to tell what we have seen or what we have heard or to understand a related story exactly according to the Relatours sence So much difference there is between seeing and speaking and between hearing and apprehending And therefore in those Rarities which I have not seen my self I have followed my Authors close at the heels word for word it may be and I have cause to fear it with so much rigidness nicety with some triviall things here and there in some places as will sound harsh andungrateful to the Readers ear yet not with more rigidness then for the reason above given is necessary For such articles as we are to examine nature upon had need to be so punctually true that they cannot be too true If there be but the least matter of doubt or uncertainly in them she will easily evade them and fool us And I am perswaded that divers of those relations I have given you from the Authors I speak of though they sincerely intended them for truth and I have as sincerely translated and transeribed them yet they are not truth to us by reason of our misunderstanding them And that if the places and things themselves were visited they would tell us as much and appear different from what they are said to be And peradventure by examining the particulars of them we should find some one that would discover or give a light into the cause of them whereas some relations not being particular enough leave us much unsatisfied and make us think the causes of them much more strange and darke then they are This I speak to provoke young Gentlemen to look and search into these pleasant Speculations morethen heretoforethey have done andto visit each his neighbour cuosities and to bestow upon the Manes of this Lord VERULAM that circumstantiall History of them that is requisite for his great work The interpretation of Nature That I have one or two reflections on Astrology I hope the Reader wil pardon me I may say with the learned Clarencieux that I have not been altogether unacquainted with those vanities I cannot but profess that I have an affection for the study why I should not have so I know not The onely argument that I know against the lawfulness of Astrology is that it is not true Were it rectified it might easily be justified Now that is partly my aim in those reflections I mention to lay a foundation for the rectifying it in the Doctrine of Ascendents and for redeeming it from that obloquy which it hath for so many ages of the world been obnoxious to That there is such a Science as Astrology there is no question to be made The stars have an influence on us and some small matter touching this influence Astrology knows yet no more and of no more use then to assure her that she doth know something of it But her vanity is she promiseth much more then she is able to perform and is led much more by fancy plausibilities then found reason I could wish that to Multae praedicuntur quae non eveniunt multa eveniunt quae non praedicuntur she had some other answer then Pudet haec opprobria nobis c. And to let her know I wish it heartily I shal make it part of my endeavour to furnish her with an answer There is much to be found out if men did but well attend to observation and doubt even the very Principles of Astrology til they had examined the truth of them For the most important maximes in the Art are many of them shrewdly to bee suspected though there may be peradventure an instance or two alleadged to their advantage wherein they have hit passing well because in Astrology above most if not all other pieces of learning it is very easie to mistake a Non-cause for a true cause and a Me ambulante coruscavit for a Sol oritur ergo dies est The way to go forward in this excellent Art is to look back and compare the accidents of men and States with the influences of heaven and this wil not only try the truth of the old Principles but adde new ones such it is very likely as the sons of Art do not yet dream of Which I have very great reason to say and yet what that great reason is I desire at present to be excused from saying because it cannot bee said without Ostentation I shall conclude my complements to the Reader with two requests one that he will not make any hast to pass the sentence of condemnation against me for setting down severall idle empty and useless things as he may possibly imagine them to be till he hath read the sixth Aphorisme of the Lord Bacons Paâ—asceue The other that if his native County afford any other Rarity then what is related in this Book he will be pleased to communicate it for the sake of Learning For its possible I have not made the Meshes of my net so narrow but that some of the small try of curiosities have escaped me And in particular if he be of Dorsetshire that he would bestow upon us a punctuall account of that raining of blood at Pool with all its circumstances And so I remit him to the Book it self wishing him that satisfaction from it which he expects and bidding him heartily FAREWELL An occasionall Advertisement to the READER THe READER is desired to take notice that while this Book was in the Press on Thursday being All Saints day November the first 1660. between ten of the Clock that night and five of the Clock the next morning happened an unusuall shifting of the Tides in the Thames at London ebbing and flowing three times as it is reported in that space Which how it agrees with the time of my conjecture not to say prediction pag. 97. of this Book I shall leave him to judge Further it happened upon a Northwesterly-wind sometimes blowing pretty fresh and sometimes remitting