Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	natural_a	nature_n	2,983	5	5.5283	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49774	A discourse of subterraneal treasure occasioned by some late discoveries thereof in the county of Norfolk, and sent in a letter to Thomas Brown M.D.	Lawrence, Thomas, A.M.; Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.	1668 (1668)	Wing L685; ESTC R26836	16,599	103

many at some times on the tops of houses and leads have found great numbers of such creatures At Arles in France in the year 1553. Infinite swarms of Locusts fell on their fields Valeriolae obs lib. 1. obs 1. and immediately devoured all that was green Magnâ incolarum admiratione consternatione So we read that by an East wind the Locusts which covered the face of Egypt were brought on it by as a strong West wind they were carried off again Exo. 10.13 19. Stones likewise have thus fallen In Japan Organtius on a day when they solemnized a great Festival to their Idol there fell among them a great showre of stones which slew many and put the rest to their heels to shift for themselves And it is very likely that those showres of hail that slew so many in several stories were grandines lapidum as Lactantius calls those showres of vengeance Lactant. Dio. Just l. 7. c. 26. that God will at the last send on the Devil and his accomplices to which the expression of history agrees Oros l. 3. c. 6. At the time of Alexanders birth Saxea de nubibus grando descendens veris terram lapidibus verberavit And to this is the Scripture consonant Jos 10.11 For what is called hail in the later part of the verse is stones in the former And as they fled from before Israel and were going down to Bethoron the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah and they died And that heterogeneous bodies are found in mines and on the tops of mountains Aristotle Arist Meteoro insinuates this to be the cause viz. that they are brought to such places by the winds It seems I must confess the more colourable that things should be brought this way from the Sea because the Sea both of old and more lately hath been deemed to be the father of the winds Erasmus describing Parathalassia saith Peregr relig Ergo. In propinquo est oceanus ventorum pater and the old Poet speaking of the generation of the winds finds out the same cause Hesiod Oper. dies p. 44. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore winds have in some places been observed to be Obsequious to the course of the Moon as the waters are which that Roman Poet hints Thracio bacchante magis sub interlunia vento Horat. Carm. lib. 1. Od. 25. 'T is true no man can tell the force and fury of the unbridled winds that are so mad that they know not whence they come nor whither they will But yet were such heterogeneities which are found so deep this way brought they should be found in all or most places alike and they should be found above ground too unless we can imagine that immediately on their falling the Earth suffer some Chasm and doth ingulf and swallow them into its bowels And therefore it is most probable they are brought to such places from the Sea the place of their Generation generally under the Earth 3. If they are brought from the Sea to the place they are found in under the Earth it must be either by a natural or by a supernatural impellent or mover by spirits or by a natural vehicle No man that is either a Philosopher or a Christian can doubt of the power of spirits by Gods command or permission to effect this and many more actions that are far more difficult and unlikely And Paracelsus with some others would have us believe that there are innumerable such spirits or genii that inhabit the Earth as he hath projected there are Inhabitants of the Sun Moon and other Planets which he calls Solar Lunar Saturnine c. and of the air which he styles aerial And to their managements referreth all the natural motions of Generation and Corruption and the violent as of Chasms Earthquakes and other alterations in the bowels of the Earth Nay they reduce them to several Classes and Orders and with a little invitation would be ready to swear that many of them are Engineers that contrive the Water-works and make Rivers and Aqueducts that some are Blacksmiths by Trade that work in the Vulcanoes that some are Brewers that boil natural baths and use Minerals instead of Mault But these opinions are such that besides their own natural absurdity our Religion will teach us to explode and are then confuted when they are only named For though we grant that some such things are possible to be done by the Devil that is not so the Prince of the power of the air as not to be the God of this lower world yet to impute all things to them must needs be asylum ignorantiae and a Remora to all ingenuous and Philosophical disquisitions of the nature and causes of all things and actions in the bowels of the Earth and a means to make us know no more of nature than what is obvious to sense So that I take it for granted that some natural ordinary vehicle there is under the Earth that brings such heterogeneous bodies from their native and genial seat and proper place to such Vaults Hills Veins and Caverns where they are found 4. Now the most likely movers of all others to carry bodies of weight under the Earth are two either exhalations or waters for as for vapours I look not on them as capable of carrying any thing of weight especially so low in the Earth where they cannot be so much rarefied by reason of the natural coldness of that Element 'T is true May-dew which is a vapour condensed will carry up an Egg-shell in which it is put by the help of a Pike or Spear placed by it But this is in the sight of the Sun and if so much as a thin cloud interpose it falls again immediately Again the shell is exceeding light besides that the dew is sealed in it that it cannot get out and even this moves upwards towards the Sun not side-wayes along the Earth So that it must be concluded that vapours cannot be serviceable to our purpose so as to force whole veins of shels or other bodies to places so far distant from the Sea and there to ram them in It remains then that this be effected by one or other of the former means As for exhalations and that their force is such that can impetuously move bodies of the greatest weight we need look no further than our Gun-powder and the Machines or Engines that are used by or with it such as Cannons Bullets Balls of Lead or Iron Stones Granadoes c. of which some by the help of a cold and dry exhalation pent in the Niter or Salt-Peter and suddenly by fire flying out make as stupend refractions of the air and obtain a violence equal to that of our usual thunder and lightnings And after the same manner is their force and light caused the violence and noise of Aurum Fulminans And these exhalations which have such effects above have

