A Strange Relation Of the Sudden and Violent TEMPEST, Which happened at Oxford May 31. Anno Domini 1682. Together With an Enquiry into the probable Cause and usual consequents of such like Tempests and Storms.  
Printed for Richard Sherlock Booksellour in Oxford. ANNO. DOM. 1682.   

Animadversions upon the late sudden Tempest, which happened at Oxford on the Thirty First day of May last past.  
THose Accidents which are least expected, are either most dreadful, or most admirable: That which is common is contemned; and familiarity makes men disgust the most Noble, because Usual, works of God. The Occurrence of unexpected Casualties breed Terror; of unfrequent Wonder: This over-joys the Ears: That overwhelms the Mind. Here than I have a Subject will exercise the faculties of both Soul and Sense; If you have a mind to hear what former Ages have been seldom acquainted with, if to understand what later times may justly deprecate; I shall faithfully publish the Relation, and seriously examine the Events, of a late Accident, which may respond to both your desires. 'Tis pleasant to scann the variety of Nature's operations, but grievous to pry into her Cryptick Machinations. The Tempest was amazing in facto, but will be terrible in futuro; 'twas repentine and violent, but will be significant and notable: But to the business.  
Upon the 31 of May last. The Morning was calm, serene, and clear, at Ten of the Clock an uncouth and intense Heat of the Sun seemed to scourge the moistened Plains, as if He would have redeemed in a moment the continued Bathe They had been so long plunged into, by the quick and penetrating strokes of 〈◊〉 redoubled Beams. This continued till about a quarter of an hour after Noon; when presently a steady and soft Wind seemed to dislodge from his Back, 
South-west, or South-west by South.  and hoard up several Clouds and Vapours not far from our Zenith; Having obser'vd this, I forthwith erected a Scheme, and beheld the Position of the Heavens; from which I had no sooner learned the impending Event, but immediately the presaged Storm came out of hand to attest the veracity of my judments.  
A miraculous, dismal, and hideous Storm followed: First, a Cataegis, or rushing murmur was heard in the upper Regions, which anon was felt in the lower: A huge, blustering, and boisterous Wind descended with such vehemence and irresistible force, that it proved inimical to ancient Trees and antique Edifices; was dangerous, if not destructive, to Way-faring Men, and out-laying Cattle; 'twas thick, and black, and with such violence reflected upon the Ter●●●●ous Globe, that thereby it wheeled, and contorted itself into such windings, that it hoist up, and as it were absorbed, the more subtle, light, pulverised and dry particles of the Terrestrial bodies, which had been divided and separated by the preceding Ardour of the Sun's scorching beams; these opacous particles were so gross and many, and so variously tossed in our Atmosphere, they denied Us our Meridian Lustre of the Sun; for these beams the upper Clouds transmitted, They terminated: So that without a contradiction, we might have asserted a Solar Eclipse, at two Signs Elongation of the Luminaries. Whereas other Subitaneous and Erratic Winds (as they call them) are usually distinguished into three Species, 
Arist Meteor.  The Typhon, Prester and Ecnephias; This Thyella or Storm is reducible to none, but includes them all; The first blast was like the Ecnephiae, which are the effect of distracted and shattered Airy Clouds; Typhon proceeds from the Fumigation of the clashing Vapours; and Prester is a Whirlwind intermixed with Fire, which were all visible in the time of this Storm's continuance. And the concomitant Thunder was no less astonishing, than the described Wind: for besides the frightful Claps at every Eruption, the Lightning was deadly, ruinous, and powerful▪ the Fulgur quick and Crispisulcant, and appeared several times to compose and distort its self to the Form and similitude of an Ox's Horn▪ otherwhiles to the likeness of the Pyramidical flame of a burning Torch, or indeed not much unlike the Spiritual Cloven Tongues: This Coruscation comprehended those three Kind's of ominous and pernicious Sceptoe's: viz. 
Arist. Met.  The Psoloes, fuliginous; killing and destroying the tender Herbs: Argos, rapid; blasting and smutting the hopeful Fruits: and Elicias, morbiferous; and lineally composed according to the forementioned Figures. Lastly, the Rain was thick, strong, and ponderous; its fall caused the tender Scions as it were reverence it, and bow to its presence; several of the Drops were extended to the full Breadth of a Six-penny-piece, which also followed one another so closely that They seemed one continued Spout or Stream; so that in less than half a quarter of an hour, these pouring Cataracts raised the water in a round and uniform Vessel of about 4 foot Diameter, near two Foot higher than before, without the assistance of any other interfluent Rivulet, or commixing water. Hesiod in his Theogonia deciphers a fictitious Tempest ad amussim, with all the expressive Terms that Horror and Amazement can invent: But Truth delights in a plain Dress; such in Reality was This, as I have here described it; whose more immediate and direful effects, are sadly evident in several Instances, as in the Subversion of Bridges, the Discussion of Walls, and Demolition of Houses; the Despoliation of some Trees of their Boughs, and others of their Fruits, the Eradication of newly sown Seeds, the Exsiccation of those more deeply rooted, and a general either Deprivation or depravation of the Radical and vivificating moisture of all Trees, Herbs, Fruits and Plants: what the Wind left, the Rain beat down; and what That spared, the Lightning struck: these are Tokens too evident.  
