frequently happens near to the Moons quarters whose middle is marked by the Moons Full and New Aspect being when it flows with the greatest force causing the highest high waters and the lowest low waters and tends towards its ending when it remits from its height and intends in lowness This augmentation and diminution may be resembled to the fermentation of Wine or Beer swelling gradually untill its height and thence decreasing again Touching the beginning and ending of the Seas single diurnal circuit if we consider it simpliciter it hath none because it is ever in motion as never being eased by a total rest but if agreeing to state the beginning where the Ocean is slowest in its course and thence tending to a swifter motion then the Proposition is resolveable And according to this Supposition the beginning and ending must be moveable differing every single course near 11 degrees This by the way Returning to explain the cause of the gradual augmentation of water and intention of force I am to remember you of the great proportion of the Oceans peregrin Elements consisting of most Earth then Air and lastly fire of whose close coherence with the waters their saltness is an undoubted argument These salin particles violently detaining the waters from recovering the center must necessarily add force to the gravity of the waters and consequently in intending their force they must also augment them in quantity because the more force the waters use the more in quantity they bear along with them The detention of the said salin particles being at their beginning of no great strength or in no great quantity do therefore cause no great intention of the Oceans force but every single period piercing gradually by rarefaction upon the waters must necessarily also augment their tumefaction gradually higher and higher every day untill at last being arrived to their height of penetration which ordinarily happens in 15 circuits the Ocean is likewise elevated unto its height Some of these salin particles being penetrated through the body of the waters are gradually depressed to the ground through their own disposition and the weight of the Ocean others being attrited and confused through their passive motion against the water and the decess of their heaviest particles do more and more gradually desist from their violent detention every circuit returning to the bottom and so the Ocean doth also gradually every day incline nearer and nearer to its natural force and detumescence of its water untill it is returned to its own proper course at which season its force and intumescence are equally at their lowest During this space those subsiding particles begin again to be expanded rarefied and attenuated because of the grinding of the water against them and through the expansion of the aerial and igneous parts adunited to them do bear up again The others elevated atop beginning to concentrate through the conquiescence of the Sea are ready to be compressed downwards both which gradually striving a reciprocal meeting do in the foregoing manner gradually reunite the force and augmentation of the Water V. Here we cannot but admit the Suns intense hear every day beating down the torrid Zone to be a great instrumental and adjuvant cause to the stirring of the aforesaid salin particles But this continuing in one measure equality and station in respect to the torrid Zone all the year long cannot in any wise be thought the principal cause of a motion varying twice every day Likewise the Moon being beset with a great quantity of dampish and heavy particles doth every day spread down some of those particles whereby the Ocean is also gradually filled more more every day And like as these said particles are most apt to rain down the nearer the Moon doth appropinquate to the Ecliptick because the air enjoyeth a greater subtility there from the rarefaction of the Sun hence it is that the Moon frees her self most of these heavy concomitants near her Conjunction and at her apposition So they are most apt to ascend the further the Moon is declined from the Ecliptick as happens in her quarters when for that reason the waters are also at their lowest That these two Lights are accidental causes of the intention of the Oceans force and daily augmentation of its waters is plain enough and their mutual concurrence to the effecting of the same effect we have confirmed beyond all doubting whereby the absurdity of the Moons compression proposed by Des-Cartes and so disagreeing with his own position of the nature of the air is likewise set before you The Moon near her Conjunction makes very high waters because conversing with the hot rayes of the Sun sends down a great number of the foresaid bodies and not because she is impregnated with the light of the Sun whereby she should be grown more potent to excite vapours and exhalations This is ridiculous for we find other bodies to be swelled near that time not only through exhalations raised out of themselves but particularly through particles demitted by the conveyance of the air into their pores The like happens although in a weaker manner when the Moon is in her full Aspect because of her nearer approximation to the Ecliptick But much more in a Lunar Eclipse because she is then found directly in the Ecliptick And most of all yea twice higher than ordinary at the Full Moon of March and September because the Sun being then in the AEquinoxial and most directly over the torrid Zone under which the greatest body of the Ocean floats and the Moon in the