[Meteorologia, or, The true way of foreseeing and judging the inclination of the air and alteration of the weather in several regions ... by William Cock ...].

The Ninth Rule. General causes are to be looked up∣on; as Comets, great Eclipses, chiefly of the Sun, the great Con∣junctions of Saturn & Jupiter.

Comets cause dry times for the most part, and more particular∣ly in dry Signs, and their Coun∣tries, as our days can witness by experience of the Comets in the year 1664. There was a great Eclipse of the Sun in the Ram, and about that time a Comet; to which also may be added Sa∣turn in the Lion, the which did occasion a dry Spring and Sum∣mer in England. It hath been wondered at by many, at the dry Summer and Harvest of the year 1669. But if they do consi∣der the Eclipse of the Sun in the dry and earthy Sign of the Bull, and although it was not

visible in our Horizon, yet in matters of the weather, it work∣eth all over; for the fabrick of this world is like a Musical in∣strument well tuned, of the which if a string be touched at one end, it will quiver all along to the farther end: And in the Bull and the Twins, the Comet of the year 1664 did move, and Saturn in the Skinker looking on the Bull with a Square, and on the Twins with a Trine Aspect, and in Opposition to the Lion, where he was in the time of drought, in the years 1652 and 1653. And likewise the Sign wherein Mars was in the time of the great Conjunction, in the year 1663. he may then wonder the less. However it is most true, that God sendeth extraordinary droughts, to punish sinners, as in the days of Elijah, for the space of three years and an half it did not rain upon the land of

Israel. And God causeth it to rain upon one City, and not upon another.