which is the raising of a feeling It is moved by being diducted either by depression or weight or any other thick continuous diduction So that whatever is thin light or rare doth effuge the sense of the tact hence it is that the air thin vapours exhalations or spirits are not immediately felt That which doth gently stir quaver these tangent spirits is said to feel pleasing and delightful Hence it is that kissing seems to feel so pleasing to many because that hapning to a thin part being withal of an exquisite feeling where the spirits being gently stirred and quavered by the application of other lips doth cause a delightful feeling That this is so is testified by most who kiss for a delight in that they do at that instant of the application of lips feel a creeping quaking spirit in their lips The same delightful feeling happens also to a Dog applying his chops to a Bitches taile A soft object doth gently stir the tangent spirits of the extremities of the fingers and is perfectly pleasing and therefore many men love to handle and feel boys and girles cheeks That which doth so much diduct the tactile spirits as to divide and burst them doth subvert the tact and causes a pain As for the other differences of tangibles they are taken from the degree and property of raising feeling in tangibles so we say a thing feels heavy light hot cold moist dry fiery waterish earthy hard soft rough smooth c. the description of all which I do omit as having set them down above A gentle titillation is one of the delightful tangibles which gentleness if otherwise exceeding and inferring violence doth become painful as appears in the French scab or manginess Titillation sometimes insers violence not by dividing the tangent spirits through it self and immediately but by accident through gathering the spirits too much together through its light appulse to which they do accur in great quantity and oft do as it were thereby overstrain or overreatch themselves It seldom happens that ones proper feeling doth tickle any part of his body as his knee or palm of the hand But if another do gently touch it it tickles him the reason is because that which toucheth a part must be of a certain distant temperament from the part felt which is not in a mans own self but in every other man besides ones fansie adds much to it Natural Philosophy The SECOND PART The Second Book CHAP. I. Of the Commerce of the Earth with the other Elements 1. The Authors purpose touching his Method in the Preceding Book and a further Explication of some terms made use of there 2. That the Earth is the Center of the world Copernicus his Astronomy examined 3. The Earths Division into three Regions and their particular extent 4. What Bodies are generated in the third Region of the Earth and the manner of their Production That the Coldness of the Earth is the principal efficient of Stones and Metals How a Stone is generated in the Kidneyes and in the Bladder A rare Instance of a Stone takenout of the Bladder The generation of a Flint Marble Jaspis Cornelian Diamond Ruby Gold Copper Iron Mercury Silver The places of Mines 5. Of the transmutation of Metals Whether Silver be transmutable into Gold Whether Gold may be rendered potable The Effects of the supposed Aurum potabile and what it is 6. Of earthy saltish Juices The Generation of Common Salt Salt-Gemme Saltpeter Allom Salt-Armoniack and Vitriol and of their kinds 7. Of earthy unctious Juices viz. Sulphur Arsenick Amber Naptha Peteroyl Asphaltos Oyl of Earth Sea-coal and Jeatstone of their kinds and vertues 8. Of the mean Juyces of the Earth viz. Mercury Antimony Marcasita Cobaltum Chalcitis Misy and Sory Whether any of these mean Juices are to be stated Principles of Metals I. HItherto I have discoursed of the Elements their Production Forms Second and Third Single and Mixt Qualities with intention to have declared their Dissolution from the Chaos and separation from one another and therefore I did only mention so much touching their nature as might suffice to discover the reason and causes of their effects produced by them through their dissolution At that time and place I thought it unseasonable to demonstrate the causes of their only apparent contrary motions and effects whereby they return to one another and exercise a mutual commerce between each other and seem but really do not to change into one anothers Nature all which together with the particular relation of each Element as they are consisting at present of local motion in general and in particular of Attraction and Repuision and of Meteors I shall endeavour to propose to you by a sensible Demonstration Why I judged it unseasonable to treat of these Particulars above was because I would not oppress your Phansie with seeming contrary Notions but really agreeing to a hair and so might have endangered the Conception and Retention of the precedent ones which now I may with more safety attempt supposing you to have weighed the Reasons and to have narrowly searcht into their meaning Neither shall I repeat any thing of