same way near the Ecliptick must needs joyntly cause a vast decidence of the forenamed bodies intending and augmenting the waters Or to declare the matter plainer to you The continuation of the Seas Motion forward is not only depending upon the pulsion of succeeding parts bending by refraction naturally forward but also by a kind of attraction or suction of preceding parts thus Suppose the Earth to be excavated into certain great cavities like to great pipes whereof of those that are formed from the East towards the West by the South the furthermost are alwaies deeper and longer than those which are nearest to the East Likewise conceive such Cavities framed in the same proportion to one another from West back again to the East by the North Now I say that the deepest and furthermost cavity must alwaies attract the water out of the shallower and lesser in the same manner as the longer pipe of a sucker a Siphon as some do call it must attract all the moisture of the shorter because the parts of water being continuous and consequently cleaving to one another the lesser part must follow and yield to the greater the which through its crastitude being pressed forwards must also draw the lesser part after Since then the water is no sooner arrived into one cavity but is thence drawn into another hence it is that this tumefaction of waters is not sensible to us in the Ocean
The division of water p. 289. 3. VVhat a Lake is The strange vertues of some Lakes 290 291 292. 4. VVhat a Fountain is The wonderfull properties of some Fountains p. 293 to 295. 5. Of Physical Wells p. 296. Of Baths p. 297. 7. Of Rivers and their rare properties ib. 298. 8. Of the chief Straits of the Sea p. 299 230. CHAP. VII Of the Circulation of the Ocean 1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sunne or Moon the principal causes of this motion p. 301 302. 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean p. 303 304 305. 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 12 hours and somewhat more to slow about the terrestrial Globe p 306 307 308. 4. A further explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 309 to 312. 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans circulation and likewise the minima's descening from the Moon and the Polar Regions p. 313 to 316. CHAP. VIII Of the course of the Sea towards the Polar Coasts 1. What the Libration of the Ocean is That the Tides are not occasioned by Libration The Navil of the World Whence the Seas move towards the North Polar Why the Ebb is stronger in the Narrow Seas than the Floud and why the Floud is stronger than the Ebb in the Ocean Why the Irish Seas are so rough p. 316 317 318. 2. VVhy the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rise of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus p. 319. 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne p. 320. 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rise of this Sea ib. 321. CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rise of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. p 422 323. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean p. 324. 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where p. 325. 4. The effects of the first deluge ib. 5. Inland Inundations p. 327. CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-formentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna p. 328. 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived ib. 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate p. 329. CHAP. XI Of the rise of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain p. 330. 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rise of Fountains examined p. 331. 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rise of Fountains The rise of many principal Fountains of the world ib 332. 4. Why Holland is not mountanous p. 333. 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills ib. 334 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived p. 335. 7. Whence it is that most shores are mountanous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the Earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the Polars The cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others ib. 336. 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the Earth p. 337. CHAP XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountains of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epirus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain p. 338 339. 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells p. 340. 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived ib. 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 341. CHAP. XIII Of the various Tastes Smells Congelation and Choice of Water 1. Various tastes of several Lakes Fountain and River waters p. 342. 2. The divers sents of waters p. 343. 3. The causes of the said Tastes That the saltness of the Sea is not generated by the broyling heat of the Sun The Authors opinion ib. 4. The causes of the sents of wates p. 345. 5. What Ice is the cause of it and manner of its generation Why some Countries are less exposed to frosts than others that are nearer to the Line ib. 346. 6. The differences of frosts Why a frost doth usually begin and end with the change of the Moon p. 347. 7. The original or rise of frosty minims Why fresh waters are aptest to be frozen How it is possible for the Sea to be frozen p. 348. 8. What waters are the best and the worst the reasons of their excellency and badaess p 349 350. