y their stations and places,
though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive)
diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but
conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a [3069]Paradise, by reason
of the plenty of waters, _in promptu causa est_, and the deserts of Arabia
barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains _quod
inaquosa_ (saith Adricomius) _montes habens asperos, saxosos, praecipites,
horroris et mortis speciem prae se ferentes_, "uninhabitable therefore of
men, birds, beasts, void of all green 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 [3070]etesian and
northeastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in
some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only: here
perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a
pleasant air; here [3071]terrible thunder and lightning at such set
seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the same latitude, to
the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes (as in
[3072]Peru) on the one side of the mountains it is hot, on the other cold,
here snow, there wind, with infinite such. Fromundus in his Meteors will
excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion, but when there is such
diversity to such as _Perioeci_ or very near site, how can that position
hold?

Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain
[3073]stones, frogs, mice, &c. Rats, which they call _lemmer_ in Norway,
and are manifestly observed (as [3074]Munster writes) by the inhabitants,
to descend and fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts,
consume all that is green. Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts, about Fez in
Barbary there be infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden: so at Aries
in France, 1553, the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass
and fruits were devoured, _magna incolarum admiratione et consternatione_
(as Valleriola _obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1._ relates) _coelum subito
obumbrabant_, &c. he concludes, [3075]it could not be from natural causes,
they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. Are these and such
creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c. lifted up into the
middle regi