what hath been set down already but proceed where I left off only since now I may with security discover my meaning of these Expressions of moving from the Center to the Circumference and to the Center from the Circumference both which I have hitherto made use of for to perduce you to a true apprehension of the Chaos and its dissolution By moving from the Center to the Circumference was not intended a deserting of the proper Center of those Elements that were said so to move but 1. To move so from their Center as to tend and be diffused thence to the Circumference into the greatest tenuity or rarity but not to desert their proper Center for then they could not move at all because all motions are peracted upon an immoveable which must be a Center 2. To move from the circumference to the center is not to desert the circumference be reduced by penetration into a central point as Mathematicians do imagine but to be contracted to a Center from a circumference for to gain the greatest dense weight or weighty crassitude like others are diffused for to gain the greatest rarity or tenuity and that naturally for density or crassitude cannot be attained by any other manner then by a contraction to a Center and rarity and tenuity but by a diffusion from a Center 3. Intending by moving from a Center to a Circumference to signifie a tendency to the greatest contiguous rarity or continuous levity I do not exclude but that such light Elements in a confusion with opposite Elements as it happened in the Chaos may also tend from a Center of Magnitude because they are expelled by the overpowering weighty Elements expelling them from their Center and so in this signification I have sometimes intended by moving from the Center a deserting of the Center
man The great errour committed in trying of Witches by casting them into the water 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy 5. The third Respective quality of Fire What Driness is The Definition of Moysture The third respective qualities of Water and Ayr. Aristotles Description of Moysture rejected That water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst 1. THe Second Respective quality of Ayr is a continuous expression towards the Circumference as we see in water viz. in bubbles within whose body ayr being contained doth express the water to the Circumference When water is thus expressed to the Circumference we say then it is water attenuated or rarefied and when ayr is contained within the body of water so as it is not strong enough to come forth we say it is ayr incrassated but these are no real transmutations For can any body imagine that ayr is really and essentially incrassated or condensed as they call it or that water is attenuated or essentially changed into a thin substance by ayr I prove that a real incrassation of the ayr is impossible Peripatecicks generally conceive the incrassation of the ayr to happen when that ayr having thinly or naturally filled up a cavity there is as much more impacted in that cavity upon the preceding ayr as the cavity contained before Through this impaction the former ayr must needs give way into it self for to admit that ayr which is last entred wherefore say they there must be a penetration of bodies whereby that former ayr doth introcede into it self The ayr then thus introceding into it self is called ayr incrassated Water is attenuated when a Pint of water is diducted to a Pint and a quarter or more without being insufflated by the ayr or any other admitted body So rarefaction of earth is when the earth possessing the space of a Pistol Bullet is diducted to the extent of space of a Musket Bullet without the admission of any other Element Fire is supposed to be condensed in the same manner as Ayr is incrassated This is the true and evident state of the Controversie touching Rarefaction and Condensation Attenuation Incrassation which never any among the Peripateticks did yet truly state They supposing and taking it for granted that such a Condensation Rarefaction Artenuation and Incrassation is possible and hapneth every moment do proceed in debating whether a penetration of bodies be not necessary in Rarefaction and Condensation As for insufflation that is not to be called in question because we stated Incrassation and Rarefaction to happen without the admittance of any other body Wherefore proving such an Incrassation and Attenuation to be impossible and absurd their further surmising of penetration will seem ridiculous Supposing that a Glass were filled with pure water all the Arts of the world could not distend it without the admission of another body through the force of which its parts might be divided and lifted up Since then that water is said to be attenuated because its parts are lifted up diducted through Ayr and Fire retained with their body this cannot be a natural and proper attenuation of the real parts of water but only a violent diduction of water through the ayr which is under it Here may be objected That water when it is thus lifted up and expanded