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the Ayr with the other Elements 1. How the Air moves downwards VVhat motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center VVhy the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 351 352. 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. p. 353. 3. An Objection against the airs circular motion answered p. 354. 4. The Poles of the Air. ib. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities p. 355 CHAP. XV. Of the production of Clouds 1. VVhat a Cloud is how generated its difference How a Rainbow is produced Whether there appeared any Rainbows before the Floud 356 2. The generation of Rain p. 357. 3. How Snow and Hail are engendred p. 358. 4. The manner of generation of winds ib. to 362. 5 The difference of winds Of Monzones Provincial winds general winds c. Of the kinds of storms and their causes What a mist and a dew are p. 362 to 370. CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their effects and some strange instances of them 1. VVhat an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The concomitants thereof p. 370. 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes ib. 371 372. 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes p. 373. 4. Their Effects upon the air p. 374. 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 p. 375 376. 2. Of the generation of Thunder Fulguration and Fulmination and of their effects Of a thunder stone p. 377 378. 3. Of Comets Of their production p. 379 380 381. CHAP. XVIII Of the term Antiperistasis and a Vacuum 1. Whether there be such a thing as an Antiperistasis p. 382. 2. Whether a Vacuum be impossible and why p. 383. 3. Experiments inferring a Vacuum answered p. 384 385. 4. Whether a Vacuum can be effected by an Angelical or by the Divine Power p. 386. 5 Whether Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum A threefold sense of the doubt proposed In what sense Local Motion is possible in a Vacuum in what not ib. 387. CHAP. XIX Of Physical Motion 1. What a Physical Motion is The kinds of it The definition of Alteration Local Motion and quantitative motions The subdivision of Local Motion p. 388 389. 2. That all alterative and quantitative motions are direct p. 390. 3. That all externall motions are violent ib. 4. That all weighty mixt bodies being removed from their Element are disposed to be detruded downwards from without but do not move from any internal inclination or appetite they have to their universal Center p. 391 392. 5. The causes of swiftness and slowness of external Local Motion 393 6. That light bodies are disposed to be moved upwards ib. 7. That airy bodies being seated in the fiery Region are disposed to be moved downwards p. 394. CHAP. XX. Of Attraction Expulsion Projection Disruption Undulation and Recurrent Motion 1. How Air is attracted by a water-spout or Siphon p. 395. 2. The manner of another kind of Attraction by a sucking Leather 396. 3. How two slat Marble stones clapt close together draw one another up ib. 4. How a Wine-Coopers Pipe attracts Wine out of a Cask ib. 5. How sucking with ones mouth attracts water p. 397. 6. How a Sucker attracts the water ib. 7. The manner of Attraction by Filtration p. 398. 8. The manner of Electrical Attraction ib. 9. How fire and fiery bodies are said to attract p. 399. 400. 10. What Projection is and the manner of it p. 401. 11. What Disruption Undulation and Recurrent motion are ib 402. CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions p. 402. 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated ib. 3. How the other Planets are generated ib. 4. How the fixed Stars were generated p. 404. 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way p. 405. 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated p. 406. CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of Fire 1. VVhere the Poles of the Heavens are p. 408. 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected p. 409. 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly ib. 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it ib. 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out p. 410 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation p. 411. 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Medeity and slower through the Boreal How the Sun happens to measure a larger fiery Tract at some seasons in the same time than at others p. 412. 8. VVhence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens p. 414. 9. An undoubted and exact way of Calculating the natural end of the World The manner of the Worlds dissolution The same proved also by the holy Scriptures The prevention of a Calumny ib. 415 416. CHAP. XXIII Of the Magnitude and distance of the Sun and Moon and the motion of the other Planets 1. That the Magnitude of the Sun hath not been probably much less certainly stated by any The Arguments vulgarly proffered for the proof of the Suns Magnitude rejected p. 417 418. 2. That the Sun might be capable enough of illuminating the World were he much lesser than the terraqueous Globe than I suppose him to be p 419. 3. That the shadow of the Earth is to some extent Cylindrical ib. 4. That the Sun existing in the AEquator doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the Earth ib. 5. Concerning the diminution or increase of the shadow of the Earth within the Polars together with the cause of the Prolongation and Abbreviation of the dayes That the Sun is much bigger than he appears to be p 420. 