in a manner to a Calme as my Diary of observations of the weather hath it for that day and night and the Tides were at the Neapest both which are according to my Hypothesis Indeed the Moon was not in Apogaeo but almost in the very place of her Perigaeum Which makes me begin to think the Apogaeosis is not altogether so necessary to concur in the business but that the Neapness of the Tides and the wind are able to do it of themselves assisted I mean with a private cause so the alternate intensions and remissions of the wind bee but proportionably greater to supply the wantof the Apogaeosis I know many will hardly believe that that sentence of my conjecture at the time of this supposed Prodigy came fairly into the Book but that it was foisted in out of a design of the Authours to make himself talked of because it is the first prediction that was ever ventured at in this nature But I can aflure them he is not so light a regarder of his reputation as to
The middle of the shire lieth open the earth being of a blackish colour and bears heath and spiry grass There is but little Meadow-ground but store of pasture for cattel and sheep and plenty of Corn-ground They have a stone here called Moore-stone found upon Moores and wast grounds which serves them instead of Free-stone for Windows Doors and Chimneys It is white with certain glimmering sparkles They have a stone digged out of the sea-cliffs of the colour of grey Marble and another stone black as Jett and out of the Inland Quarries they dig Free-stone Nor must we forget to tell you speaking here of stones that the sea here works the pebbles upon the shore by the often rolling of the waves to a kind of roundness They have a slate of three sorts blew sageleaf-coloured and gray which last is the worst and all these slates are commonly found under another kind of slate that they wall with when the depth hath brought the Workmen to the Water They also make Lime of a kind of Marble stone either by burning a great quantity together with Furze or with stone-coal in smaller Kills which is the cheaper way but the first Lime is the whiter For Metals they find Copper in sundry places here and the Ore is sometimes ship'd to be refined in Wales And though Cicero will have none in Britain yet silver hath been found in this shire in the time of Edward the first and Edward the third who reaped good profit by it Nay Tinners do find little quantities of Gold and sometimesSilver among the Tin Ore which they sell to the Gold-smiths Also Diamonds are found in many places cleaving to those Rocks out of which the Tin is digged they are smooth squared and pointed by nature Their quantity is from a Pease to a Wall-nut but they are not so black and hard as the right ones But the Metal which the Earth yields in greatest plenty is Tin in searching after which the Tinners do many times dig up whole and huge Timber-Trees which they think were overthrown and have lien buried in the earth ever since the flood And they hold that the Tin lay couched at the first before Noahs flood in certain strakes among the Rocks like a Tree from the depth whereof the main Load spreadeth out his branches till they approach the open air but the Flood say they carried with the Rocks and Earth so much of the load as was enclosed therein and at the drying up of the flood left the same scattered here and there in Valleys and Rivers where it passed whence it comes to pass that they finde Tin sometimes upon the Moor-Lands In their Tin-Works they find daily among the Rubbish Pick-Axes of Holm Box and Harts-Horn and sometimes they find certain little Tool-Heads of Brass and there was once found a Brass Coyn of the Emperor Dometians in one of the Works an argument that the Romans wrought in these Tin-Works in times past They discover the Tin-Mines by certain Tin-stones which are somewhat round and smooth lying on the ground which they call shoad But if we will believe stories there is another way to discover them very easie and that is by dreams for so it is reported some have found Works of great value As in Edward the sixt his time a Gentlewoman heir to one Tresculierd dreamed that a handsome man told her that in such a Tenement of her Land she should find so much Tin as would enrich her self and her posterity She told her husband of it who upon trial found a Tin-work there which in four years was worth to him almost 4000 pounds It is said also that one Taprel of the parish of S. Niot by a dream of his daughters was wished to such a place which he farmed of the Lord of the soil and found a Tin-Work accordingly which made him a rich man On which stories we may bestow this observation That if they be true they make much for the credit of Womens Dreams For the stories touching the success of Dreams are not to be rejected altogether as Fables till they be examined and ventilated in their peculiar History which is the 51. History in the L. Veculams Catalogue being there called Historia Somni Insomniorum From the bottom of the Tin-Works if they be of any depth you shall see the stars at noon-day in clear Weather And the like may be done from the bottom of deep Wells as they say or any other deep pits Nor is it any wonder the cause being so plain It is reported that Tycho Brahe in his Isle of Huena shewed K. James the stars in the day-time at what time he went into Denmark from out of a Cave cut a good way into the side of a Hill for the purpose If the load as they call it of the tin lye right down the tinners follow it sometimes to the depth of 40. or 50. fathoms and the deeper they