In the Atlantic and Ethiopian ocean within the tropics there is an east wind which blows all the year without any considerable variation, excepting some few small places, where it changes according to circumstances and the position of the coasts. First, near the coasts of Africa, having passed the Canary islands, about the 28th degree of north latitude, a fresh wind blowing from the north-east or north-north-east, is sure to be met with; this wind accompanies the vessels to the 10th degree of the same latitude; about 100 leagues from the coast of Guinea; where at the 4th degree north latitude they meet with calms and tornadoes. Secondly, in going to America by the Caribbee islands, this wind is found to veer more and more to the east, in proportion as they approach the coast. Thirdly, the limits of these variable winds in the Atlantic, are greater on the American coasts than on those of Africa. A south or south-west wind blows continually all along the coast of Guinea for a space of 500 leagues from Sierra Leona to the island of St. Thomas; the narrowest part of that sea is from Guinea to Brazil, being not more than 500 leagues across. Nevertheless, ships which sail from Guinea do not direct their course straight to Brazil, especially when they sail in the months of July and August, for the purpose of taking advantage of the south-east winds which reign at that time[F]. [F] See Abridg. Phil. Tran. vol. II, page 129. In the Mediterranean the east wind blows from the land in the evening at the sun's setting, and the west wind from the sea at its rising in the morning. The south wind, which is commonly attended with rains, and which generally blows at Paris, Burgundy and Champagne about the beginning of November, gives place to mild and temperate breezes that produce that fair weather vulgarly called the summer of St. Martin's. Doctor Lister pretends that the east wind that blows between the tropics all the year, is produced by the vapour of the plant called sea lentil, which is extremely plentiful in those climates, and that the difference of the winds on the land proceeds only from the different disposition of the trees and forests; and he very seriously gives this ridiculous imagination for a cause of the wind, by saying, that at noon the wind is strongest because the plants are hotter and respire the most, and that it blows from east to west, because all plants, somewhat like sun-flowers, turn and respire with the sun. Other authors have mentioned the motion of the earth on its axis as the cause of this wind: this opinion is specious; and every person, even but little initiated in mechanics, must comprehend, that no fluid which surrounds the earth can have a particular motion from the rotation of the globe; that the air can have no other motion than that of the earth, and that all turning together at one time, this rotative motion must be as insensible in the atmosphere, as it is on the surface of the earth.