6. What the spots of the Sun and Moon are and their causes ib. 7. That the Arguments proposed by Astronomers for rendring the Moon lesser than the Earth and proving the distance of the Sun are invalid p. 421. 8. That the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth ib. 9. Several Phaenomena's of the Moon demonstrated p. 422. 10. Concerning the motion of Venus and Mercury p 423. 11. Of the motion of the fixed Stars and their Scintillation p. 424. CHAP. I. Problems relating to the Earth 1. Why two weighty bodies are not moved downwards in parallel Lines p. 426. 2. Why a great Stone is more difficultly moved on the top of a high hill than below p. 427. 3. Why a pair of Scales is easier moved empty than ballanced ib. 4. Whence it is that a man may carry a greater weight upon a Wheelbarrow than upon his back ib. 5. Why a weighty body is easier thrust forward with a Pole than immediately by ones arms besides 5. other Probl. more p. 428 429 430 6. Why a stick thrust into a hole if bended is apt to be broke near the hole What the cause of the relaxation of a bowed stick is p. 431. 7. Whether Gold doth attract Mercury ib. 8. Why the herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysanthemum Peruvianum obverteth its leaves and flowers to the Sun wheresoever he be p. 432. Why the Laurel is seldom or never struoken by Lightning b. CHAP. II. Containing Problems relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water p. 432. 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region p. 433. 3. How Glass is made ib 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yeelds to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder p. 434. 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is p 335. 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire ib. CHAP. III. Comprizing Problems touching the Air. 1. Whether Air â—e weighty p 436. 2. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind â—e heavier than when empty ib. 3. Why water contained in a beer glass being
God By no means God is not pleased with any praises but of such as are like to him as for others they are an abomination to him Praising denotes a gladnesse or joy which cannot he in any one who is yet detained by his original misery We must therefore desire God to help us in striving and resisting against all bodily pleasures and passions I say strive for we must labour hard or else God will scarce help us And this was not unknown to the worst of Heathens as their common saying doth witnesse Dii laboribus omnia vendunt The gods sell all things for labour When now you begin to feel your misery to be lessened then praise God with all your heart and with all gladnesse for his Mercy and Goodnesse extended towards you and herein you are to abide for ever for as God's Mercy is without end even so must you continue in praises without end Lastly Beg of God to illuminate your understanding that you may understand all things more distinctly thereby to admire God the more And now you do begin somewhat to resemble the first man in all his mental operations and felicities But the body still remaining unclean it is necessary for the soul to leave it for a while that it may be purified through fire with the rest of the Elements and so be made a fit palace to receive the soul in again The soul needs no purification and therefore ascendeth directly to God's bosome So that I do much agree herein that there is a Purgatory for the body but none for the soul. XIII Hereupon enquiry may be made Whether the soul expiring out of the body and carried to God if Good or to the Devil if evil is to be an Angel or to live with God for ever without any office Or Whether she is to be re-united to the body when purified It is probable that the soul deserting the body is to be immediately an Angel and to continue in office untill such time that the compleat number of souls have likewise finisht their course I prove it It is improbable that the soul should desist from serving God and professing its duty because she was created for the same end Secondly Her condition would exceed that of Angels were she exempted from all duty these being also created for God's service for Spirits are called Angels from their Office which is to serve God The word is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting a messenger which again from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I send The Office which the separated soul is capable of exercising is of taking care of souls yet in the body in helping and assisting them for as the Devil doth seduce us by depraving our appetites and fancies so to the contrary do Angels enlighten our understandings and suppress our immoderate appetites XIV This office they shall remain in untill the consummation of the world at which time every soul shall be re-united to its body now purified by fire and transformed into a splendid substance All the Elements shall then be sublimed into a pure nature and all other things else shall return to what they were at the time of the first man's innocency Beasts shall receive new natures their wild ones shall become tame and obedient to man as formerly The poisonous herbs shall be changed again into wholsome All flowers shall re-indue their primitive fragrancy Summarily all men that shall escape the terrour of that great day of judicature shall be placed in the same state and Paradice which the first man enjoyed and the same Law shall be imposed upon men as before Man shall abide eternally in Paradise he shall eat and