Page:Book of knowledge (1).pdf/15



WIND is said to be an exhalation hot and dry, engendered in the bowels of the earth; and being gotten out, is carried sidelong upon the face of the earth, and cannot move upwards above the middle region of the air, which by reason of its coldness, doth beat it back, so as by much strife and by melting other exhalations rising, its motion is forced to be rather round, than right in its falling; and this makes it a whirlpoll, or whirlwind, which sometimes by it's violence carrieth many things with it from place to place.

THE ancients affirm, that the cause of the earthquakes is plenty of wind gotten surd confined within the bowels of the earth, which is striving to break forth, causing a shacking, or sometimes a cleaving of the earth, and thereby the destruction of many people and ruin of whole towns and cities, as the sad state of Sicily has so often shown us by sinking of mountains and raising of vallies; but though what I have said may be the natural cause of earthquakes, yet doubtless the final cause is God’s anger against a provoking and sinful people, which ought to make all our hearts tremble, lest God for our sins should cause the earth under us to do so.

THUNDER and Lightning are occasioned by an exhalation hot and dry; and being carried up into the middle region of the air, and there inclosed into the body of a cloud; now these two contraries being shot or inclosed, into one plate together, they fall at variance, whereby the water and fire, agree not till