Again, 'twas easy by a sleight Animadversion to understand the Malitiousness of this Tempest, even from sensitive perceptions: You might have smelled the Vapours in their Descent, abounding (and therefore infecting subjacent Bodies) with Stench and Corruption: You might have beheld an unusual Proreption of Animalcles out of the Bowels of the Earth, hunting and searching about for Food, as sensible of some convenient Aliment, which they commonly extract out of corrupted matter: You might have tasted a vicious juice or moisture adhering to the leaves of Vegetables, afterwards incorporated therein, and remaining a sure Ground for the Generation and Nourishment of Infects, Caterpillars etc. When the Vivific Energy of the Sun shall more powerfully work upon Them.  
Now because such Events, with the vulgar, are usually sealed immediato Dei vel Daemonis Digito, with the immediate Finger of God or the Devil, I shall essay to demonstrate this Phaenomenon to be the mere Result of Secundary Causes, and to salve it from the common Observation of such like Contingencies, and the plain Operation of Physical Causes.  
For consider: I suppose the Integral parts of all Sublunary Bodies, as the mixed Bodies of Earth, Water &c, to be minute, slender, sleight, and slippery, and accordingly as these parts are mingled and intertexed one with another. The Body is constituted Fluid or Solid &c: But I conceive, the Fluid Bodies are composed of Oblong, Solid Bodies of variously figurated, Particles; Now these Parts or Particles being Themselves compounded (according to the Corpuscularian Philosophers) of Self-moving Atoms, are either continual Movents or feasible Movables: However, 'tis certain that by the diversely qualified Irradiations of aspected Planets, and chiefly of the two Luminaries, these Minute Particles are actuated or put in Motion; by which Motion or Agitation They are caused to ascend Upwards, without any inclination of their own; Because They find no other place, 
Cartesius Meteor.  To or By which they may more easily continuate their Motion, for their Natural Downwards is obstructed by the Earth; Just as the Dust being trampled upon, and put in Agitation by the prancing Feet of Coursers, assays Upwards, although it have much more of an Internal Principle to retard such Motion. Those which are called Vapours are the parts of Fluid and more light Bodies, wherefore their Ascent is easily soluble; But the Exhalations, which are parts of Solid and more gross Bodies, I suppose to be wheedled Upwards, being complicated in the Embraces of Ascendant Vapours. These Vapours then, being, as I said, agitated by the Influence of Celestial Bodies, are yet more forcibly struck and moved by the Intense Sun beams, as is manifest by Their then more frequent and apparent Ascent: And although they be Oblong, yet in Their Ascension seem Globular, because of their ready and quick circumgiration, whereby They impel one another; till at length this Motion begin by little and little to languish and decay, when once, above the Atmosphere, they lose the Sun's reflex beams; and so at last, by the cold of the middle Region, cohere and stipate more close together; yet not altogether destitute of Motion, but retaining a Self-inflecting Activity, effectual to the conglomerating and reducing Them unto mutual Amplexes; whereby, together with contrary Winds assistant to the Unition and Conjunction of their Vagabond parts, They concresce into Clouds. Whence 'tis evident, there are these causes prerequired to the Generation of Clouds, viz. The Superlunary Influence to exhale Vapours; gentle Winds to conjoin Them; and sufficient Frigidity to congeal Them: which must all be duly contempered; and which never so jointly and proportionally concur, as in the Spring, and hence proceeds the frequent Alteration of Wether in that Season.  
But because I said, that Exhalations were carried aloft by their Adhesion to Vapours; 'tis to be noted how they are separed in the Superior Regions; for We observe that some Clouds are wholly Airy, others Watery, others Fiery, etc. which manifestly denotes That Exhalations and Vapours are sometimes separated: Which will appear if we consider their Gravity or Levity; for 'tis plain that oft times the Gravity of Exhalations may stop their Course, and stay them behind, while the Light Vapours ascend higher; or sometimes They may be left alone, while That impells Downwards the more Volatile Vapours from them, which is not effectual to the moving of Them; or lastly They may be distinguished by the constant Agitation of the Winds, like Butter from Milk.  
