Mercury without a great deal of circumspection I therefore heartily advise our new-coyn'd Physitians since they must be dabbling not too much to Idolize Monsieur Mercury nor fond too much of their late skill in Salivation those that know it full out as well as they must tell them by way of friendly advice that it ought to be given to none but such as are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And now good Reader I have even wearied thee out and therefore will hasten to my matter and conclude this Preface with Hippocrates Qui vocat medicinam omnium artium nobilissimam sed propter ignorantiam eorum qui eam male exercent esse omnium vilissimam fundamentum enim quo pedem figunt non habent de quibus etiam Seneca semper distant nunquam ad veritatem perveniunt and the reason is because they have no guide for direction they are so enthusiastically wise they scorn a Master to instruct them methodically in the true fundamentals of Physick but shooting at random with all their industry nothing is produced but rudis indigestaque moles And the same Author going on tells us Ignorantia est quae omne malum in medicina generat adeo ut medicus nunc passim ludibrio expositus comicis in facetias mundo in proverbium ivit And beside the ignorance of some the malicious detractiâ—ns of others even among our selves â—ender us contemptible which very â—hing occasions a good Galeno-Chymiâ—al Author to break out into exclamaâ—ion thus Ubi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quam tanâ—opere commendat Hyp. nostro seculo unus vilipendit alterum dicta facta taxat rixatur à tergo conâ—radicit quae non intelligit seipsum apud ignaram plebem extollit sordida spe lucelli Pardon this Paâ—ergy I shall expatiate no more upon â—o sordid a subject what I am now to say shall be Observations from Experiments and therefore ought to force a faith as to matter of Fact if the manner be but any way well it is well so farewell Thine E. W. SPADACRENE Dunelmensis CHAP. I. Of simple Water its qualities and use THat there is naturally pure simple water to be found without any heterogenial admixture at all is paradoxical therefore by simple water I only mean such as hath a proper colour taste smell weight and consistence thin light cold and moist and no other thing discernable either by senses or effects And 't is requisite that water should have these qualities in regard of the many and necessary uses of it both for Men Beasts Vegetables and Minerals in so much as there is no living for any Creature where there is no water 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begins Pindar's Olymp. Od. 1. It was our first drink to quench thirst and by its tenuity distributes our nourishment as a Vehicle nay after the invention of Wine it was usually mixed therewith as Virgil saith of Bacchus Poculaque inventis Acbeloia miscuit uvis I could heartily wish that even Bacchus himself might herein become our President especially since in other things he hath taught our too docil world as v. g. by the same purity and tenuity of the parts of water how to make Beverages of sundry sorts The Aegyptians have their Zythum the Spaniards their Cerea the Turks their Coffee and we our Ale and Beer all extracted by water the fittest Menstruum for receiving the Faculties of all Medicaments and nourishment especially the second qualities of mixt Bodies and for this reason was it called Panspermia That simple water is cold is without question for being heated accidentally it soon returns to its natural coldness the cause of heat being removed but whether it be colder than Air is much to be doubted I shall not now undertake the determining whether Air be bred of water originally or whether it be not a distinct substance of it self and receives only watery vapours and after mature condensation in the middle Region exonerates it self by Rain Hail Snow c. Only thus much I dare affirm that the Sun beams are of much more force to elevate substances from the Earth than most imagin and consequently those that hold the materiality of the Air to be from water are not in opinion altogether paradoxical but verisimilitudinary And to prove this vigorous extraction of the Sun from sublunary Bodies give me leave to give you an instance of what Athanasius Kircherus whose company much honour'd me from Marseilles to Rome most faithfully relates in Magicae Parastaticae Parastisi I Naturae thus Morgana Rheginorum In the midst of Summer when the Sun boils the Tyrrhene Ocean with most fervent rays then is it that wanton Nature entertains the wondering Eyes of the Inhabitants of Rhegium a Town in Calabria most ancient and no less famous for having been the Seat of many Philosophers with a prodigious Spectacle in the Air. There may you whether with more delight or wonder is not soon determined behold a spatious Theatre in the vaporous Air adorned with great variety of Scenes and Catoptrick Representations the Images of Castles Palaces and other Buildings of excellent Architecture with sundry ranges of Pillars presented according to the Rules of Perspective This Scene withdrawn upon the Sayling