and more fickly in the Downs than at Torbay; and on Plymouth-coaft, more than past the Land's end; in the Bay of Bifcay, than in the Long-reach. Something perhaps may be imputed to the difference of the waves, which are fhort, and make a copling-fea in the bay of Biscay, yet we came not within eighty leagues of Cape FinisTerræ.) In the Long-reach it is a long rolling wave, but never breaks. About Florida, Virginia, and New England, it is a great rolling-wave, but breaks. And as the fea coloureth from green to darkish, and fo to blue; fo in our return it coloured from blue to dark, and fo to green. When we were in the latitude of Barbadoes, and had failed fo for fome days, and apprehended ourselves to be within feventy or eighty leagues, I obferved the fea was black and hick, not tranfparently blue, as >efore, and the foam against the hip-fides was turbid, and of anoher confiftence than before: but when the fun was high, it turned reen; whereupon I asked the after, who told me we were within ixty leagues of Barbadoes, and that he fea was there foundable, wheres before it was not fo. But at arbadoes, in the anchoring place was blue; as we rowed afhore, the fhallow it was whitish: and at Jamaica, near the fhore, it is anfparently white, but within iree yards more tranfparently blue. As to the burning of the fea, I ould never obferve fo great a light, to perceive fishes in the fea off e ftern; yet was the light great, ad at fome times more than other. fuppofe feveral fubject earths, Irrents, and winds, do vary it. obferved it burned more at Deal

the night before we fet fail, than ever in the voyage. All the water ran off our oars almoft like liquid fire; the wind was then S. E. and the feamen told me, that at east and fouth winds it burnt most.

I fhall not trouble you with nn account, how two contrary winds poife each other, and make a calm in the midft, fhips at a distance failing with contrary gales at the fame time.

It is obfervable, that, in the Indies, fuch places as have any high mountains, have alfo every night a wind, that blows from the land maugre the Levantine wind which blows at fea, but with a flacker gale at night; which feems to fhew, it depends not only on the motion of the earth, but fun. There is none at Barbadoes or Soana, but at all the other islands; and in Jamaica every night it blows off the island every way at once, fo that no fhip can any where come in by night, nor go out but early in the morning, before the feabreeze comes in. I have often thought on it, and could imagine no other reafon, but that those exhalations, which the fun hath raifed in the day, make hafte (after his ftrength no longer fupports them) to thofe mountains, by a motion of fimilar attraction, and there gather in clouds, and break thence, by their own force and weight, and occafion a wind every way for as the fun declines, the clouds gather, and fhape according to the mountains; fo that old fea men will tell you each ifland in the afternoon, towards evening, by the fhape of the cloud over it. And this attraction appears further, not only from the rain that gathers on the trees in the island of Ferro,

fpoken

fpoken of by Sir R. Hawkins in his obfervations, and If. Voffius upon Pomponius Mela, as alo Magninus de Manna, but alfo from the rains in the Indies; there being certain trees which attract the rain, fo as that if you deftroy the woods, you abate or deftroy the rains. So Barbadoes hath not now half the rains it had when more wooded. In Jamaica likewife, at Guanaboa, they have diminished the rains as they extended their Plantations. But to return to Jamaica: that this night wind depends much upon the mountains, appears by this, that its force extends to an equal distance from the mountain; fo that at Port-Morant, which is the easternmost part of the ifland, there is a little of landbreeze, because the mountain is remote from thence, and the breeze fpends its force along the land thither. I fhall further illuftrate this kind of attraction. In the harbours of Jamaica there grow many rocks, fhaped like bucks and flags horns: there grow alfo feveral fea-plants, whose roots are ftony. Of thefe ftone trees (if I may term them fo) fome are infipid, but others perfectly nitrous. Upon thofe other plants, with perrified roots, there gathers a lime-tone, which fixes not upon other feafans growing by them: It is obfervable alfo, that a Monchinel-apple, falling into the fea, and lying in the water, will contract a lanugo of falt-petre.

It is commonly affirmed, that the feafons of the year, betwixt the tropics, are divided by the rains and fair weather, and fix months are attributed to each feafon. But this obfervation holds not generally true for at the point in Jamai

ca fcarce fall (as was hinted above) 40 fhowers in a year, beginning in Auguft to October inclufively. From the point you may look towards Port-Morant, and fo along to Ligonee, fix miles from the point; and you will scarce fee, for eight or nine months, beginning from April, an afternoon in which it rains not. At the Spanish-Town it rains but three months in the year, and then not much. And at the fame time it rains at Mevis, it rains not at the Barbadoes. And at Cignateo, (otherwife called Eleutheria) in the gulf of Bahama, it rains not fometimes for two or three years; fo that that island hath been twice deferted for want of rain to plant it.

