, which moves
and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon
the Atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea
flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb.
Pytheas the Massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the
wane the ebb. Plato attributes it all to a certain balance of the sea,
which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the tide; and by this means
the seas do rise and flow alternately. Timaeus believes that those
rivers which fall from the mountains of the Celtic Gaul into the
Atlantic produce a tide. For upon their entering upon that sea, they
violently press upon it, and so cause the flow; but they disemboguing
themselves, there is a cessation of the impetuousness, by which means
the ebb is produced. Seleucus the mathematician attributes a motion to
the earth; and thus he pronounceth that the moon in its circumlation
meets and repels the earth in its motion; between these two, the earth
and the moon, there is a vehement wind raised and intercepted, which
rushes upon the Atlantic Ocean, and gives us a probable argument that it
is the cause the sea is troubled and moved.

CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE AUREA, OR A CIRCLE ABOUT A STAR.

The aurea or circle is thus formed. A thick and dark air intervening
between the moon or any other star and our eye, by which means our sight
is dilated and reflected, when now our sight falls upon the outward
circumference of the orb of that star, there presently seems a circle
to appear. This circle thus appearing is called the [Greek omitted]
or halo; and there is constantly such a circle seen by us, when such a
density of sight happens.

BOOK IV.

Having taken a survey of the general parts of the world, I will
take a view of the particular members of it.

CHAPTER I. OF THE OVERFLOWING OF THE NILE.

Thales conjectures that the Etesian or anniversary northern winds
blowing strongly against Egypt heighten the swelling of the Nile, the
mouth of that river being obstructed by the force of the sea rushing
into it. Euthymenes the Massilian concludes that the Nile is filled
by the ocean and that sea which is outward from it, the last being
naturally sweet. Anaxagoras, that the snow in Ethiopia which is
frozen in winter is melted in summer, and this makes the inundation.
Democritus, that the snows which are in the northern climates when the
sun enters the summer solstice are dissolved and diffus