by of the Cloud there succeeds another wherein by way of excellent Landskip were exhibited spatious Woods Groves of Cypress Orchards with variety of Trees but those artificially planted in uniform rows like a perfect Phalanx large Meadows with companies of Men and herds oâ— Beasts walking feeding and couching upon them And all these with so great variety of respondent colours so admirable a commixture of light and darkness and all their motions and gestureâ— so counterfeited to the life thaâ— to draw a Landskip of equal perfection seems to humane Naturâ— altogether impossible Now to our purpose This parastatical Phantasm was not causeâ— in the Cloud from any reflected appearance of any such things eitheâ— on the shore or adjacent fields because no such thing was there which indeed increased the ardouâ— of curiosity in renowned Kircher tâ— cross over from Messina to Rhegiuâ— at the usual time of the apparition where he detected the Causes of the whole Phaenomenon observing first the Shores subjacent to the Mountain called Tinna as also the bottom of the Sea to be covered with shining Sand being the fragments of Selenites Antimony and other pellucid concretions devolved from the eminent parts of the Land and contiguous Hills that are richly fraught with Veins of those Minerals Then he observed that these translucid Sands being together with Vapours from the Sea and Shore exhaled into the Air by the intense fervour of the Sun did coaless into a Cloud in all points respondent to a perfect polyedrical or multangular Looking-glass the various superficies of the respondent Granates making a multiplication of the Species and that these being opacated behind by gross and impervious Vapours directly facing the Mountains did make reflection of the various Images of Objects respective to their
various positions to the eye The several rows of Pillars in the Aerial Scene are caused by one single Pillar erected on the Shore for being by a manifold reflection from the various superficies of the tralucent particles opacated on the hinder part by dense vapours in the speculary Meteor it is multiplied even to infinity no otherwise than if one single Image posited betwixt two polyedrical Looking-glasses confrontingly disposed is so often repercussed or reflected from superficie to superficie that it exhibiteth to the eye almost an infinite multitude of Images exactly consimilar Thus also doth one Man standing on the Shore become a whole Army in the Cloud one Beast a whole Herd and one Tree à thick set Grove Some perhaps may judge this assertion of the elevation of those shining Grains of Vitreous Minerals into the Air by the meer attraction of the Sun and the coalition of them there with the Cloud of Vapours to be too large a morsel to be swallowed by any throat but that cormorant one of credulity If so all we require of them is only to consider that Hairs Straws grains of Sand fragments of Wool and such like festucous Bodies are frequently found immured in Hailstones which surely are sufficient arguments that those things were first elevated by the Beams of the Sun recoiling from the Earth into the middle Region of the Air and then coagulated with the Vapours condensed into a Cloud and frozen in its descent The truth hereof is evicted by the conspiring testimonies of many other Authors whose Pens are not dipt in the fading Ink of an unjustifiable Tradition nor their Minds deluded with the affectation of fabulous wonders Now to reassume the debate I shall only give my judgment of the temperature of the Air as to heat or cold and that it is of its own nature cold is most manifest though Aristotle concluded the contrary from its efficient cause which rarified it The Stoicks were also of this opinion because they made the matter of Air to be water and this is also confirmed by its return to coldness as formerly was said of water in case it be accidentally heated and we know that under the Zona torrida so long as the Sun is within their Horizon and strikes the Air with its perpendicular Beams 't is exceeding hot but after Sun-set the Air reassumes its natural coldness 'till Sun-rise again nay though Aristotle thought it uninhabitable because of the extremity of heat yet being the days and nights are there of the same length Josephus Acosta concludes that the only Paradise upon Earth is under or near the Aequinoctial neither can there any other reason be given why the Mountains which reach the middle Region of the Air are continually cold and mostly covered with Snow but because they wanting the reflection of the Sun-beams the Air doth then enjoy its natural qualification As for that whimsey of an Antiperistasis in the middle Region from the Element of Fire above and the reflection of the Beams beneath it 's an equal phantasm with the Man in the Moon who would have hot sitting if Elementary Fire were immediately under him But this opinion is exploded and if such Fire were it would rather heat than cool the Air. Is not the Air most cold near the Poles where the long absence of the Sun and its oblique Beams when present give way to its natural coldness