At the point of Jamaica, whereever you dig five or fix foot, water will appear, which ebbs and flows as the tide. It is not falt, but brackish; unwholefome for men, but wholesome for hogs. At the Caymans there is no water but what is brackish alfo; yet is that wholefome for men, infomuch that many are recovered there by feeding on tortoifes, and yet drink no other water. The blood of tortcifes is colder than any water I ever felt there; yet is the beating of their heart as vigorous as that of any animal (as far as I have observed), and their arteries are as firm as any creatures I know: which feems to fhew, it is not heat that hardens the coats of the arteries, or gives motion to the heart. Their lungs lie in their belly, below the diaphragm, extending to the end of their fhell. Their spleen is triangular, and of a firm fleth (no parenchyma) and floridly red. Their liver is of a dark green, inclining to black, and parenchymatous. In

the

the cefophagus are a fort of teeth with which they chew the grafs they eat in the meadows, which there grows at the bottom of the fea. All the tortoises from the Caribbees to the bay of Mexico and Honduras, repair in fummer to the Cayman iflands to lay their eggs, and to hatch there. They coot for fourteen days together, then lay in one night fome three hundred eggs, with white and yolk, but no fhells; then they coot again, and lay in the fand; and fo thrice: then the male is reduced to a kind of jelly within, and blind, and is fo carried home by the female. Their fat is green, but not offenfive to the ftomach, though you eat it as broth ftewed. Your urine looks of a yellowish green, and oily, after eating it.

There is no manner of earth, but fand at the point; yet I have eaten admirable melons, mufk, and water-melons, that have grown there. A great many trees alfo grow there, efpecially mangranes, and prickle pears.

In fome ground, that is full of falt-petre, your tobacco that grows wild, flashes as it is fmoaked.

The fruit of trees there of the fame kind ripen not at one time: there is a hedge of plumb-trees of three miles long, as you go to the Spanish town; on it I have many times remarked fome trees in flower, others with ripe, others with green fruit, and others to have done bearing, at the fame time. Jafmins I have feen to blow before their leaves, and also after their leaves are fallen again.

The fower-fap, a pleafant fruit there, hath a lower with three leaves; when these open, they give fo great a crack, that I have YOL. LY

more than once run from under the tree, thinking it all to be tumbling down.

There is a bird called a pelican, but á kind of cormorant, that is of a fishy tafte; but if it lie buried in the ground but two hours, it will lofe that talle, as I have been told for certain.

I tried fome analyfis of bodies, by letting ants eat them; and I found that they would eat brown fugar, white, and at last reduced it, to an infipid powder; fo they reduc. ed a pound of fallad-oil to two drachms of powder.

At our first coming there we fweat continually in great drops for three quarters of a year, and then it cealeth: during that space I could not perceive my felf or others more dry, more coltive, or to make lefs urine than in England; neither does all that sweat make us faintifh. If one be dry, it is a thirst generally arifing from the heat of the lungs, and affecting the mouth, which is best cooled by a little brandy.

Moft creatures drink little or nothing there, as hogs; nay, horfes in Guanaboa never drink; nor cows in fome places of the island for fix months; goats drink but once per haps in a week; parrots never drink, nor paroquets, nor civetcats, but once a-month.

The hottest time of the day to us is eight in the morning, when there is no breeze. I fet a weather-glass in the window, to abferve the weather, and I found it not rife confiderably at that time; but by two of the clock it rofe two inches.

Venice-treacle did fo dry in a gallipot, as to be friable; and then

it

it produced a fly, called a weavil, and a fort of white worm. So did the Pilula de Tribus produce a weavil.

There is in the midst of the ifland a plain, called Magotti Savanna, in which, whenfoever it rains, (and the rain paffeth along the island before it falls there,) the rain as it fettles upon the feams of any garment, turns, in half an hour, to maggots; yet is that plain health ful to dwell in.

Some Thoughts on the English Lan

guage.

Otwithstanding a great number of pieces have occafionally appeared in periodical works upon the fame fubject as the prefent effay, yet as I conceive that fome new obfervations have fuggeted themselves to me, I prefume they will be neither unacceptable nor unentertaining to the reader.

I fhall first begin with the objections which are made to it, and that the rather, as they all redound to its honour. The first objection that I fhall mention is, its fluctuating state and incertitude of duration.

No longer now the golden age ap

pears, When patriarch wits furviv'd a thoufand No length of fame, our fecond life,

is loft,

years;

And bare threefcore is all e'en that

can boaft;

Our fons their fathers failing language fee, And fuch as Chaucer is, fhall Dryden be.

Mr. Benfon has been beforehand with me in the refutation of this paffage of Pope: for he has justly obferved, that as long as our admirable version of the Bible continues to be read in churches, there will remain a perpetual standard for the language; and here i cannot avoid commending Mr. John fon's judgment in having his eye principally upon this authority in his Dictionary, a work which I look on with equal pleasure and amazement, as I do upon St. Paul's cathedral; each the work of one man, each the work of an English.

man.

A fecond objection against our mother-tongue is its being a med. ley of others, and that it has not a right to fet up for a language by itself. One would imagine that the difficulty which foreigners find in obtaining a competent know. ledge of the English, would be a fatisfactory answer to this pofition. There is no language in the world but has its derivatives from others, the Hebrew alone perhaps er. cepted. But what our language i chargeable with, on this fcore, is greatly to its advantage, and is, in fact, one of the greatest mat ters that can be faid in its behalf. We have culled the flowers frm others, and at the fame time have rejected the weeds. The Spani is too grave, folemn, and formal: the French too light, precipitate, and coxcomical. The Italian 1 over foftened and emafculated with a redundancy of vowels; as the German is burthened and rendered barbarous by a harsh, unutterable, difagreeable concurrence of cosfonants. But the English tonger is majeftic without ftiffness, lively

withou