Nay, some are for placing the Nativity of the Winds hereabouts, as if they had been all generated here, and the Confluence of Matter had made this Island its General Rendezvouz. But I shall easily show, that there are several Places in the World far better adapted to be the General Receptacle or Centre of Vapours, to supply a Fund of Tempestuous Matter, than _England_; as particularly the vast Lakes of _North America_: Of which afterwards. And yet I have two Notions, one real, one imaginary, of the Reasons which gave the Ancients such terrible Apprehensions of this Part of the World; which of late we find as Habitable and Navigable as any of the rest. The real Occasion I suppose thus: That before the Multitude and Industry of Inhabitants prevail'd to the managing, enclosing, and improving the Country, the vast Tract of Land in this Island which continually lay open to the Flux of the Sea, and to the Inundations of Land-Waters, were as so many standing Lakes; from whence the Sun continually exhaling vast quantities of moist Vapours, the Air could not but be continually crowded with all those Parts of necessary Matter to which we ascribe the Original of Winds, Rains, Storms, and the like. He that is acquainted with the situation of _England_, and can reflect on the vast Quantities of flat Grounds, on the Banks of all our navigable Rivers, and the Shores of the Sea, which Lands at Least lying under Water every Spring-Tide, and being thereby continually full of moisture, were like a stagnated standing body of Water brooding Vapours in the Interval of the Tide, must own that at least a fifteenth part of the whole Island may come into this Denomination. Let him that doubts the Truth of this, examine a little the Particulars; let him stand upon _Shooters-Hill_ in _Kent_, and view the Mouth of the River _Thames_, and consider what a River it must be when none of the Marshes on either side were wall'd in from the Sea, and when the Sea without all question flow'd up to the Foot of the Hills on either Shore, and up every Creek, where he must allow is now dry Land on either side the River for two Miles in breadth at least, sometimes three or four, for above forty Miles on both sides the River. Let him farther reflect, how all these Parts lay when, as our ancient Histories relate, the _Danish_ Fleet came up almost to _Hartford_, so that all that Range of fresh Marshes which reach for twenty five Miles in length, from _Ware_ to the River _Thames_, must be a Sea.