followed by a land-wind at east.  This remark must not be taken in too strict a sense, but only as the result of general observation.  If the land-wind, in the course of the night, should draw round from east to north it would be looked upon as an infallible prognostic of a west or north-west wind the next day.  On this principle it is that the natives foretell the direction of the wind by the noise of the surf at night, which if heard from the northward is esteemed the forerunner of a northerly wind, and vice versa.  The quarter from which the noise is heard depends upon the course of the land-wind, which brings the sound with it, and drowns it to leeward—­the land-wind has a correspondence with the next day’s sea-wind—­and thus the divination is accounted for.

The effect of the sea-wind is not perceived to the distance of more than three or four leagues from the shore in common, and for the most part it is fainter in proportion to the distance.  When it first sets in it does not commence at the remoter extremity of its limits but very near the shore, and gradually extends itself farther to sea, as the day advances; probably taking the longer or shorter course as the day is more or less hot.  I have frequently observed the sails of ships at the distance of four, six, or eight miles, quite becalmed, whilst a fresh sea-breeze was at the time blowing upon the shore.  In an hour afterwards they have felt its effect.*

(Footnote.  This observation as well as many others I have made on the subject I find corroborated in the Treatise before quoted from the Haerlem Transactions which I had not seen when the present work was first published.)

Passing along the beach about six o’clock in the evening when the sea-breeze is making its final efforts, I have perceived it to blow with a considerable degree of warmth, owing to the heat the sea had by that time acquired, which would soon begin to divert the current of air towards it when it had first overcome the vis inertiae that preserves motion in a body after the impelling power has ceased to operate.  I have likewise been sensible of a degree of warmth on passing, within two hours after sunset, to leeward of a lake of fresh water; which proves the assertion of water imbibing a more permanent heat than earth.  In the daytime the breeze would be rendered cool in crossing the same lake.

Approaching an island situated at a distance from any other land, I was struck with the appearance of the clouds about nine in the morning which then formed a perfect circle round it, the middle being a clear azure, and resembled what the painters call a glory.  This I account for from the reflected rays of the sun rarefying the atmosphere immediately over the island, and equally in all parts, which caused a conflux of the neighbouring air, and with in the circumjacent clouds.  These last, tending uniformly to the centre, compressed each other at a certain distance from it, and, like the stones in an arch of masonry,