e equator under water if those
parts did not rise also; upon which account the planets are something
thicker about the equator than about the poles.

And from the diurnal motion and the attractions of the sun and moon our
sea ought twice to rise and twice to fall every day, as well lunar as
solar. But the two motions which the two luminaries raise will not
appear distinguished but will make a certain mixed motion. In the
conjunction or opposition of the luminaries their forces will be
conjoined and bring on the greatest flood and ebb. In the quadratures
the sun will raise the waters which the moon depresseth and depress the
waters which the moon raiseth; and from the difference of their forces
the smallest of all tides will follow.

But the effects of the lumniaries depend upon their distances from the
earth, for when they are less distant their effects are greater and when
more distant their effects are less, and that in the triplicate
proportion of their apparent diameters. Therefore it is that the sun in
winter time, being then in its perigee, has a greater effect, whether
added to or subtracted from that of the moon, than in the summer season,
and every month the moon, while in the perigee raiseth higher tides than
at the distance of fifteen days before or after when it is in its
apogee.

The fixed stars being at such vast distances from one another, can
neither attract each other sensibly nor be attracted by our sun.

_Comets_

There are three hypotheses about comets. For some will have it that they
are generated and perish as often as they appear and vanish; others that
they come from the regions of the fixed stars, and are near by us in
their passage through the sytem of our planets; and, lastly, others that
they are bodies perpetually revolving about the sun in very eccentric
orbits.

In the first case, the comets, according to their different velocities,
will move in conic sections of all sorts; in the second they will
describe hyperbolas; and in either of the two will frequent
indifferently all quarters of the heavens, as well those about the poles
as those towards the ecliptic; in the third their motions will be
performed in eclipses very eccentric and very nearly approaching to
parabolas. But (if the law of the planets is observed) their orbits will
not much decline from the plane of the ecliptic; and, so far as I could
hitherto observe, the third case obtains; for the comets do indeed
chiefly freq