the generation of waters.  Or else it may be full of wind, or a sulphureous innate fire, as our meteorologists inform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those horrible earthquakes, which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow up whole cities.  Let Lucian’s Menippus consult with or ask of Tiresias, if you will not believe philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes a second voyage.

In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors, alterations, as happen above ground.  Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct character (as it were) to several nations?  Some are wise, subtile, witty; others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timaeo, Vegetius and Bodine prove at large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civil, black, dun, white, is it from the air, from the soil, influence of stars, or some other secret cause?  Why doth Africa breed so many venomous beasts, Ireland none?  Athens owls, Crete none? [3051]Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, [3052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place?  Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta demands lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six days, or ever in Noah’s ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries?  It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense; no Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut:  and which is more, kine, horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in those parts?  How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude, to such as are Perioeci, there should be such difference of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, &c.  The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the inhabitants about [3054]_Caput bonae spei_ are blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from the equator:  nay they that dwell in the same parallel line with these Negroes, as about the Straits of Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John’s country in Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them again black:  Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line, coal black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated.  Moscow in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those northern countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long; and in 52. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Button’s Bay, &c., or by fits; and yet [3055]England near the