Now therefore these Airy, Fiery, and Watery Clouds have large Superficies' considering their Matter, as Sense can testify; and therefore are suffulted by the Air's Resistance, lest they should descend, even against their own Inclinations: but by the supervening Heat, and perhaps other Qualities of Celestial bodies, some (or all) of their Particles are Liquefacted, or otherwise prepared, and thereby unite the rest together more closely and compactly, and consequently become more Heavy (for ponderosity proceeds from the smallness or Paucity of Pores) till at length their own weight press and force them downwards; being adjuted sometime by an Impulse of the superior, sometime by a Recess of the inferior Air; through which they are strained, and as it were sifted, so that accordingly as That is more lax or pressed, the Rain or Wind are greater or less; or as They connect with Analogus Vapours or Exhalations occurring in their Descent.  
Thus you have seen in brief, the Manner of the Ascending and Cohereing of Vapours, the Impending and Descending of Clouds. All this happened to this Storm by a signal and sudden Concurrence; 'twas Signal, because Boisterous; Sudden, because Vnobserved.  
The preceding Serenity, Clearness and Emptiness of our Air, was the Reason, why the brisk, quick, and stated Southern Winds disburdened themselves here so fast of their Clouds (collected, exhaled and concreted in Foreign Countries) because of that Resistance was in the stuffed Air (circumscribing this pure Air of ours) less capable of admitting such grossly-coherent Clouds, being cloyed with such like before: or perhaps several opposite Winds blowing at the same time from opposite Plagues (as has not been seldom observed) might terminate in Ours, and so Impel hither, dislodge themselves, and pile up, in our Vertex, several Clouds of different Contextures and Composures: and hence the Storm was made up of the Extremes of Wind, Thunder, and Rain.  
Amongst these Clouds being thus compinged and penned up (on the South and West, by their proper Winds, on the East and North by the Closeness of the Air) the Celestial Powers bred intestine broils, and tumultuous Strive, whereupon Each meditated their Exit downwards, through the Lower Regions of the Air, being less Stipated, and more yielding, than the other Circumambient: And This with the more Impetuosity, because of the more agitated (not rarified*) Particles, 
As the Peripatetics. assert.  conspiring all to a Motion Deorsum, both by Natural Tendency, and Influential Impression; and with Difficulty overcoming obvious Remora's.  
So, the Whirlwind was caused when an Aerial and Superior Cloud was dilated, (that is when his little, long Particles put on a brisk and circular Motion, which required more Room than when they were almost quiet and still) by Superlunary Agents, and forcing his way through some narrow chink of an Inferior Cloud, where it found least resistance, descended as it were perpendicularly and from the Zenith; The manner whereof may be rarely exhibited in an Eolipile.  
The Thunder was generated by a Tabulated and Compiled Order of Oblong Clouds, the Superiors of Which, being forcibly condensed by Celestial Beams, and by that Condensation gravitated, and by that Gravity violently detruded upon those subjected Clouds, caused a mighty Sound by their Impinging and Atrition thereupon, which rebounded in the Atmosphere; And because the Exhalations were partly inflammable (such are the Spirits of Metals, the Effluvia's of Sulphur, Arsenic, Nitre, Ammoniack, Bitumen, Mercury, Camphire, Vitriol, Antimony and such like, abounding in the Bowels of the Earth and emissed by Subterraneous Fires) therefore, I say, by this Elision and Attrition of the Clouds, Fire or Flame was accended; which Flame has usually those Effects, which are consequent to the Natures of the Exhalations or Vapours, whereof the Cloud is composed. The forementioned Variety of the Shapes of this Flame or Coruscation, I conjecture, to have born some Analogy, with their respective parts of the Superior striking, and clashing Cloud.  
The Rain was generated by the hasty Resolution of an Inferior Cloud, whose ponderous Ingredients promoted its Descent; The largeness of the Drops proceeded partly from the other Vapours which coupled with them in their Road to the Earth; but chiefly from the compactness of the Cloud, which may be said rather to have been broken in pieces, then resolved into parts: or perhaps, what is very probable, one watery Cloud fell upon another; so that in joint Forces both mutually conspired to a Descent, and the drops of th' one, mixed with those of th' other.  
Lastly, the ready Cessation of this Storm was caused by the few, but forcible, strokes of the Superior upon the Inferior Clouds, which presently either totally dejected, or dissipated Them.  
