Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/99

 Maugre the Levantine Wind, which blows at Sea (but with a slacker gale all night; which seems to shew it depends not only on the motion of the Earth, but Sun.) Whence this Wind should come, may be considered; there is none at Barbadoes or Saona, but at all the other Islands. And in Jamaica every night it blows off the island every way at once, so that no ship can any where come in by night, nor go out but early in the morning, before the Sea-brise come in. I have often thought on it and could imagine no other reason, but that those Exhalations, which the Sun hath raised in the day, make haste (after his strength no longer supports them) to those Mountains by a motion of Similar Attraction,* and there gather in Clouds, and break thence by their own force and weight, and occasion a wind every way. For, as the Sun declines, the Clouds gather, and shape according to the Mountains, so that old Seamen will tell you each Island in the afternoon towards Evening by the shape of the Cloud over it. And this Attraction appears further, not only from the Rain that gathers on the Tree in the Island of Ferro, spoken of by J. Hawkins in his Observations, and ''Is. Vossius upon Pomponius Mela, as also Magnensis de Manna; but also from the Rains in the Indies, there being certain Trees which attract the Rain, though Observations have not been made of the kinds; so as that if you destroy the Woods, you abate or destroy the Rains''. So Barbadoes hath not now half the Rains, it had, when more wooded. In Jamaica likewise at Guanaboa they have diminisht the Rains as they extended their Plantations. But (to return to Jamaica) that this night-wind depends much upon the Mountain, appears by this, that its force extends to an equal distance from the Mountain, so that at Portmorant, which is the Easter-most part of the Island, there is little of Land-brise, because the Mountain is remote from thence, and the brise spends its force along the land thither. I shall further illustrate this kind of Attraction. In the harbor of Jamaica there grow many Rocks, shap'd like Bucks and Stags horns: there grow also several Sea-plants, whose roots are stony. Of these stone-trees (if I may term them so) some are insipid, but others perfectly Nitrous. Upon those other Plants with petrified roots there gathers a Lime-stone, which fixes not upon other Sea-fans, growing by them. It is observab1e also, that a Monchinel-Apple, falling into the Rh