is stretcht and through that stretching its parts are attenuated and its quantity is increased because after the retching it possesseth a larger place To this I Answer that the encrease of quantity about the Surface is not through a single extent of water without access of other parts of water to it but the encrease is from the access of those parts which did possess the Center and now are beaten away and impelled to the Surface where arriving they must be extended in greater quantity and possess a larger place So that what is encreased in the Surface is decreased from the Center and its adjacent parts A Chord of an Instrument is producted in length because it is diminished in thickness and not from a meer quality without the Access of other parts 2. Were the natural thickness of water transmutable into thinness then one extream contrary would be transmutable into the other for thinness and thickness are as much contrary as coldness and heat or dryness and moysture and who ever knew the same coldness changed into heat or the same heat into coldness That would be as if one said one and the same was both cold and hot at the same time I guess your Reply to wit that through Thinness is not meant an extream Thinness but a less Thickness only I answer That if a thick Element is transmutable into a less thick then certainly through the continuance and intention of the cause of that less thickning it might become least thick that is most thin wherefore your Reply is invalid 3. Were thickness transmutable into thinness then every rarefaction would be a creation secundi modi or a new generation because such a transmutation is a non esse vel a nihilo sui ad esse aliquid for thickness is a positive if I may be suffered to term it so privation and negation of thinness because when we affirm a thing to be thick it is the same as if we said it is not thin 4. Thickness is a property quarti modi of water but a proprium quarti modi is inseparable from its Subject and that to remain in being II. The same Arguments prove the impossibility of incrassating Ayr and such a supposition is so far absurd that it is impossible and contradictory to Nature that one Minimum more of Ayr should enter into a Cavity already filled up with it and the ayr would sooner break the world then admit incrassation although but in one Minimum If the nature of ayr is to be thin then in taking away tenuity you take away the nature of Ayr. And if ayr could be incrassated in one minimum it might be incrassated to the thickness of water Lastly was there any such incrassation there must of necessity a penetration of bodies be allowed but a penetration is impossible ergo Incrassation also I prove that a penetration is impossible Suppose a hundred minima's of ayr were through penetration incrassated to fifty and these fifty to possess but half the place which the hundred did fill up I conclude then that through continuance and intention of the same incrassating cause they could be reduced to one minimum and from one minimum to the essence of a spirit or to nothing for since they through penetration have lost the space of Ninety nine unities of points through the same reason they might the easier lose the last unity and so become spirits and thence nothing if there was a penetration of bodies then the less body into which the
rendred of a very unequal temperature where the extraneous Elements uniting together do raise a hollowness in the earth and infinuate into one anothers substance or body to which the coldness of the earth is very much conducing thereby gathering or coagmenting the said Elements together and impelling them into one anothers body and then closing them firmly all which it performs through its coldness Through coldness understand its compressing weighty minima's Wherefore do not still abide in your obstinate conceit that it is the Sun which is the efficient cause of Minerals and Stones For that is absurd I prove it That which is the main efficient of Stones and Metals must be a contracting condensing and indurating substance but the Sun is no contracting condensing or indurating substance Ergo the Sun cannot be the efficient of Stones and Metals The Major is undeniable I confirm the Minor by proving the contrary namely that the Sun doth mollifie because its flame is soft and all heat is soft for softning is nothing else but to dispose a body to bend easily into its self if pressed from without But earth rarefied by fire doth easily bend into it self if pressed from without Ergo The Minor is evident because whatever is throughly hot fiery is soft as we see in red-hot Iron in alive flesh and all Vegetables So that by how much the more heat a body hath by so much the softer it is provided quod caetera sint paria Further What heat is there under the Earth I confess there is more and less coldness under it but no predominating heat What heat can there be in Greenland especially under the earth and yet it is certain that many rocks and stones are generated there They may as well say that fire is the