at 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
neighbourin