METEOROLOGY

natural motion, also the stars ordered in the motion of the heavens,
and the physical element-enumerating and specifying them and showing how they change into one another-and becoming and perishing in general. There remains for consideration a part of this inquiry
which all our predecessors called meteorology. It is concerned with events that are natural, though their order is less perfect than
that of the first of the elements of bodies. They take place in the
region nearest to the motion of the stars. Such are the milky way, and comets, and the movements of meteors. It studies also all the
affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and

parts of the earth and the affections of its parts. These throw
light on the causes of winds and earthquakes and all the
consequences the motions of these kinds and parts involve. Of these things some puzzle us, while others admit of explanation in some degree. Further, the inquiry is concerned with the falling of thunderbolts and with whirlwinds and fire-winds, and further, the recurrent affections produced in these same bodies by concretion. When the inquiry into these matters is concluded let us consider what

account we can give, in accordance with the method we have followed, of animals and plants, both generally and in detail. When that has
been done we may say that the whole of our original undertaking will have been carried out.