Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	sun_n	temperate_a	zone_n	27	3	14.1654	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58185	The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation being the substance of some common places delivered in the chappel of Trinity-College, in Cambridge / by John Ray ...	Ray, John, 1627-1705.	1691 (1691)	Wing R410; ESTC R3192	111,391	260

would make choice of Not of a perpendicular Posture For so both the pleasant Variety and great Convenience of Summer and Winter Spring and Autumn would be lost and for want of Accession of the Sun these Parts of the Earth which now bring forth Fruits and are Habitable would be in an incapacity of ever bringing forth any and consequently could entertain no Inhabitants and those Parts that the full heat of the Sun could reach he plying them always alike without any annual Recession or Intermission would at last grow tired or exhausted or be wholly dried up and want moisture the Sun dissipating and casting off the Clouds Northwards and Southwards Besides we observe that an orderly vicissitude of things doth much more gratifie the contemplative Property in Man And now in the second place neither would Reason make choice of a coincident Position For if the Axis thus lay in a plain that goeth through the Center of the Sun the Ecliptick would like a Colure or one of the Meridians pass through the Poles of the Earth which would put the Inhabitants of the World into a pitiful condition For they that escape best in the Temperate Zone would be accloyed with long Nights very tedious no less than Forty Days and those that now never have their Night above Twenty Four Hours as Friesland Island the furthest parts of Russia and Norway would be deprived of the Sun above a Hundred and Thirty Days together Our selves in England and the rest of the same Clime would be closed up in darkness no less than a Hundred or Eighty Days and so proportionably of the rest both in and out of the Temperate Zones And as for Summer and Winter though those Vicissitudes would be yet it could not but cause raging Diseases to have the Sun stay so long describing his little Circles so near the Poles and lying so hot on the Inhabitants that had been in so long extremity of Darkness and Cold before It remains therefore that the posture of the Axis of the Earth be inclining not perpendicular nor coincident to the fore-mentioned Plain And verily it is not only inclining but in so fit a proportion that there can be no fitter imagined to make it to the utmost capacity as well pleasant as habitable For though the course of the Sun be curbed between the Tropicks yet are not those parts directly subject to his perpendicular Beams either Unhabitable or extremely Hot as the Ancients fansied By the Testimony of Travellers and particularly Sir Walter Ralegh the parts under and near the Line being as Fruitful and Pleasant and fit to make a Paradise of as any in the World And that they are as suitable to the nature of Man and as convenient to live in appears from the Longaevity of the Natives as for Instance the Aethiopes called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but especially the Brasilians in America the ordinary Term of whose Life is a Hundred Years as is set down by Piso a Learned Physitian of Holland who travelled thither on purpose to augment natural Knowledge but especially what related to Physick And reasonable it is that this should be so for neither doth the Sun lie long upon them their Day being but Twelve Hours and their Night as long to cool and refresh them and besides they have frequent Showers and constant Breezes or fresh Gales of Wind from the East Seeing then this best posture which our Reason could make choice of we see really Established in Nature we cannot but acknowledge it to be the issue of Wisdom Counsel and Providence Moreover a further Argument to evince this is That though it cannot but be acknowledged that if the Axis of the Earth were perpendicular to the plain of the Ecliptick her motion would be more easie and natural yet notwithstanding for the Conveniencies forementioned we see it is made in an inclining posture If any man shall object and say It would be more convenient for the Inhabitants of the Earth if the Tropicks stood at a greater distance and the Sun moved further Northward and Southward for so the North and South parts would be relieved and not exposed to so extreme cold and thereby rendred unhabitable as now they are To this I answer That this would be more inconvenient to the Inhabitants of the Earth in general and yet would afford the North and South parts but little more comfort For then as much as the distances between the Tropicks were enlarg'd so much would also the Artick and Antartick Circles be enlarg'd too and so we here in England and so on Northerly should not have that grateful and useful Succession of Day and Night but proportionably to the Suns coming towards us so would our days be of more than Twenty Four Hours length and according to his recess in Winter our Nights proportionable which how great an inconvenience it would be is easily seen Whereas now the whole Latitude of Earth which hath at any time above Twenty Four Hours Day and Twenty Four Hours Night is little and inconsiderable in comparison of the whole bulk as lying near the Poles And yet neither is that part altogether unuseful for in the Waters there live Fishes which otherwhere are not obvious so we know the chief Whale-fishing is in Greenland And on the Land Bears and Foxes and Deer in the most Northerly Country that was ever yet touched and doubtless if we shall discover further to the very North-pole we shall find all that Tract not to be vain useless or unoccupied Thirdly The Third and Last thing I proposed was the Constitution and Consistency of the parts of the Earth And first Admirable it is that the Waters should be gathered together into such great Conceptacula and the dry Land appear and though we had not been assured thereof by Divine Revelation we could not in Reason but have thought such a Division and Separation to have been the Work of Omnipotency and Infinite Wisdom and Goodness For in this condition the Water nourishes and maintains innumerable Multitudes of various kinds of Fishes and the dry Land supports and feeds as great varieties of Plants and Animals which have there firm Footing and Habitation Whereas had all been Earth all the species of Fishes had been lost and all those Commodities which the Water affords us or all Water there had been no living for Plants or Terrestrial Animals or Man himself and all the Beauty Glory and Variety of this inferiour World had been gone nothing being to be seen but one uniform dark Body of Water or had all been mixt and made up of Water and Earth into one Body of Mud or Mire as one would think should be most natural for why such a Separation as at present we find should be made no account can be given but Providence I say had all this Globe been Mire or Mud then could there have been no possibility for any Animals at all to have lived excepting some few and those