sink the greater they find the Load The labour of the tinners is so hard and tedious that they cannot work above four hours in a day And as they dig their load sloapwise under the ground the air at length will not yeild them breathing till they sink a shaft as they call it that is a hole perpendicular down to that place from the top or surface of the Earth And though when they have so done the light be just over their heads yet is the Pit still so dark that they are fain to work most by Candle-light of which the reason is plain enough In their passage under ground they meet sometimes with very loose Earth sometimes with extreme hard Rock where though commonly they make speedyway through with their Pickaxes yet now and then they light upon such an hard piece of Rock that a good Work-man will scarce be able to hew above a foot in a Week sometimes again they meet with great streams of Water and sometimes with stinking damps that distemper their heads for the present but there is no great danger in the consequence The Tin Stone being brought above ground out of the Work is broken in pieces with hammers and then stamped at a Mill into smaller pieces and if the Stone be moist it is dryed by the fire in an iron Cradle and then it is ground to a fine sand Then this sand being laid in water that runs over it hath all the earth washed from it and then it is called black tin which is carried to the blowing house where it is melted by a Charcole Fire blown by a great pair of Bellows moved by a Water-wheel the attenders on which bellows may be known from other men by their faces tanned and discoloured with smoke and then it is coined Further it is to be noted that there is hard Tin and soft Tin but the soft Tin is the more worth of the two A foot of black Tin is in measure two Gallons but the weight of it is uncertain and is according to the goodness
The people about this Country observe that when Hengsten top is capped with a cloud a shower followeth soon after The Country men in Cornwall are great eaters of Garlick for healths sake whence they call it there the Country mans Treacle The cement or morter of the walls of Tintogell Castle resist the fierceness of the weather better then the stones The Town of Bodmin is held a very unhealthfull place and the cause of it they say is for that it hath one street a mile in length running due East and West on the South side whereof it hath a great high hill that hides the Sun from it and their Back-houses as Kitchins Stables c. are climbed up to by steps and every great shower washeth the Sulledge of them through the houses into the streets and which is more their Conduit water runs through the Church yard It will not be a miss to add here out of our Authour an odde presage of the Cornish rebellion in the time of Edward the sixth which happened in this Town of Bodmin About a year before that rebellion the Scholars of Bodmin School grew into two factions the one as they call it for the old religion the other for the new and this quarrell was prosecuted with some eagerness sundry times till by an unhappy accident no other then the killing of a Calfe during the beardless conflict complaint was made to the Master and so the play ended Which presage is seconded with severall others of the like nature out of ancient modern history but to impercinent to our design and too tedious to be here related In Saint Cleeres parish in Cornwall there are upon a plain six or eight Stones such as are upon Salsbury plain which like them two will be mistaken in the telling so that when they are told over a gain they will be found over or under the first number A thing that happens no doubt meerIy by their confused standing There is a story that passes concerning Saint Kaines well in this County which is that whosoever drinks first of the water be it husband or vvife gets the mastery A fit fable for the vulgar to believe At Hall near Foy there is a Fagot vvhich is all one piece of vvood naturally grovvn so and it is wrapped about the middle vvith a bond and parted at ends into four sticks one of which sticks is subdivided into two others It was carefully preserved and painted over that it might keep the better for many years by the Earl of Devon being reckoned a fore-token of his progeny For his Estate saith Mr. C. is now come into the hands of four Cornish Gentlemen one of whose Estates is likewise divided between two Heirs An Earthen Pot was found many years ago near Foy gilded and graved with Letters in a great Stone Chest and full of a black Earth the Ashes 't is like of some ancient Roman In Lanhadron Park there grows an Oake that bears Leaves speckled with white and so doth another called Painters Oak in the Hundred of East It is certain saith our Author that divers ancient Families in England are pre-admonished of their end by Oaks bearing of strange leaves There are two Lakes not far asunder nor far from St. Agnes Hil in this shire whereof the one wil live and Fish thrive in but not in the other By Helford is a great Rock lying upon the ground and the top of it is hollow like the long half of an Egg. This they say holdeth water which ebbeth and floweth with the Sea And indeed saith Mr. C. when I came hither to see this curiosity the Tide was half gone and the Pit or hollowness half empty There is a Rock in this shire called Mainamber which is a very great one and yet so laid upon lesser Rocks that the push of a finger will sensibly move it to and fro but not all the strength which men can make can remove it from the place The Cliffs to the Westward of