The Impact of the Sun, Moon, and Stars on the Winds

These general and regular winds would always be as I have just explained, if the earth’s surface were:

• equally covered with water everywhere, or
• equally uncovered everywhere

In this way, there would be no diversity of seas, lands, and mountains.

When the sun shines, it causes more vapors to rise from the seas than from the lands because the lands do not provide as much material.

Conversely, when the sun is absent, its [residual] heat makes more vapors rise from the lands than from the seas, because it remains more strongly imprinted there.

This is why along the seashore the wind:

• comes from the water during the day
• comes from the land at night.

This is also why the lights called “St. Elmo’s fire” guide travelers towards the waters at night.

• Such lights follow the flow of the air towards the waters from the neighboring lands due to the condensation there.

The air touching the surface of the waters follows their course in some way. This is why:

• the winds often change along the coasts of the sea with its ebb and flow.
• along large rivers, one can feel slight winds that follow their course in calm weather.

The vapors rising from the waters are much more humid and thicker than those rising from the lands.

There is always much more air and exhalations [particulates, hydrocarbons, ionized air] among the vapors rising from lands.

Hence:

• the same storms are usually more violent on the water than on land
• the same wind can be dry in one country and humid in another.

The south winds are humid almost everywhere. But they are dry in Egypt, where only the dry and burnt lands of the rest of Africa provide them with material.

This is why it almost never rains there.

The north winds coming from the sea are humid. But because they are the coldest winds in Egypt, they cannot easily cause rain, as will be explained later.

The Moon and Stars Affect the Vapors

Moonlight varies greatly depending on its distance from the sun. It contributes to the expansion of vapors, as does the light of other stars.

But this is only in proportion to how much we feel it affects our eyes.

Consequently, the light of the stars is hardly noticeable compared to that of the moon. Nor is the moon’s light compared to that of the sun.

Vapors rise very unevenly from different regions of the earth.

Mountains are heated by the stars in a different way than plains, forests differently than meadows, cultivated fields differently than deserts.

• Some lands are inherently warmer or easier to heat than others.

Consequently, very uneven clouds form in the air. These can be:

• transported from one region to another by the slightest winds
• sustained at various distances from the earth, often stacked above each other.

The stars act differently:

• on the higher clouds than on the lower ones
• on the lower ones compared to the earth beneath them
• on the same areas of the earth when there are no clouds covering them versus when there are.

After it has rained or snowed, the stars affect the earth differently than before.

This makes it almost impossible to predict the specific winds that will occur each day in each region of the earth. There are often several contrary winds passing above each other.

If one considers all the factors noted here, one can generally determine:

• which winds will be the most frequent and strongest
• which places and seasons they will prevail

This is better determined in the large seas, especially those far from land.

• Suuch seas have no surface irregularities like those on land
• This generates fewer irregular winds.
• Those coming from the coasts can hardly reach there.
• This is why our sailors named the largest sea the Pacific Ocean.

The sudden changes in the air are it becoming:

• warmer
• decompressed
• more humid than the season requires

These sudden changes depend on the winds.

For example, if the usual south wind that brings heat does not bring us heat from a nearby lake while the north wind from far north brings air-aether that can easily reach us and cause extraordinary cold.

This south wind can be very humid.

• If it came from the deserted plains beyond then it would be drier.
• If it was caused only by the expansion of vapors from this lake, it would make our air much thicker and heavier

Adding to this, the air-aether and vapors in the pores of the earth take different courses.

They act like winds that bring with them exhalations [particulates, hydrocarbons, or ionized air] of all kinds, according to the qualities of the lands they pass through.

As the clouds descend, they can cause a wind that drives the air from top to bottom, as I will explain later.

These account for all the causes of the observed changes in the air.

However, the various shapes of hail are neither curious nor remarkable compared to those of snow.

Snow forms from these small ice knots or clusters arranged by the wind in the shape of leaves.

When the heat begins to melt the small hairs of these leaves, it first melts those on the top and bottom because they are the most exposed to its action.

The small amount of liquid that emerges spreads over their surfaces, quickly filling the small irregularities found there, making them as flat and polished as those of liquid bodies.

Despite this, the liquid freezes almost immediately, because if the heat is only strong enough to melt these small hairs surrounded by air, without melting anything further, it is not strong enough to prevent the material from refreezing when it is on these ice surfaces.

Afterward, this heat softens and bends the remaining small hairs around each knot in the circuit where it is surrounded by six other similar knots. It causes those hairs, which are farthest from the six neighboring knots, to bend and join with those opposite these six knots.

These hairs, being cooled by the proximity of the knots, cannot melt but, on the contrary, refreeze the material of the others as soon as it mixes with theirs.

This results in 6 points or rays forming around each knot. Its shapes depend on whether:

• the knots are larger or smaller and more or less compressed
• the hairs are stronger or weaker and longer or shorter
• the heat assembling them more or less slowly and moderately
• the wind accompanying this heat is strong or weak

Thus, the cloud’s outer surface was previously like what one sees around Z or M. Subsequently, it becomes like what one sees around O or Q. Each ice particle composing it takes the shape of a finely carved small rose or star.