efficient cause of all those Islands of Ice Again so much as a substance consisteth of coldness and earth by so much it participates of hardness or by how much the less heat a body consisteth of so much the lesse hardnesse it partakes of The matter of a stone in the kidneys or in the bladder was sofe when it fluctuated within the vessals but being detained in the kidneys its heat is diminished either through the intense heat of the Kidneys which doth dissipate and attract the lesser heat from the matter retained in the cavity of the kidneys through which ecess of heat the terrestrial and thick waterish parts are coagulated and are closed together through the depressing coldness of the intrinsick earth and water The same matter being retained in kidneys of a cold temperament doth immediately through that degree of coldness coagulate and grow hard The stone in the bladder is generally harder than the stone in the kidneys because the one is of a far colder that is less hot temperament than the other That in the kidneys is more friable whereas the stone in the bladder is affected with a continuous firm thick waterish hardness This I can witness by a stone being taken from a Patient by section which that most learned and expert Physitian Dr. George Bate shewed me six or seven years ago This stone was perduced to that hardness that I am confident an ordinary smart stroak of a hammer could scarce break it Yet when it was within the bladder it was far distant from such a hardness for a piece of the Catheter was unawares run into the body of the stone and broke in it which was afterwards taken out with it but after it had been exposed a little while to the air it grew immediately to that hardness What could be the cause of this but the hotter parts of the stone exhaling into the air whereby the cold parts fell closer and thereby arrived to a greater hardness The errour of Fernelius is obvious in that he stated the intense heat of the kidneys to be the cause of a Lithiasis for it happens as freqently in kidneys of a cold temperament neither is it an insita renum arenosa calculosaque dispositio a parentibus contracta hereditary fixt fabulous and calculous disposition as the same Author conceives which doth consist in a degree of temperament of the solid parts of the kidneys for stones have been generated in kidneys of all kinds of temperaments neither can it be said to be hereditary for many a man hath been troubled with the stone whose Issue never was so much as disposed to it and on the other side many a man hath been miserably tormented with the stone or Duelech as Paracelsus terms it whose Parents never discerned the least symptom of a stone within their bodies Nevertheless as I said before the temperature of the kidneys adds much to the accelerating of a Lithiasis It is then certain that the greatest cause of lapidation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is internal depending upon the predominance of earth or coldness over the other Elements in a mixture The Focus or Uterus as Van Helmont terms it that is the place where a stone or gravel is generated must be a close hollow place wherefore nothing can arrive to this close hollow place unless it be liquid for a thick or course body will be intercepted before it can reach thither This liquid matter being now lodged within this cavity the hot parts do exhale because now through the hollowness of the place they have got liberty to dislate and free themselves from the heavy terrestrial and thick aqueous parts whereas before when they were kept close together through channels and lodges shutting close upon them the hot parts were firmly contained within and bound up This is necessarily and certainly demonstrative and infers that where ever close hollownesses are groved and that liquid matter containing terrestrial and aqueous parts in it may reach to them there certainly stones and metals can and may be generated By vertue of this position I shall prove and shew by and by that stones and metals may be generated in most hollow parts of the body of man But to persue my discourse The hot parts being now freed from the terrestrial parts and inhering in subtil ayry serosiries do with more ease and force procure their passage through this close and hollow prison than they made their way thither leaving the terrestrial and aqueous parts behind them for a Ransom which by degrees are coagulated more and more according to the expulsion of the fiery and ayry parts Understand also the reasons of the qualification of the Focus or womb of stones and Metals 1. It must be hollow the reason of this is set down already 2. It must be close for were it not close but open the terrestrial and aqueous matter could not be detained there but would have as free a passage as the thin parts Besides closeness conduceth to keep out extrinsick heat which otherwise would again dissolve and mollifie the work wherefore the hardest stones and metals are found some degrees below the Surface of the earth and I dare confidently assert that if metals