St. Jes in Cornwall have streaks of a glittering colour like Copper which shew as if there were a likelihood of finding Copper there An exceeding big Carcass of a man was found by Tinners digging at a Village near the Lands end called Trebegean Hitherto I have borrowed all I have written save onely my conjectures at the causes out of Mr. Carew's ingenious Book called The Survey of Cornwall published in the year 1602. What Cambden and others say over and above is as followeth The chief time of the swarming as one would say of Pilchards about the shores of Cornwall is from July to November at which time they are taken garbaged salted and hanged in the smoak laid up and pressed and so carryed away and sold in France and other Countreys In the Rocks at the Lands end at a low Water are found Veins of white Lead and brass At St. Michael's Mount at low ebbs one may see Roots of mighty Trees in the Sands which shews that there hath been overflowing of the sea upon this coast hereabout as it appeareth also to have been about Plymouth Haven and other places adjoyning And it is manifest that the sea hath devoured much Land upon the coast of Cornwall towards Silley Islands For between the Lands end and Silley the sea is all of an equal depth of about 40. or 60. fathom Water being about 30 Miles in length onely in the mid way there lyes a Rock called the Gulf. The cause of the devouring of this Land by the sea I conceive to be its being a Promontory lying open to the merciless stormes and weather and withall lying in a place where two currents meet and part I mean the Tide as it comes in and returns out of the Sleeve or narrow Seas and the Irish Seas and Seavern the rolling and force of the Sea being apt to carry before it all that stands in its vvay according to the proportion that its own strength bears to the yeeldingness of the object But the cause why the Gulf rock was not washed away with the rest is because it was of too stubborn a matter and too fast founded in the Earth Nor can I think but that the Silley Islands were once all parts of the main Land of England and the like I conceive of Heysant in France an Isle lying before the Promontory of Britain but severed by degrees each from other and all from the Continent by the means above-mentioned At Stratton in Cornwall grows the best Garlick in all the Countrey It may be old Mr. Chamond before spoken of owed part of the cause of his great age to his living so near the best Garlick the Countrey man's Treacle On the shore of this shire about 30. or 40. years ago was a huge Mass of Ambergrise found by a poor Fisherman a story very famous and frequent in the mouths of several persons of credit and quality DEVONSHIRE THE west of this Shire being that which borders upon Cornwall is stored with Tin Mines
that you cannot sever them without breaking though they are distinguished with a perfect line I believe they were all knit together in such Columnes at first even those which are found single and that they were severed by frost or some such piercing cause Being told of these Rarities so nigh me I took a journey to see the place and gathered many of the stones and found them such as I have told you Being put into Vinegar they have a motion as other Astroites have though not so lively I suppose because of the shortness and roundishness of their points in the form of which I conceive lyes a great part of the cause of their motion Some of these stones like the stones at Alderly are deficient in their figure and have the defect supplied or rather Super-supplied with a rugged formless matter hard like it self I observed that the ground is a miry deep rotten Clay and extream bad way in Winter and which I wondred most of all at there were here and there great Pebbles as big as a mans fist or thereabout mingled with this rotten earth and by enquiry I found that this mixture of Pebbles was not from any mending of the high way but the meer originall nature of the Earth for I found these Pebbles in the fields as well as in the high ways So that since this thwarts what we said but now of Pebbles being the naturall companions of gravelly land we are willing to grant that as in Grammar so in naturall philosophy there is no general rule without an exception Query Whether in other places where the Star-stones are found as about Shugbury in Warwickshire and Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire the earth be so rotten deep and miry and withall whether there be any such great Pebbles mixed with it as here and in particular enquire At Purton passage over the River of Seavern where the shore as it is reported yieldeth these Star-stones also but they are bigger and the Columnes of them longer then at Lassington And indeed accordingly it is delivered to me as a miry ousy shore in some places and a quicksand in others very dangerous for horse and man at low water and one of the worst passages over the River at those times At Puckle Church about 6 miles from Bristol they dig a kind of Stone that is hard blewish broad and about halfe a foot thick and so even and the sides so parallel to each other as if nature had intended it for Tombestones The stones are many of them of a very great breadth and lye some six or seven of them one under another in bed and of about the same thickness all of them and then they come to a light blewish Clay belowwhich is no more of this stone to be found The uppermost bed of the stone lyes very near to the surface of the earth so that in one place near the Town in the high way a man rides for ten peirches or