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Sea, and lying in the water, will contract Lanugo of Salt-peter: which is confirmed by the Author of the History of the Antiles. To conclude this particular, the Captain of our Ship ventured to give me a reason for these winds, which I will not conceal from you, since it may put you upon an Experiment, which he said he had often made: viz. That the Sun did heat the Air, and exhale the Vapours, which after did settle on those hills, and as they grew cold, took up more room than before, and so made a wind by their pressure; as water, put hot into a Cask and closed, would, he said, as it cooled, break the Cask.
It is commonly affirmed, That the Seasons of the Year betwixt the Tropicks are divided by the Rains and Fair weather, and six Months are attributed to each Season. But this observation holds not generally true: For at the Point in Jamaica scarce fall (as was, on another occasion, hinted above) forty showers in a year, beginning in August to October inclusively. From the Point you may look, towards Port-morant, and so along to Ligonce, six miles from the Point, and you'l scarce see, 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 same time, it rains at Mevis, it rains not at the Barbadoes. And at Cignatea (otherwise called Eleutheria) in the Gulph of Barbadoes it rains not sometimes in two or three years; so that that Island hath been twice deserted for want of rain to plant in.
At the Point of Jamaica, where-ever you dig five or six foot, water will appear, which ebbs and flows as the Tide. It is not salt but brackish, unwholsome for men, but wholsome for Hogs. At the Caymans there is no water, but what is brackish also; yet is that wholsome for men, insomuch that many are recovered there, by feeding on Tortoises, and yet drink no other water.
The Bloud of Tortoises 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 seems to shew, 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 Shell. Their Spleen is Triangular, and of a firm flesh (no Parenchyma) and floridly red. Their Liver is of a dark green, inclining to black, and Parenchymatous. In the Oesophagus are a sort of Teeth, with which they chew the grass, they eat in the Meadows, which there grow at the bottom of the Sea.
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