swallowed up in the Island AEnaria another in Thrace one in Phaeuicia beyond Sidon and another in Eubaea Others protrude a great piece of earth and cast it up into a kind of mountain but a very uneven one as for instance the mount Modernus near the Lake Avernus This sort is called Egestion Some cast forth a flame withall as hapned in the Mount Vesevus alias the Mount of Somma in Campania and the Mongibell in Sicily Earthquakes have sometimes removed two opposite fields and placed them in one anothers room as those two fields in Italy where the Marrucini were seated in the Reign of Nero. For Rivers to burst out as the River Ladon in Arcadia did and others to be stopt up by earth cast into them by such accidents is very possible Oft times Earthquakes make way for Deluges which may be also incident upon the earth at the bottom of the Sea or near to the shore or may happen to the same places without a deluge whereby the waters have been swallowed up and Ships left dry upon the shore as that which hapned in the time of Theodosius or that vvhen M. Antonius and P. Dolabella vvere Consuls leaving great heaps of fish dry upon the sands In the Reign of Emanuel there vvas a very great Earthquake perceived about Lisbon Scalabis and other Tovvns of Portugal vvhereby the vvaters of the River Tajo vvere so much diffused that the bottom appeared dry There is another kind of Earthquake called Arietation vvhen tvvo subterraneous vvinds vibrate against one another Sometimes this hapned vvithout any dammage there being some earth betvveen to hinder their conflict other times meeting in cavernous places have subverted mountains and all that vvas upon them as those mountains near Modena vvhich Pliny lib. 2. Cap. 83. relates to have been bursted against one another vvith a very hideous noise subverting many Villages and swallowing up a number of Cattel yea whole Countries and Armies have been devoured by these kinds of accidents 2. From their duration some lasting a day a week a month c. 3. From their violence some inferring little or no dammage others being contented with nothing less than ruine 4. From the sounds that accompany them being various as I have related before 5. From their places Some more frequently infesting Islands others the Continent Thus Sicily AEnaria Lucara the Moluccas Islands Tyrus Eubaea Phrygia Caria Lydia Italy and many Countries in the West-Indies have very oft been molested by Earthquakes Cold Countries as the Septentrional ones or others that are very hot as AEgypt are very seldom invaded by them 6. From their efficient some being extraordinarily raised by the Almighty out of his wrath for to punish the sons of men for their sins an instance of this we have in 2 Kings 22. Likewise that which hapned about the time of the Passion of Christ supposed by many as Didymus and others to have been universall and to have shaken the whole Earth but since Ecclesiastick Historians make no mention of it none is bound to give credit to the foresaid Supposition However beyond all dispute it was a very great one if not the greatest that ever the earth underwent Neither is Paulus Oros to be thought more authentick relating lib. 7. hist. Cap. 32. an universal Earthquake in the time of Valentinianus since the holy Scripture and Reason do tell us that the Earth is altogether immoveable 7. From the consequents viz. Some after the earths eruptions are followed by vehement winds emptying out of her others by hot boyling waters others again by damps and stinking sents also by vomiting up of stones clots of earth and other strange bodies 8. From their extent some reaching farther others nearer Thus there hapned an Earthquake in the year 1577 on the 18th day of September that began from Colmar in Switzerland and reached as far as Bern being near upon 60 miles distant c. III. Now it is requisite I should proffer proof for the forementioned causes of Earthquakes 1. I prove that they are caused by winds because they alone are of a capable force to burst out suddenly through the earth 2. Because winds bursting out of the earth do alwaies precede and consecute Earthquakes whence we may certainly collect when waters in Pits and Rivers begin to be turgid and continually raised into a great number of bubbles that an Earthquake is near at hand as appeared by the swelling and bubling of the River Po a little before the before alledged harthquake of Ferrara 2. That these winds are principally raised out of peregrin water collected within a Cavern of the earth is evident by the great spouting out of water that doth follow the eruption 3. It is further made evident in a bottle half filled with water and exposed to the fire which doth also make good to us that the Sun through its fiery minims doth press in a great proportion of air into those subterraneous waters whereby they are attenuated whence those waters that are cast forth presently after the diruption are also rendred boyling hot so that Countries remote from the energy of the Sun are seated beyond danger of having winds generated