more as if he rode upon a pavement of broad stone or rather upon one entire stone OXFORDSHIRE THis County saith Speed hath a wholesome temperate air and rich soil There are in one place of this shire Stones set up in a round Circle like the Stonehenge called Rollrich stones The City of Oxford is a very healthfull place which Cambden thinks is because it is defended from the South wind and the West but lyes open to the North-East and East wind On the descent of Heddenton hill near Oxford rises a spring which runs down towards Kingsmill a mill so called lying over against Magdalen Colledge It is reported that this spring hath a petrifying quality and will in some short time if a stick be laid in it either turn it into stone or wrap it in a stony crust BUCKINGHAMSHIRE IN this Shire grows Beech in greater plenty then in any at least most Counties of England and it grows most in the Chalky parts of it The Sheep in the Vales of this Shire saith Speed have most excellent fine and soft fleeces About Marlow when their land is worn out they make it rich again with Chalking of it so that it bears corn abundantly Bedfordshire Hartfordshire BEdfordshire saith Speed hath temperate air and in the North good soile but the South not so good yet it is excellent good for Barley So that this County as also her next neighbour Hartfordshire hath the name for the best Barley in the Eastern parts of England In the year 1399 just before the warrs brake out between the two illustrious Roses of York and Lancaster on New years day the deep River that passeth between Suelstone and Harwood two villages not far from Bedford Town called Ouse suddenly ceased its course and stood still so that forward men passed three miles together on foot in the very depth of the Channell and backward the waters swelled up to a great height which some judicious men observing conceived was an ill omen of that division which followed shortly after between K. Richard the second and his people I dare not be surety for the truth of every circumstance of this story yet I believe the main of it may be true But I cannot conceive how so strange a thing should come about unless it were by a sudden frost the time of the year being seasonable for it which might congeal those waters that fed the stream at their first issuing out of the earth at the head of the River the rest of the water in the mean time passing away down because being in motion they were not so capable of congelation Notwithstanding the story mentions not a word of frost which peradventure might be the cause of it for all that the custome of those that tell such strange stories being prudently to conceale those particulars that are likely to bewray the naturall cause and spoil the miracle It being as naturall to the generality of visible creatures to love being the Authors of wonderfull relations as to laugh There was in time past an odd story of K. Offa's leaden Tomb which was once in Bedford Town that it appears often to them that esek it not but cannot be seen of them that seek it But whether the report continue still I know not At Aspley-Gowiz near Woburn is an earth that they say turneth wood into stone and that a woodden ladder was to be seen in the Monastery hard by which having lien a good while covered all over with it was digged out again all stone Dunstable stands upon a Chalky ground having four streets in each of them it hath a pond which is fed with rain and hath no Spring for they have never a well in the Town under twenty four Cubits deep and yet these ponds are never dry In our remembrance saith Cambden near Fishpoole-street in Saint Albans certain Anchors were digged up This is a very strange thing indeed and very well worth the Ventilating It puts me in mind of what the Poet Ovid sings in the
person of Pythagoras of Samos Vetus inventa est in montibus Anchora summis On tops of hills old Anchors have been found There is near St. Albans a Brook called Wenmere or Womere which never breaketh out but it foretelleth dearth and scarcity of Corn or else some extraordinary dangerous times shortly to ensue as the Common people believe See what we have said of the river Kennet in Wiltshire touching the breaking forth of unusuall Springs If now that it is a brook and runs but seldome it be of so ill portent let them that have a mind to smile say of how fatall a signification it was when it was a river and a Navigable one too as the Anchors before mentioned seem willing to perswade us At Ashwell in Hartfordshire rise so many sources of Springs together that they presently drive a Mill and become a pretty big River See before what we said of the Spring at Chedder in Sommersetshire MIDDLESEX THe air of this Shire is healthfull as being all a gravell and the soile rich as being generally flat and levell and having a ready help at hand the fat compost of a populous City At Barnet are medicinall waters very famous Heston a small village near Harrow on the Hill is very famous for yielding the purest flowr for Manchet The water of Crowders Well saith the Author of Tactometria on the back side of St. Giles by Cripplegate and that of the Postern Spring on Tower Hill have a very pleasant tast like that of new milk and are very good for sore eyes But Crowders well is far better of the two An ancient man saith the same Author in London whensoever he was sick would drink plentifully of this Crowders well water and was presently made well again and whensoever he was overcome of drink he would drink of this water which would presently make him sober again The Stews by the