h colors is a shining
red, the second a purple, the third is blue and green. Let us consider
whether the reason of this red shining color be the splendor of the sun
falling upon these small drops, the whole body of light being refracted,
by which this bright red color is produced; the second part being
troubled and the light languishing in the drops, the color becomes
purple (for the purple is the faint red); but the third part, being more
and more troubled, is changed into the green color. And this is proved
by other effects of Nature; if any one shall put water in his mouth and
spit it out so opposite to the sun, that its rays may be refracted on
the drops, he shall see the resemblance of a rainbow; the same appears
to men that are blear-eyed, when they fix their watery eyes upon a
candle.

Anaximenes thinks the bow is thus formed; the sun casting its splendor
upon a thick, black, and gross cloud, and the rays not being in a
capacity to penetrate beyond the superficies. Anaxagoras, that, the
solar rays being reflected from a condensed cloud, the sun being placed
directly opposite to it forms the bow after the mode of the repercussion
of a mirror; after the same manner he assigns the natural cause of the
Parhelia or mock-suns, which are often seen in Pontus. Metrodorus, that
when the sun casts its splendor through a cloud, the cloud gives itself
a blue, and the light a red color.

CHAPTER VI. OF METEORS WHICH RESEMBLE RODS, OR OF RODS.

These rods and the mock-suns are constituted of a double nature, a real
subsistence, and a mere appearance;--of a real subsistence, because
the clouds are the object of our eyes; of a mere appearance, for their
proper color is not seen, but that which is adventitious. The like
affections, natural and adventitious, in all such things do happen.

CHAPTER VII. OF WINDS.

Anaximander believes that wind is a fluid air, the sun putting into
motion or melting the moist subtle parts of it. The Stoics, that all
winds are a flowing air, and from the diversity of the regions whence
they have their origin receive their denomination; as, from darkness and
the west the western wind; from the sun and its rising the eastern;
from the north the northern, and from the south the southern winds.
Metrodorus, that moist vapors heated by the sun are the cause of the
impetuousness of violent winds. The Etesian, or those winds which
annually commence about the rising of the Little Dog, the air abou