitants about Caput bone spei are Blackemores, and yet both alike distant from the Æquator: nay, they that dwell in the same parallel line with these Negro's, as about the Straights 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 Africk and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line, cole black their Inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated. Mosco in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those Northern countries usually are, having one perpetuall 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 England neere the same Latitude, and Ireland, very moist, warme, and more temperate in Winter than *In iis nec pullos hirundines excludunt, neq; &c. + Th. Ravennas lib. de vit. hom. prærog, ca. ult. * At Quito in Peru. Plus auri quam terræ foditur in aurifodinis. Ad Caput bonæ spei incolæ sunt nigerrimi: Si sol causa, cur non Hispani & Itali æq; nigri, in eadem latitudine, æq; distantes ab Equatore, hi ad Austrum, illi ad Boream? qui sub Presbytero Johan. habitant subfusci sunt, in Zeilan & Malabar nigri, æq; distantes ab Equatore, eodeinq; cœli parallelo: sed hoc magis mirari quis possit, in tota America nusquam nigros inveniri, præter paucos in loco Quareno illis dicto: quæ hujus coloris cau. sa efficiens, cœlive an terræ qualitas, an soli proprietas, aut ipsorum hominum innata ratio, aut omnia? Ortelius in Africa Theat. Regio quocunq; anni tempore temperatissima. Ortel. Multas Galliæ et Italiæ Regiones, molli tepore, &benigna quadam temperic prorsus antecellit, Jovi. VOL. I. K k Spain, Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the sea that causeth this difference, and the Aire that comes from it: Why then is a Ister so cold neere the Euxine, Pontus, Bithinia, and all Thrace; frigidas regiones Maginus calls them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in July, that our 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 Cambriall Colchos, which that noble Gentleman Mr Vaughan, or Orpheus Junior, describes in his Golden Fleece, is in the same latitude with little Britaine 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 Artick; or that the aire being thick, is longer before it be warm by the Sun beams, and once heated like an oven will keep it self from cold? Our Climes breed lice, Hungary and Ireland male audiunt in this kinde; come to the Azores, by a secret vertue of that aire they are instantly consumed, and all our European vermine almost, saith Ortelius. Egypt is watred with Nilus not far from the sea, and yet there it seldome or never rains: Rhodes, an Iland of the same nature, yeelds not a cloud, and yet our Ilands ever dropping and inclining to rain. The Atlantick Ocean is still subject to storms, but in Del Zur, or Mare pacifico, seldome or never any. Is it from Tropick stars, apertio portarum, in the Dodecotemories or constellations, the Moon's mansions, such aspects of Planets, such winds, or dissolving ayre, or thick ayre, which causeth this and the like differences of heat and cold? Bodin relates of a Portugal Embassadour, that coming from Lisbon to Dantzick in Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de Sylva, Legat to Philip 3. King of Spain, residing at Spahan in Persia 1619. in his letter to the Marquess of Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Spahan, whose lat. is 31. gr. than ever he felt in Spain, of any part of Europe. The torrid Zone was by our predecessors held to be unhabitable, but by our modern travelers found to be most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains, and moistening showers, the Brise and cooling blasts in some parts, as Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile. Arica in Chili is by report one of the sweetest places that ever the Sun shined on, Olympus terræ, an heaven on earth: how incomparably do Lat. 45. Danubii. b Quevira kat. 40. *Lansius orat. contra Hungaros. De nat. novi orbis lib. 1. cap. 9. C In Sir Fra. Drake's volage. • Dantzick lat. 54 d Lisbon lat. SS. Suavissimus omnium locus, &c. some some extoll Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brasile, &c. in some again hard, dry, sandy, barren, a very Desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we finde great diversity of aire in the same 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 & sicca, harsh and evil inhabited; Estramedura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains, Andaluzia another paradise, Valence a most pleasent aire, and continually green; so is it about & Granado, on the one side fertile plains, on the other, continuall snow to be seen all Summer long on the hill tops. That their houses in the Alpes are three quarters of the yeer covered with snow, who knows not? That Tenariffa is so cold at the top, extreme hot at the bottom: Mons Atlas in Africk, Libanus in Palestina, with many such, tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus, *Tacitus calls them, and Radzivilus epist. 2. fol. 27. yeelds it to be far hotter there than in any part of Italy: 'tis true; but they are highly elevated, near the middle Région, and therefore cold, ob paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as Serrarius answers, com. in 3. cap. Josua quæst. 5. Abulensis quæst. 