Bank-side saith Cambden in Southwarke were made to feed Pikes Tenches sat and to scour them from their muddy Fennish tast I have seen saith he Pikes panches opened with a knife to shew their fatness and presently the wounds have come together again by the touch of tenches and by the help of their glewy slime been perfectly healed up The shore of this Shire is washed by the goodly River of Thames which glidts along with a much more clear and gentle stream then the river of Severn The cause of the clearness of the Water is its running in a gravelly Valley and over a clear ground Gravel being unapt to mix with Water when it is stirred and too heavy to swim very far along with it The River of Severn as also the River of Avon that runs from the Bath and by Bristol is on the contrary a very muddy troubled Water because it washes a miry and ouzy shore almost all along For the gentleness of the Current in the Thames we are to know there are two principal causes of it the great winding of the River which locks in the Water that it cannot make that haste down to sea that it would and the low lying of the head Springs of it from whence there is but an easie descent to the sea And I think it is not amiss to note here that this easie descent of the Waters to the sea-ward is another reason why the tide flows up so high into the heart of this River For who sees not that the more steep the River the less way is the Tide able to force its way up into it Swift Rivers have alwayes their Heads lying high or their course direct or both Indeed in case swift Rivers do or did at first run winding to and again yet if their Springs lye high they will in process of time by their violence pare away the Promontories of their banks unless they be rocky and stubborn and make their way straighter There are in the Thames three other things worth observation to wit its Spring-Tides its overflowing its banks and its strange shifting of Tides at some times touching all which because it falls not unhandsomely into this place I shal deliver my conceptions in regard I have I think something to say to them which I never yet read And first for the Spring-Tides in the Thames and other Rivers which are higher Tides then ordinary that happen about every ful and change of the Moon the great French Philosopher Des-Cartes endeavours in his Principia Philosophiae to give us the reason of them by framing a most ingenious Hypothesis too long here to set down and telling us from the Theorique of the Moon that the Moon moves so in her Ellipsis or Oval-fashioned Orb about the Earth that at her ful and change she comes nearer the earth and in each Quarter goes farther from it whence according to his Hypothesis greater Tides must be at ful and change and neap or low Tides at the Quarters All which is for the most part true indeed and without doubt the Moon her nearness at the Ful and Change is the cause of the Spring-Tides then even as the Moon 's being further off at the Quarters makes the neap-tides then but there is another thing considerable in the business which Des-Cartes never considered and which I fear he never knew that is that the spring-tides come not just upon the day of the Full and Change but follow two or three days after and so do the Neaps too after the Quarters which is against him and seems to shake his Hypothesis I mentioned that makes the Spring-tides and Neaps to fall just on thedays of the Change Ful and Quarters To untye this knot then I conceive the cause why the Spring-tides are at the highest two or three days after the Ful and Change and not on the very day c. is the same with that why the sharpest pinching time of Winter comes not just at the shortest day when the Sun is at the lowest but in January about a Month or five Weeks after Why also the coldest time of the night is not at mid-night but about break of day Why the hottest time of Summer is in July a Month or five Weeks after the solstice and why the hottest time of the day is not just at noon but about two or three a Clock in the afternoon To illustrate the reason of which let us suppose a large Cistern which hath a Cock towards or at the bottom of it that constantly lets out six Gal. of water if there be so much in the Cistern in a certain space of time and over the Cistern suppose another Cock that conveys Water from some other place into this Cistern and which runs at first but very slowly but after by degrees faster and faster til at length it let in eight Gallons of water in the same space of time that the cock below as we said lets out six Gallons And further let us suppose that the cock above after it hath continued running for some small time after the rate of
the south side of Cheshire by the River Wever Trees are oftentimes found by digging under ground which people think have lien buried there ever since Noah's Flood Nantwich Northwich and Middlewich are the famous Salt pits of this Shire being 5. or 6. miles asunder The whitest Salt is made at Nantwich which saith Cambden hath but one Pit about some 14. foot from the River out of which they conveigh Salt-Water by troughs of Wood into the Houses adjoining where there stand little Barrels pitched fast in the ground which they fill with the Water and then make fire under the Leads whereof they have six in a house and in them they seeth the Water Then with little wooden rakes they fetch up the Salt from the botom and put it in baskets out of which the Liquor runs and the pure salt remains The Salt pit at Northwich is very near the brink of the River Dan being a very deep and