The sea-mans direction in time of storm Delivered in a sermon upon occasion of…The sea-mans direction in time of storme Delivered in a sermon upon occasion of…

1. If we consider the nature of it, what it is, it is a creature, heard, felt, ⟨p. 20⟩but little understood, some guessings there are at it, but what it is, is a great¹ secret in nature: some say it is only air moved up and down; others, vapours raised up to the middle Region, and there by the cold beaten back, and so moving in the air collaterally: hence there are no winds above some mountains which reach beyond where these vapours ascend, and are beaten back, as that mountain Olympus, where the footsteps of ashes strewed abide from year to year, vapours thickened are clouds, vapours in the clouds rolling when they are heat incensed and break forth they are lightning, and the breaking of the clouds by them the Thunder-crack; if the vapour be beat back before it be thickened then it is Wind, if after the thickening then it is rain, if congealed on high then it is snow, if not congealed till it come to the lower part of the air then it is hail. The reason that is given of the collateral motion, is, the vapours, being so light as they cannot descend far, yet being beat down, and likewise met ⟨p. 21⟩with by other vapours, hence they are forced to move in a collateral motion in the air. Pliny a great searcher out of secrets of nature, in his natural History, l. 2. c. 45. speaks very doubtfully of the Wind, whether it be, saith he, the spirit of Nature that engendereth all things wandering to and fro, as it were in some womb, or rather the air broken and driven by the several influences and rays of the straying Stars and Planets, and the multiplicity of their beams; plain it is that they are guided by a rule of nature, not altogether unknown, although it be not yet unknown. This great Diver into Natures secrets, confesses ignorance in this of the Winds, & although he had not confessed it, yet that which he sayeth of the nature of them, would have discovered all his knowledge of them to be but a wild guessing. There is much wisdom in finding out the nature of creatures so far as they may be known. God may have much glory by our sight of his workings in them. Pliny in the ⟨p. 22⟩46. chap.