Augustine saw such an one at Utica But these even in the Scripture the most exact history in the World are recorded as rare so that I do not believe that they have been common in any Country much less that any Country hath been inhabited by only such An old Poet cited by our Antiquary speaking that Cornwall was the seat of some saith they were but few Titanibus illa Sed paucis famulosa domus Vid. Hackwell in Apolog. de hoc subjecto Gyantick races in several Countries because this like bones of men hath been found of a vast bigness What shall we think of those bones of Fish and such Subterraneal Muscle and Oyster-shels found at Darmstadt in the Palatinate and at other places near Heidelberg and in Silesia and those you mentioned to me At New-house a seat of one Mr. Eyres in White-Parish in the County of Wilts as they were digging of a Well about thirty foot deep as it was related to me between two veins of sand were found infinite numbers of Oyster-shels in a bed both shels closed together and nothing discernable between them but a little dust But farther yet what can we say of those Tables of stone in which are seen the Pictures of divers Planets of Frogs Serpents Salamanders nay Principum illustrium virorum imagines as Sennertus saith are found in Islebia Epitom Phys lib. 5. cap. 4. I my self have seen an Agate with a natural foil like a Black-moores head and another like an Oaken leaf that some have went to brush away and yet it was within the stone and so exact too that it deceived the very sight Erasmus describeth one hat he saw in England in a Temple at the feet of the image the Virgin Mary in which there was the form of a Toad I will set it down in his own words Erasm Coll. Pegrin relig Ergo. Og. Ad pedes virginis est gemma cui nondum apud Latinos aut Graecos nomen inditum est Galli à Bufone nomē dederunt eo quod bufonis effigiem sic exprimat ut nulla ars idem possit efficere Quodque majus est miraculum pusillus est lapillus non prominet bufonis imago fed ipsa gemma velut inclusa pellucet This Menedemus that discourseth with him imputes rather to the fancy of the beholder as Children think they see heads and faces and bulls and swords in the Clouds But he answereth Imò nè sis nesciens nullus bufo vivus evidentiùs exprimit seipsum quam illic erat expressus And from his companions incredulity taketh occasions largely to discourse the strange forms of stones Now although it be impossible to find out the certain causes of these most noble and recluse works of Nature these being such things wherein we have very great reason to admire the providence of God and his most perfect work-man-ship that hath given to each creature as Scroder calls it rationem seminalem or as Severinus the knowledge or science of its own proper form And indeed some of them are in this as certain as the most voluntary agents And even those which casually obtain these shapes may be guessed at for besides the lusus naturae which most flie to the creatures they represent may be petrefied a spiritu lapidescente or may be inclosed as in a Coffin in the purer unconcrete matter of stones which being speedily hardened and those in some measure assimilated to that stony substance their lineaments shine through as Flies cased in Amber are seen almost as clearly as if they were out of it And particularly for such shels we are now to discourse of there may be some conjecture had of some of their forms and this brings me to distinguish between Muscle and Cockle-shels really and such in shape and appearance only for I have seen many stones in the shape of these which I imagine were thus made The Oyster Muscle or Cockle-shels lying in such places where they have been cast out by men have casually received the succus lapidescens or unconcrete matter of stones and have become a bed or matrix to it and so hath that stone been shapen according to this mould as gourds while they are young put in glasses grow not according to their usual natural form but according to the shape and proportion of the glasses 2. If they were really Muscle and Cockle-shells that could not be the place of their generation but they must be by some violence and impetuosity hurried thither and for their loco-motion we can find no other Media than the earth or air And first for the air Those that have sailed to the Indies can inform you with what force Hircanoes or Turbines which some distinguish but I think that there is no other difference between them than that the Hircano is a circumagitation of the air or whirlewind tending downwards and the Turbo the whirlewind tending upwards the meeting together of contrary furious winds have taken up whole Seas of water and what should hinder them that when they fall foul near a shore they should not rake the Seas and carry other bodies besides the water Hackluyt Disc to 3. p. 100. Some Mariners in the North-west discovery were eye witnesses of such a whirlwind that for the space of three hours together took up vast quantities of water furiously mounting them up in the air And altogether as strange hath the force of it been on dry ground of which Bellarmine gives us a relation that it is so incredible Bell. de Ascensment in Deum Grad 2. cap. 4. that he premiseth this Quod nisi vidissem non crederem He thus describeth it Vidi ego à vehementissimo vento effossam ingentem terrae molem eámque delatam super pagum quendam ut fovea altissima conspiceretur unde eruta fuerat pagus totus coopertus quasi sepultus manserit ad quem terra illa devenerat It is ordinary in most histories to read of bloud falling in showres Anno ab urbe condita cccclxxx lac de coelo manare visum est Oros lib. 4. cap. 5. In the fourth year of Ivor the son of Alan in Wales it rained bloud in England and Ireland Welch chron Gabiis lacte pluit T. Graccho Tit. Manlio Coss In Graecostasi C.C. L. Cai. Sext. Coss Praeneste L. Cecil L. Aurel. Cos● In Agro Perusino P. Sor. G. Atil Coss sanguino per biduum pluit in Area Vulcani Concordiae M. C. Quint. Fab. Coss Lapid Pluviae In Aventino Tuscis lapidibus pluit Vid. Jul. Obs de prodig ad fin Plinii or at least of what is analogous to bloud of wood wool worms Munster * Munster Cosmog lib. 4. cap. 22. tells us of Frogs Mice and Rats that fell with some feculent showres in Norway There is one at this time living that walking through a low marish ground in England in a foggie morning had his Hat almost covered with little Frogs that fell on it as he walked and