abundance, and therefore more grave, drive back the Waters of lesse depth, which being afterwards raised, desire to descend, and from this continual colluctation or contest proceeds the ebbing and flowing.The cause of the ebbing and flowing ascribed to the Moon by a certain Prelate. Again those that referre the same to the Moon are many, saying that she hath particular Domination over the Water; and at last a certain Prelate hath published a little Treatise, wherein he saith that the Moon wandering too and fro in the Heavens attracteth and draweth towards it a Masse of Water, which goeth continually following it, so that it is full Sea alwayes in that part which lyeth under the Moon; and because, that though she be under the Horizon, yet neverthelesse the Tide returneth, he saith that no more can be said for the salving of that particular, save onely, that the Moon doth not onely naturally retain this faculty in her self; but in this case hath power to confer it upon that degree of the Zodiack that is opposite unto it. Others,Hieronymus Borrius and other Peripateticks refer it to the temperate heat of the Moon. as I believe you know, do say that the Moon is able with her temperate heat to rarefie the Water, which being rarefied, doth thereupon flow. Nor hath there been wanting some that—
Sagr.I pray you Simplicius let us hear no more of them, for I do not think it is worth the while to wast time in relating them, or to spend our breath in confuting them; and for your part, if you gave your assent to any of these or the like fooleries, you did a great injury to your judgment, which neverthelesse I acknowledg to be very piercing.
Salv.But I that am a little more flegmatick than you,Answers to the vanities alledged as causes of the ebbing and flowing.Sagredus, will spend a few words in favour of Simplicius, if haply he thinks that any probability is to be found in those things that he hath related. I say therefore: The Waters, Simplicius, that have their exteriour superficies higher, repel those that are inferiour to them, and lower; but so do not those Waters that are of greatest profundity; and the higher having once driven back the lower, they in a short time grow quiet and ** Or rather smooth. level. This your Peripatetick must needs be of an opinion, that all the Lakes in the World that are in a calme, and that all the Seas where the ebbing and flowing is insensible, are level in their bottoms; but I was so simple, that I perswaded my self that had we no other plummet to sound with,The Isles are tokens of the unevennesse of the bottomes of Seas. the Isles that advance so high above Water, had been a sufficient evidence of the unevennesse of their bottomes. To that Prelate I could say that the Moon runneth every day along the whole Mediterrane, and yet its Waters do not rise thereupon, save onely in the very extream bounds of it Eastward, and here to us at Venice. And for those that make the Moons temperate heat able to make the Water swell, bid them put fire under a Kettle full of Water, and hold
