There are that observe new motions of the Heavens, new Stars, palantia sydera, Comets, Clouds, call them what you will, like those Medecean, Burbonian, Austrian planets lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and shew themselves amongst the fixed Stars, amongst the Planets, above & beneath the Moon, set times, now neerer, now farther off, together, asunder; as he that plaies upon a Sagbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) divers alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures.

About Damascus in Cœli-Syria is a Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, & the Desarts of Arabia barren, because of rockes, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountaines, quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, præcipites, horroris & mortis speciem præ se ferentes, unhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all greene trees, plants & fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, ’tis evident. Bohemia is cold, for that it lyes all along to the North.

But why should it be so hot in Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those Etesian & North-Eastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-dayes only: here perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a pleasant Aire; here terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the yeare, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found?

Sometimes, (as in Peru) on the one side of the mountaines it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there winde, with infinite such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or salve all this by the Suns motion, but when there is such diversity to such as Periæci, or very neare site, how can that position hold?

Who can give a reason of this diversity of Meteors, that it should rain Stones, Frogs, Mice, &c. Rats, which they call Lemmer in Norway, and are manifestly observed (as Munster writes) by the Inhabitants, to descend and fall with some fæculent showres, and like so many Locusts, consume all that is green.

Leo Afer speaks as much of Locusts, about Fez in Barbary there be infinite swarmes in their fields upon a sudden: so at Arles in France 1553. the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass & fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione & consternatione (as Valleriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) cælum subitò obumbrabant, &c. he concludes, it could not be from naturall causes, they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven.

Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wooll, blood, &c. lifted up into the middle Region by the Sun beams, as Baracellus the Physitian disputes, and thence let fall with showres, or there ingendred? Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestiall influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are Princes of the ayre; to whom Bodin lib. 2. Theat. Nat. subscribes.

In fine, of Meteors in generall, Aristotles reasons are exploded by Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his Principles confuted, and other causes assigned, Sal, Sulphur, Mercury, in which his Disciples are so expert, that they can alter Elements, and separate at their pleasure, make perpetuall motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some magneticall vertue, but by mixture of elements;

imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the seas ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P. Nonius Saluciensis, and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate, that no Meteors, Clouds, Fogges, Vapors, arise higher than 50. or 80. miles, and all the rest to be pure aire or Element of fire:

which Cardan, Tycho, and John Pena manifestly confute by refractions, and many other arguments, there is no such element of fire at all. If, as Ticho proves, the Moon be distant from us 50. and 60. Semidiameters of the earth: and as Peter Nonius will have it, the aire be so angust,

what proportion is there betwixt the other three Elements and it? to what use serves it? is it full of spirits which inhabit it, as the Paracelsians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, full of birds, or a meer vacuum to no purpose?

It is much controverted betwixt Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman the Lantsgrave of Hassia’s Mathematician, in their Astronomicall Epistles, whether it be the same Diaphanum, cleerness, matter of aire and heavens, or two distinct Essences?

Christopher Rotman, John Pena, Iordanus Brunus, with many other late Mathematicians, contend it is the same, and one matter throughout, saying that the higher still the purer it is, and more subtile, as they finde by experience in the top of some hills in America; if a man ascend, he faints instantly for want of thicker ayre to refrigerate the heart.

Acosta l. 3. c. 9. calls this mountain Periacaca in Peru, it makes men cast and vomit, he saith, that climb it, as some other of those Andes do in the desarts of Chila for 500. miles together, and for extremity of cold to lose their fingers and toes.

Tycho will have two distinct matters of Heaven and Ayre; but to say truth, with some small qualification, they have one & the self same opinion about the Essence and matter of Heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a quinta essentia, but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre it self is, and that the Planets move in it, as Birds in the ayre, Fishes in the sea.

This they prove by motion of Comets, and otherwise (though Claremontius in his Antitycho stiffly oppose) which are not generated, as Aristotle teacheth, in the aeriall Region, of an hot and dry exhalation, and so consumed: but as Anaxagoras and Democritus held of old, of a celestiall matter:

and as Tycho, Eliseus, Rœlin, Thaddeus, Hagecius, Pena, Rotman, Fracastorius, demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions, motions of the Planets, which enterfeire and cut one anothers orbs, now higher, and then lower, as ♂ amongst the rest, which sometimes, as Kepler confirms by his own, and Ticho’s accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the ☉, and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiters orbe;

And other sufficient reasons, far above the Moon: exploding in the mean time that element of fire, those fictitious first watry movers, those Heavens I mean above the Firmament, which Del-rio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius, and many of the Fathers affirm; those monstrous Orbes of Eccentricks, and Eccentre Epicycles deferentes.

Which howsoever Ptolomy, Alhasen, Vitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their associates stiffly maintain to be reall orbes, excentrick, concentrick, circles equant, &c. are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think, that there should be so many circles, like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and hard, as they fain, adde & subtract at their pleasure.

Maginus makes eleven Heavens, subdivided into their orbes and circles, and all too little to serve those particular apparances: Fracastorius 72. Homocentricks; Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Ramerus, Heliseus, Rœlin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions; and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of Æquators, Tropicks, Colures, Circles, Artique and Antartique, for doctrines sake (though Ramius think them all unnecessary) they will have them supposed only for method and order.