nature of soil, and the like:  as in Spain Arragon is aspera et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited; Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains; Andalusia another 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. discourseth thus of this subject.  How comes, or wherefore is this temeraria siderum dispositio, this rash placing of stars, or as Epicurus will, fortuita, or accidental?  Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, unequally situated in the heavens, and set so much