Nay 't is very probable that it is colder than water since we see by a condensative faculty it congeals water into Ice Snow Hail c. which certainly is from the Air being that under-ground where the water is not freely ventilated with Air there 's no congelation neither do I think other but the great coldness that 's in Ice and Snow depends meerly upon the mixture of Air which being per minima interwoven with Salnitrous particles is heightened to such a degree of coldness as makes it vigorous for producing a congelative effect That water is most moist is the opinion of Galen and very probably true notwithstanding Aristotle's reason to the contrary concluding Air to be most moist because it 's hardly contained within its bounds which indeed is by reason of its tenuity and incontiguity of parts being that dry exhalations extend themselves as well as moist vapours and as density compacts so rarity causeth extension I shall need say no more of the qualities which simple water ought to have being such as are every where obvious in Authors and the senses will discover either by taste colour smell or touch or else the effects will make manifest CHAP. II. Of the Original of simple Waters and Springs in general GReat controversies have been betwixt the Stoicks and Peripateticks and are yet amongst the Moderns concerning the original of true Springs which are no other than those of mixt waters All difficulties and arguments touching this grand Debate are reducible into three heads for either our perpetual and lasting Springs called Fontes perennes proceed from vapours congealed by cold in the second Region of the Air and so fall down upon the Earth in Rain Snow or Hail or they are ingendred in the bowels of the Earth or they are percolated through sandy subterraneal channels from the Sea For the first it may be granted that divers Springs and Rivers receive supply of waters from the Rain as we see our Rivers do the Rhine and Danubius swell upon the dissolution of Snow and in much drought our Springs fail us but those are such as materially depend upon the fall of Rain or Snow and these surceasing the Springs also become dry they being principally ordained by Nature for fertilizing and irrigating the Earth in its production of Herbage Fruit c. for the benefit of Mankind but such are only Land-springs and in no sort to be called perpetual Springs which notwithstanding the want of Rain or Snow for a long time are still the same and though great Rivers may almost be dried up by a long and lasting discontinuance of wet by the driness of the superficies of the Earth imbibing it in its passage for the satisfaction of its drought being elementum siccissimum yet the heads of those Rivers flow plentifully at the same time so that another causality must be found out than Aerial supplies and supposing there were which some wittily contend for certain commissures chinks and hollow veins in the Earth to receive much Rain that falls yet what sinks into those clefts and caverns bears no proportion at all with that plenty which hurries headlong into Rivers and thence conveyed into the Sea and consequently very improbably proposed to be in a manner the adaequate causation of lasting Springs there being also subterrraneal generations which for their production require also a continued supply of water The second opinion seems much less plausible than this for if the cause be ingendred in the bowels of the Earth then it either proceeds from Earth it self changed into water as Seneca
them to descend perpendicularly rather than in an oblique line Others may say that if the flux of the Sea or weight of accumulated waters should cause Springs then would our Springs cease running when the Tide or flux of waters is out from our parts and so the like of other parts of the world to which I reply that the Sea ebbs and flows every twelve hours over the face of the world where ever any such reciprocation is and therefore little or no time is left for such a surcease of weight as to alter the current of Springs and not only those that have the same Meridian as London and Dunbar though some Degrees different in Latitude have every twelve hours full Sea at the same time but also such as have a different Meridian and not the same in Longitude have notwithstanding the same returns as to space of time though not at the same time If any Seas be without these Tides as the Baltick Sea is said to be its being so near the Northern Pole and some part thereof within the Artick Circle where the Air is thick and gross may supply the want of Tides as to Springs Which that I may make good and thereby answer all other imaginable doubts and objections against this assertion I shall take occasion of producing a second reason perswading to this original viz. the mighty Tempests and turbinious Winds the descent of Vapours and chiefly the incumbency of the Air it self by all which the water is both pressed and expressed and for further manifestation hereof give me leave to illustrate as a most convincing argument the great weight of Air upon this terraqueous Globe which is apparently