‹‹‹ Vitr. 8.2.1 | Table of Contents | Vitr. 8.2.3 ›››
2The air rushing on, and driving in every direction the vapour before it, creates gales, and blasts, and eddies of wind. Hence the winds, wherever they travel, extract from springs, rivers, marshes, and from the sea, when heated by the sun, condensed vapours, which rise and form clouds. These, borne up by the winds when they come against the sides of mountains, from the shock they sustain, as well as from storms, swell, and, becoming heavy, break and disperse themselves on the earth.
2This air, driving the vapour everywhere as it rushes along, produces gales and constantly increasing currents by its mighty blasts. Wherever the winds carry the vapour which rolls in masses from springs, rivers, marshes, and the sea, it is brought together by the heat of the sun, drawn off, and carried upward in the form of clouds; then these clouds are supported by the current of air until they come to mountains, where they are broken up from the shock of the collision and the gales, turn into water on account of their own fulness and weight, and in that form are dispersed upon the earth.