37. In the heat of summer, in the King's palace in Escuriall the aire is most temperate, by reason of a cold blast which comes from the snowie 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 neerness (I say) to the middle region: but this diversity of aire, in places equally site, 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, every where, the Sun is equally distant, the same verticall stars, the same irradiations of Planets, Aspects like, the same neerness of seas, the same superfices, the same soyl, or not much different. Under the Equator it self, amongst the Sierra's, Andes, Lanes, as Herrera, Laet, and † Acosta contend, there is tam mirabilis & inopinata varietas, such variety of weather, ut meritò exerceat ingenia, that no Philosophy can yet finde out the true cause of it. When I consider how temperate it is in one place, saith Acosta, within the Tropick of Capricorn, as about Laplate, and yet hard by at Potosa, in that same altitude, mountainous alike, extreme cold; extreme hot in Brasile, &c. Hie ego, saith Acosta, philosophiam Aristotelis metereologicam vehementer irrisi, cùm, &c. when the Sun comes neerest to The same variety of weather Lod. Guicciardine observes betwixt Liege and Ajax not far distant, descript. Belg. 8 Magin. Quadus. *Hist. lib. 5. Lib. 11. cap. 7. Lib. 2. cap. 9. Cur Potosa & Plata, urbes in tam tenui intervallo, utraq; montosa, &c. K k 2 them, them, they have great tempests, storms, thunder and lightning, great store of rain, snow: and the foulest weather when the Sun is verticall, their rivers over-flow, the morning fair and hot, noon day 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 syderum dispositio, this rash placing of Stars, or as Epicurus will, fortuita, or accidentall? Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, unequally site in the heavens, and set so much out of order? In all other things Nature is equall, proportionable, and constant; there be justæ dimensiones, & prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabrick of man, his eys, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent, cur non idem calo opere omnium pulcherrimo? Why are the heavens so irregular, neque paribus molibus, neq; paribus intervallis, whence is this difference? Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum Genios, to make diversity of countries, soils, maners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us, ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sydera 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 unsufficient. The fixed stars are removed since Ptolomie's time 26. gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, as their site varies, so should countries vary, and divers alterations would follow. But this we perceive not; as in Tullie's time with us in Britain, cœlum visu fædum, & in quo facilè 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 severall 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 Empirean Heaven: for some say the Exentricity of the Sun is come neerer to the earth than in Ptolomie's time, the vertue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, men grow less, &c. There are that observe new motions of the Heavens, new Stars, palantia sydera, Comets, Clouds, call them what you will, like those Medecean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and shew themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the Moon, at set times, now neerer, now farther off, together, asunder; as he that plaies upon a Sagbut by pulling it up and down alters Terra males homines nunc educat atq; pusilles. his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) divers alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures. About Damascus in Cœli-Syria is a Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, and the Desarts of Arabia barren, because of rockes, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountaines, quod inaquosa ( saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, præcipites, horroris & mortis speciem præ se ferentes, uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all greene 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 Etesian and North-Eastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in some places, at set-times, one way still, in the dog-dayes only: here perpetual drought, there dropping showres; here foggy mists, there a pleasant Aire; here terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the yeare, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes, (as in " Peru) on the one side of the mountaines it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there winde, with infinite such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or salve all this by the Sun's motion, but when there is such diversity to such as Periæci, or very neare site, how can that position hold? Who can give a reason of this diversity of Meteors, that it should rain "Stones, Frogs, Mice, &c. Rats, which they cali Lemmer in Norway, and are manifestly observed (as * Munster writes) by the Inhabitants, to descend and fall with some fæculent showres, and like so many Locusts, consume all that is green. Leo Afer speaks as much of Locusts, about Fez in Barbary there be infinite swarmes in their fields upon a sudden: so at Arles in France 1553. the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione & consternatione (as Valeriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) cælum subitò obumbrabant, &c. he concludes, † it could not be from naturall causes, they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wooll, blood, &c. * Strabo. Lapidatum est. Livie. * Cos iNav. 1. 1. c. 5. 1 As under the Equator in many parts, showres here at such a time, windes at such a time, the Brise they call it. Ferd. Cortesius lib. Novus orbis inscript. mog. lib. 4. cap. 22. Hæ tempestatibus decidunt è nubibus fæculentis, depascunturq: more locustorum omnia virentia. + Hort. Genial. An à terra sur sum rapiuntur à ́solo iterumq; cum pluviis præcipitantur? &c. |