made out by Torricellius his Experiment in a Vessel of Quicksilver instanced by that truely Noble and Illustrious Gentleman Mr. Boyle thus Having prepared a Glass Tube and stopped up one of its extremities with a Seal hermetical fill it with Quicksilver and stop the other extream with your middle finger then having inverted the Tube immerge the extream stopt by your finger into a Vessel filled with Quicksilver not withdrawing your finger until the end of the Tube be at least three or four Inches deep in the subjacent Quicksilver for so you prevent all insinuation of Air. This done and the Tube fixed in a perpendicular position upon the subduction of your finger from the lower orifice you may observe almost half the Quicksilver contained in the Tube to descend speedily into the restagnant or subjacent Quicksilver leaving almost half of the superiour part of the Tube according to all appearance at least void and empty Now place this Vessel thus fitted upon the top of an high Hill for example where the Air is less weighty and incumbent than at the bottom of the Hill and you shall perceive the Quicksilver in the Tube to descend and that in the Vessel made higher whereas if you remove the Vessel to the bottom of the Hill where the Air is grosser and more incumbent that Quicksilver in the Tube will ascend and the other in the Vessel descend so that the variety of places where the Air is various makes a variety of motion higher or lower in the Quicksilver which cannot be from any other cause than the different gravity of Air in different places for the Air of its own nature is heavy and can be said to be light only comparitively or as it is less ponderous than Water or Earth nor can there be given any more manifest reasons for the Airs tendency upward from the convexity of the Earth than this that being in some degree ponderous in all its particles these descend from the upper Region of the Atmosphere and bear upon and mutually compel each other until they beat upon the surface of the Earth and are by reason of the solidity thereof repercussed up again to some distance so that the motion of the Air upward is properly a resilition not natural but violent Now whether this gravity be congenial and inherent in the Air or whether it be caused by a conformity to the magnetick attraction of the Earth matters not at all as to our present purpose being we have a depression amongst the particles of the Air in their tendency from the Atmosphere down to the surface of our Globe and the diameter of the Sphere of Air being much larger than that of the terraqueous Globe we have thereupon from the convex to the concave thereof a compressing weight upon the surface of waters equivalent to that upon the restagnant Liquor in the foresaid Vessel I shall further urge some Arguments de facto and tell you that Pliny writes of a Spring which punctually observes the Seas motion in its ebbing and flowing Antonius Vasconzello a Father of the Society in his Description of Portugal mentions a strange and remarkable Lake on the top of the Mountain Erminius whose nature is saith he ut aestuante oceano ipse pariter aestuans sit lacus that is punctually to observe the Seas reciprocation even as to its raging more or less with fourges luculentum sanè saith Kircher occulti cum oceano per hydragogos canales corresponsus signum an evident sign of the subterraneal correspondence this Lake hath with the Ocean through hydragogical conveyances and caverns And learned Kircher also assures us hereof when he saith Aliqui fontes fluxum refluxum maris aemulantur and in particular relates a lepid story of a Fountain or rather a River in Westphalia in a sabulous Plain breaking out with the Tides twice every natural day with such a violent force and noise whence 't is called Bollerbrum that it overflows all the circumference of that Valley and decreasing after the same manner as it increased at last hides it self totally in its head Bishop Theodorus saith he in media hujus superficie mensam opiparè lautéque construxit c. made a most magnificent Banquet in the middle of this Valley and thither invited and brought with him divers Ladies when on the sudden the River bursting forth whilst they caressed Nature and made merry did so wet them even more than mid-way up that they were forced to wade out when as those that were conscious to the design withdrew themselves by time and sufficiently derided the poor Females infortunity Interdum seria ludis è contra And thus much as far as we poor haggard Mortals can reach by the Light of Nature being Moles rather than Men ever since our first Fall whose weak and narrow Opticks lead us only to the inspection of the exteriour and obvious parts of Nature not perspicacious enough to penetrate her interiour and abstruse excellencies nor can we speculate faith Doctor Charleton her glorious beauty in the direct and incident Line of Essences and formal Causes but in that reflected and refracted one of Effects nor that neither without so much of obscurity as leaves an incertitude in our apprehensions and restrains our ambition of an Apodictical Science