within their bowels however subterraneous fires may supply the office of the Suns beams in attenuating the waters into winds by impelling air into them whence it is that near the mount Hecla in Iseland concussions and arietations happen frequently Earthquakes are disposed to eruption in the night season as much as in the day because as the erupting force of the internal winds is intended by the Suns rarefaction so is the compressing vertue of the Earth intensed by the more potent sinking down of the air in the night being freed from the discontinuating fiery minims and by the decidence of the weighty minims inherent in the Air. The Spring and Autumn are Seasons of the year qualified for the attenuating and rarefying of the peregrin waters whence also they prove most frequent near those times Why Hills and hilly Countries are subject to tremors and concussions and other moist ones as Holland and Zealand less may easily be understood from our discourse upon the generation of Hills IV. That Earthquakes portend Famine Pestilential Feavers and other contagious diseases is believed by most Grave Authors but whence such a putrefaction causing the said distempers should arrive to the air cannot vvell be deduced from their assigning exhalations to be the causes of Earthquakes since they hold them to be hot and dry being qualities according to the Peripateticks resisting and expelling putrefaction beyond any wherefore it will be most agreeable to hold with us that it is derived from those moist damps and vapours that are the material causes of the disrupting winds CHAP. XVII Of fiery Meteors in the Air. 1. Of the generation of a Fools fire a Licking fire Helens fire Pollux and Castor a Flying Drake a burning Candle a perpendicular fire a skipping Goat flying sparks and a burning flame 2. Of the generation
Surface VIII Why doth the Herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysantemum Peruvianum or Crowfoot of Peru because its Leaves and Flowers resemble those of our Crowfoot turn the faces of its Leaves and Flowers about with the Sun Answ. Because the Sun through its igneous Beames doth rarefie that side of the Leaves and Flowers which is obverted to it whereby he doth expel their continuous streames whose egress doth attract or incline them that way whither they are expelled in the same manner as we have explained the Attraction of the Loadstone IX Why is the Laurel seldom or never struck by Lightning Answ. Because it is circumvested with a thick slimy Moysture which doth easily shove or slide off the Glance of a Lightning CHAP. II. Containing Problemes relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region 3. How Glass is made 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yields to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire I. VVHy is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water Answ. Because the water doth suddenly pierce into the Pores of iron being now open and violently expel the fire and air both which as we have shewed in B. 1. Part 2. are the sole Causes of the softness of a body and being expelled leave the same indurated by the weighty Elements pressing more forcibly and harder to their Center II. Whence is it that there fals a kind of small Rain every day from 11 or 12 of the Clock to 2 or 3 in the Afternoon under the AEquinoctial Region Answ. The Sun at his Rising and Descending doth through his oblique Rayes excite a multitude of small vapours which through the privative coldness of the air in the night are concreased into small clouds but reduced into drops of rain through the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims when he is perpendicularly imminent upon them III. How is Glass made Answ. The matter of ordinary Glass is generally known to be Ashes or Chalck burnt out of stones or both The Venice Glasses differing from others in clearness and transparency are made out of chalck burnt out of stones which they fetch from Pavia by the River Ficinum and the ashes of the weed Kall growing in the deserts of Arabia between Alexandria and Rossetta which the Arabians make use of for fuell In the first Book second Part I have told you how a body was reduced into ashes through the expulsion of its thinner glutinous moisture by the vibrating fiery minims The same fire being intended doth through its greater violence enter mollifie diduct and thence melt and equallize the courser thick remaining glutinous moisture by its own presence together with the air which it imports along with it whereby the Terrestial minims that were before clotted are exactly and equally spread throughout the foresaid thick glutinous moisture The fire and air being only admitted from without not incorporated with the said bodies through want of a matrix because they being in that extream overpowring quantity that they may as easily free themselves from the said body as they entered are expelled again as soon as they are exposed to the cold ambient air and so desert the body leaving it glib smooth continuously hard friable