plentiful pit Quaere whether the Rivers Wever and Dan be themselves salt at these two places The two salt Wells at Middlewich are parted one from the other by a small brook of fresh Water It is reported that there are Trees that flote in Bagmere a Mere so called near the seat of the Family of the Breretons against the death of any of the heirs of the Breretons and after the heir is dead they sink and are never seen more till the next occasion Cambden saith that this story is verified upon the credit of many credible persons and that these bodies of trees swim for certain dayes together and may be seen of any body And he seconds it with another story to this purpose Leonardus Vairus saith he reports from the testimony of Cardinal Gravel that near the Abbey of St. Maurice in Burgundy is a Fish-pond into which are fishes put according to the number of the Monks of that place and if any one of them happen to be sick there is a fish seen also to flote and swim above the water half dead And if the Monk shall dye the said fish will dye too some few days before him Thus Cambden who gives so much credit to these stories that he thinks they are the Works of Angels But so doth not Speed who thinks it to be but a conceit and a fable as he doth also the prophesie of Leyland concerning Beeston Castle mounted upon a steep hill The Castle being ruinated Leyland prophesied of it in his time thus that it should be reedified The day shall come when it again shall mount his head aloft If I a Prophet may be heard from Seers that say so oft Whether Leylands Prophesie have proved true since I know not but so much is true that in the late Wars Beeston Castle was a Garrison Prophets generally are very compassionate to the rubbish of stately Piles and the Elegies they commonly sing at their fall are Prophesies of their re-edifying because they see men generally willing to believe what they would have though improbable nay though impossible And this I think was the true original of that late Prophesie among the Welch that Ragland Castle shal be built again I will not undertake to tell you the cause of the floting of those Trees in Bagmere because there are several circumstances that render it very dark Onely observe that in this shire as is said bodies of Trees are often times digged out of the ground July the 8th being Wednesday 1657. about three of the clock in the parish of Bickley was heard a very great noise like Thunder afar off which was much wondred at because the skye was clear and no appearance of a Cloud Shortly after saith the Author of this relation a neighbour comes to me and told me I should see a very strange thing if I would go with him So coming into a field called the Layfeild we found a very great bank of earth which had many tall Oakes growing on it quite sunk under the ground Trees and all At first we durst not go near it because the earth for near twenty yards round about is exceeding much rent and seems ready to fall in but sinee that time my self and some others by Ropes have ventured to see the bottom I mean to go to the brink so as to discern the visible bottom which is Water and conceived to be about 30. yards from us under which is sunk all the earth about it for sixteen yards round at least three tall Oaks a very tall Awber and certain other small Trees and not a sprig of them to be seen above water Four or five Oaks more are expected to fall every moment and a great quantity of Land is like to fall indeed never ceasing more or less and when any considerable clod falls it is much like the report of a Canon We can discern the ground hollow above the Water a very great depth but how far hollow or how deep is not to be found out by man Of this we have said somewhat in Kent Some of the water as I have been told was drawn out of this pit with a bucket and they found it to be as salt as sea-water whence some imagine that there are certain large passages there into which the sea flows under ground but I rather think that this salt water is no more but that which issues from those salt springs about Nantwitch and other places in this shire Query whether those Trees that are before said to be digged up in some places hereabout were not buried in the earth by some such sinking as this I am told that about Bickley the soil is a very soul miry clay that there is hardly any travelling that way in the winter time If so I conceive then that under this upper Clay lyes a mouldring washy Clay or Sand which is carried away by degrees by the course of Springs as we said before of Motingham and that this July being the dryest part of Summer and this Summer 1657. being an extream hot and dry Summer the hottest and dryest I ever knew this Clayie ground did chap as it is the nature of Clay to do in dry hot weather especially the most rotten and miry Clay as we see in Marshes and divide it self from the rest of the ground near it to which and to its fall the hollowness underueath and the weight of the tall Oaks above did much contribute Herefordshire THE air is very wholsome and the soil of this shire exceeding rich for Corn. About Lemster is the finest Wool of England though it be not so fine as that of Aquila and Tarentum in Italy It is likewise famous for the purest Wheat as Weabley is for the best Ale By Snodhill Castle is a quarry of excellent Marble Not far from Richards Castle is a Well called Bone-well wherein are continually found little Fishes bones yet Cambden thinks they may be Frogs bones but there is not a Fin to be seen and being wholly cleansed thereof wil yet have the like