Here suffer me to take a short digression, and make a parallel. We had a great, mighty, rushing Wind a few days before, the Apostles on the very day of, the Pentecost; That was Defluxus Caeli, This Exhalatio Terrae; That really came down from Heaven, This apparently; That filled only one place, This especially one; That happened where the Apostles and Disciples were gathered together, This where God's Ministers, Christ's Disciples are chiefly resident; That when men of different Nations were dwelling at Jerusalem, 
Foreign Ambassadors.  This when men of different Countries were commorating in England: That brought Cloven Tongues, This their Similitude; Those represented (with the Prophet) the Tongues, the best Member we have, 
Psal. 108. 1.  These (with the Apostle) the worst Member we have; 
James 3. 6.  That filled the Disciples Hearts with the Holy Ghost, This the People's Hearts with Holy Thoughts; That caused Amazement, This Terror; That was a certain Seal of his first coming in the Flesh, This may be a probable Sign of his second coming in Glory; That was a Token of the plentiful Harvest of the Gospel of Christ, This of the scarce Crop of the Fruits of the Ground: The Sum of all is; That as the Spiritual Tempest was God's Ordinance and Method to prepare men for the Reception of the Holy Ghost, So this Natural one to awaken them to the Work of Repentance.  
Thus I have endeavoured to trace out, and solve the unexpectedness of this Tempest; In all which I do not recur to that self-moving and subtle matter, which the Cartesians so much dote upon; but allow the Celestial Influences to be the Principle Efficient, and Primary Movent in all such Accidents. For the Position of the Heavens did evidently manifest this Tempestuous Wether; and 'twas only the promising Sudum, made it unaccountable to the Vulgar, and the precedent Serenity of the upper Regions in our Zenith; which was permitted until the more effectual and continued darting of the Stellar beams upon the suddainly-coagulated Mass of Vapours; which after due, prepared, and sufficient operations, dissolved, dishevelled and hurried Them downwards; And the more forcibly, because the more perpendicular Rays of the Planets produced this so repentine Effect.  
We find Mars, Sol and Mercury were pofited in Gemini, where they had all some Essential Dignity just without the Cusp of the tenth house in the South South West Plague of Heaven, whence all this Storm arose; and we had all the rest of the Planets in or about medium Caeli in such an Hubbub and confused manner, as it was impossible but some notable Effect should quickly follow; Observe the Congruity of this Position with the Storm, which seems to have been governed by the Influences of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Houses: The beginning of the Tempest was Wind, wherefore in the Ninth House we had the two Planets hot and dry by Nature, together with Ambiguous Mercury, in an Airy Sign: The middle was part Thunder, but most Rain, wherefore in the precise Tenth House we had a moist Planet in a Watery Sign; The end was most Thunder and part Rain, so in, and upon the Cusp, of the Eleventh House were the Planets (some of an hot and dry, others of a moist Nature) in a Fiery Sign; So that in all things the Storm was consonant to the Triplicities then possessed by the Planets.  
But as the Storm was rare, so its Effects, or rather Events, will be no less admirable: The Summer, I judge, will be pestered with many Showers, and abundance of disturbing Southerly Winds; Expect Diseases more rife; an universal Scarcity of wholesome, but Plenty of Noxious Fruits. Autumn will abound with Rain unusual, and Sickness Epidemical; a Sultry, Dark, Cloudy and Unwholesome Season; and such unconstant Wether, that the Husbandman will find it difficult to make the profit recompense his Labour this year: And to gather empty Husks will be as great a Loss to him, as Grievance to the whole Nation. The Fields will be either scorched by interfering Ardour, or drowned by continual Moisture.  
These are my Sentiments upon this unusual Accident; which seem to be more Ratified, by the preventional Comet, and postventional Conjunction; of the One I have already spoken, of the Other I intent to treat.  
Search the Annals, and you may find what has been the usual Consequents of such like Tempests. Such an one happened in the Sixth of Hen. 3. 
Ralph▪ Holins.  whereupon followed a Dearth, an Earthquake, and a Comet. So in the Fifteenth of Richard 2. March 5. a sudden and terrible Tempest arose, with the violence whereof much hurt was done, after this ensued great Mortality by Pestilence, so that much Youths died every where, in Cities and Towns in passing great Numbers, herewith followed a great Dearth of Corn, so that a Bushel of Wheat in some places was sold at Thirteen-pences, which in those days was an exceeding great price: So in the Sixteenth of the same, were several such Tempests, whereby the Corn was spoiled, a Plague followed in Essex and a Dearth in Cambridge; And in the Fifth of Q. Mary was a signal Tempest of Wind, which Ours equalled in violence not in continuance, and thereupon followed a great Mortality in the next Harvest, by quartans and other Epidemical Rots. But more Instancies would be as unnecessary as tedious.  
This therefore is the Flagellum Dei, to scourge the People's pride by blasting their Felicity: This is the denounced Wrath of God, to bring down their high minds by lopping of the Staff of their Bodies: But oh what Energy, what prevalency might a sincere Ninivitical Humiliation have against the Powers of Heaven! How might it wrest and extort Mercy from God, and avert these impending Catastrophies! which that you may all speedily set upon, is the hearty Desire, and earnest Prayer of  
Your Friend and Servant—