other 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._ disco