rigid and transparent So that it appears hence that Glass is nothing but water reduced nearer to its absolute nature which we have shewed is hard and clear by freeing it from the thin glutinous moisture or air and fire incorporated with a small proportion of water through barning its first subject into ashes and afterwards by uniting diducting and equallizing its own parts contained in the ashes By the forementioned thick or course glutinous moisture I intend a mixture of much water incorporated with a little earth and least air and fire That Glass is water nearer reduced to its absolute nature I shall prove by its properties 1. That glib smoothness of Glass depends upon the continuity of the parts of water necessarily accompanied by a glib smoothness because it doth not consist of any contiguous rough minims 2. It is continuously hard because water of her absolute nature is continuously hard 3. It is friable because the water is throughout divided by the minims of earth which render it so brittle and rigid whereas were it all water it would be harder than any stone It is transparent because it is but little condensed by earth whose condensation renders all bodies obscure 2. Because it is luminous that is apt to receive the lumen from any lucid body as being throughout porous through which it is rendred capable of harbouring the obtended air Glass is distinguisht from Crystallin hardness and transparency because this latter appropriates more of water in her absolute state and less of earth IV. Whence is it that so great a mole as a Ship yields so readily in turning or winding to so small a thing as a Rudder This Problem will make plain that an impulse is intended by a medium or deferens A Ship swimming in the water and being impelled by the wind or a board-hook raiseth the water into a tumour before at her bowes which is violently impelled what by the air lifted up by the tumour what by her own bent to recover that place behind at the stern whence it was first propelled and where you shall alwaies observe a hollowness in the water proportionable to her rising before and therefore as you may see runs swiftly about both the sides and meeting in both the streams abaft doth propel the Ship forward by a reflection and this you may also perceive in taking notice of that most eager meeting of the streams of water from both sides behind at the Rudder which being removed to either side viz. To Star-boord or Lar-boord side directs the Ship towards the sides because the force of the water in returning doth beat hard against that side of the Rudder which is obverted to her as resisting most and collecting her force is shoved towards the opposite side of the Stern whereby her head comes too to the other side whence we may plainly observe that a Ship doth not begin to turn before but alwaies abaft This I prove A Ship hitting her breech against the ground at Sea usually striketh abaft because she draweth more water there than before now the shoving of the Helm to the other side brings her off immediately and brings her head too which is a certain sign that a Ship is moved from abaft and begins first to turn there If it is so it is beyond doubting that the force of the water is forcible behind beyond imagination and thence adding that intention to the impulse V. What is the cause of the swimming of
above the water continuing wood In Thrace it is said there is a Lake whose water proves mortal to any that do drink of it or do bath therein Many of the Troglodites have forfeited their reason for venturing to taste of the water of a pernicious Lake in that Country The Lake Clitorius effects sobriety in men and excites them to a hatred against Wine and Drunkenness The Lake Gerasa in the Country of the Gadarens whereinto the Herd of Swine animated with those dispossessed devils of whom we read in Luk. 8. 33. violently ran down is at present so venomous that it causes the hair and nails of all those to come off that have at any time drank of it The Lake Laumond in Scotland imbracing thirty Islands breeds fish without finnes and is cast sometimes into a most raging tempest although there be little or no wind stirring One of those Islands is said to fluctuate up and down in her The Lakes of Chirchen in China is said to change Iron into Copper Scotland is noted for a Lake whereof the one half yieldeth to be hardned by the frost the other maintaining her fluidity the whole Winter So likewise in Norway although Saturn is felt to be very furious there yet many Lakes lye open all the Winter The like is observable in a Lake near New Castle which in some part refuseth concretion although in the coldest weather There is a Lake near Nidrossa whose waters atop are extreamly cold but the mud near the bottom is constantly boyling hot insomuch that if you tye an Egg to a string and let it sink down to the bottom you may soon draw it up ready boyled Not far from Jensu a City in China is a Lake which is very cold in the Summer and scalding hot in the Winter The same is said of the Lake Jen near Chinchen in the same Country The waters of the Lake Anien at first feel extream cold but after a little while they begin to feel warm they also generate stones out of any matter received from without The Lake of Vadimon shews it self sometimes suddenly very turbulent without giving any manifest token of the cause of it The same is said of the Lake of Geneve or Lausanne Italy is dignified with one of the most famous Lakes in the world called Benaco its plaisance is supplied by a sight of Olive trees growing upon its borders and beautified about the sides with gardens planted with Citron and Pomgranate trees fertilized with rare fish having its water so bright and clear that you may plainly see the bottom through it except in the middle where it is almost not to be fathomed but notwithstanding so fair a complexion in good weather yet appears much more humourous in foul in such a manner that it doth then cast it self into raging high waves whereby it proves no less dangerous and dreadful than a tempestuous sea The Lake Larius by the Hetrusces styled the Prince of Lakes is much swelled in its belly through the swallowing up of the River Abda alias Abdua tumbling down from the Rhetian Alpes through the Valley Voltilena Boaring with a swift stream through the said standing water which gives it passage without the least commotion of its body neither permits it self to be mingled with those rapid and most limpid streams The said River persisting in its Velocity breaks out again near Leuk a Village In like manner doth the River Rhene stream through the Lake Acronius and the River Danow through part of the Surian Sea Hispaniola is watered with a great Lake named by the Inhabitants Haneygaban into which many great Rivers are disburdened and to the admiration of many is nothing engrossed although visibly venting no part of what it hath imbibed The same is observed of the Caspian sea receiving the copious evacuations of the Rivers Volga Janick Abiamu Chesel and many others Lucerna a Town in Switzerland is situated near to a Lake whereinto a stone or piece of wood being cast doth set it into so vehement a commotion that it fluctuates upwards in roaring waves and surmounting its borders happens somtimes to cause an inundation of the next adjacent fields wherefore for the prevention of such inconveniencies it is decreed by the Magistrate that none shall offer to cast any thing into it upon a severe penalty The Inhabitants impure the foresaid exestuation to the pernicious infection which the Lake received from the pestilent Carcass of that hellish Judge Pontius Pilate who after his banishment was thought to have drowned himself therein whence it is that they vulgarly call it Pilat's Pool There is a Lake not unlike to this upon the Mount Tidalu near Chaoking in China whereinto if one throws a stone or any other heavy thing he will immediately hear a roaring noise like thunder and soon after the sky about it grows gloomy and casts down rain In Carniola near the chief City Laubach every year about the Autumn there appears a Pool between some mountains about a league and half in compass and abounding with fish none apprehending whence this quantity of moisture should derive and towards the Spring it begins to dry up after which the ground is copiously fertilized and is haunted with a number of Deer IV. A Fountain or Spring is a pereunal eruption of water out of the Earth The differences of these is no less various than of Lakes to wit in quantity quality motion and situation Furthermore some are artificial others natural We shall only instance the admirable properties of some of the latter Aristotle writes of a Fountain in Thrace whereunto another in Arcadia named Styx as also one in Sarmatia and that of Armenia Lydia and Sicilia are like in vertue which casteth the drinkers of it into a mortal Syncope breeding fish working the same effect upon those that eat them The waters of the Founts of Valentia in Spain Wolchenstein Trecha the Kingdom of Crobus upon the Alpes Berosus and of Manglo in China are all deleterious corrosive and extreamly venomous Boeotia spouts out two springs whereof the one called Lethe effects forgetfulness the other cures it The water of the Fountain in the Island Cea as Pliny relates being drank dulleth a mans understanding and makes him sottish The Fountain of Susa in Persia loosens the teeth and causeth them to fall out Pliny speaks also of another in Germany on the other side of the Rhene effecting the same A draught of the water of Lyncistis filleth a mans brain and makes him drunk The Fountain of Arania a part of Arcadia makes one loath Wine Isidorus and Solinus write of two Fountains whereof the one procures fruitfulness in women the other barrenness The Garamants make mention of a Fountain among them called the fountain of the Sun whose extream coldness in the day renders it importable and in the night is so excessive hot that it proves scalding Aristotle relates of the Fountain Elusine which naturally being quiet and clear is affected with the noise of