drink but he shall not generate The great instrument and cause of man's redemption shall eternally reign over him Here I have described man's second Paradise there remains only the proof of its particulars 1. That the separated soul shall be re-united to its body is apparent because God created her at first with a natural propensity to the body and that she should be a perfection to it which propensity is yet remaining in her because God doth not recall any thing that he doth or hath done This propensity is a certain sign that God will raise up its body again otherways it would be in vain The body 't is likely will be the same Quoad formam accidentalem figuram according to its precedent form shape and figure because thereby the saved souls may know one another again when they meet in Paradise and rejoyce together alwayes praising God for his mercy and goodnesse XV. The soul being now returned to its body must be contained by a corporeal place This corporeal place must be a Paradise upon earth because God did first bestow it upon man as being agreeable to his integrity and perfection and of the other side as being consentaneous to God's infinite goodnesse through which he conferred a compleat and entire happinesse upon man The same now remaining to wit man's perfection and God's goodnesse it is certain that he will conferre the same happinesse upon man namely Paradise because God in his wisdom finding it to be suitable to man then will ordain the same again now his wisdom being the same If God then is pleased to conferre the same Paradise upon man it is evident that all the Elements shall be purified otherwayes how could it be a fit place for to imbrace so pure a substance The same Law 't is probable shall continue because the same obedience and duty will be required from man as before Beasts Herbs and Flowers the second Paradise shall abound with because God judged it convenient before and therefore his wisdome being unchangeable will judge the same then He shall eat and drink because otherwayes the fruits of Paradise and mans nutritive organs should be in vain He shall not generate because the number of men will be compleated The cause and instrument of our Redemption was an entirely righteous and effentially holy man yet more than a man for it was impossible for man alone to satisfie God's justice since then the chief instrument of our salvation was a man his body being of the same nature with others must require a corporeal place but of this little can be said since man through his reason cannot dive unto it neither is it revealed unlesse obscurely What shall I say more to you O that most splendid second Paradise abounding with innumerable springs of ineffable joys This is the Palace whither the victorious Soul shall be conducted by a number of glorious Angels to the greatest of Kings attended by myriads of Cherubims there in the sight of them all to receive the Laurel and to be installed into an everlasting dignity office and possession Thence she takes her place among those illustrious attendants and sings Hymns to the melodious ear of the chief Musician O hear their sweet noise ring Gloria Gloria Deo in excelsis Te Deum laudamus in
and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 innate some taking them for one others limiting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heat that is only proper to living creatures and applying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heat that is common to all mixt bodies and is subjected to Putrefaction as if connate heat were not subjected to Putrefaction as well as the innate Doth not the connate heat of man suffer putrefaction in a Hectick Feaver You may further read of a fourfold difference of innate heat in Argenter his Treatise of the innate heat 1. I conclude that the connate heat is elementary and not astral I prove it There was connate heat before the Stars were created ergo its Original was not thence The Antecedence is plain from Scripture Gen. 1. for there it appeares that Herbs which questionless were actuated by connate heat were created the third day whereas the Stars were not created before the fourth day 2. Where the effects and operations are alike there the causes cannot be unlike but the effects and operations of Astral heat are no others then of Elementary ergo although I granted it to be Astral it must also be elementary 2. Innate heat is said to be a spirit because its rarest substance is adunited to the least bodies of the other Elements whereby it is fortified and becomes more potent and is constituted a most subtil moveable body The purest and most potent spirits are about the Center they next to them are not so subtil others yet more remote are grosser 3. The connate heat hath a power of converting influent heat into the same nature it self is of I prove it Hippocrates teacheth that the maternal bloud and the sperm are perfused with innate heat if then advenient bloud can be united to primogeneal bloud ergo influent heat may be united to the innate heat and converted into the same nature 2. Flesh contains a part of connate heat in it but cut off a piece of flesh and Nature will restore it again if restore it again then innate heat must be restored with it if so then this innate heat must be generated out of the bloud by the innate heat of the next adjacent parts 4. Childrens teeth are regenerable but teeth contain innate heat in them ergo innate heat is regenerable 5. That which the fore-quoted Opinion stated a putrefactible innate heat is a volatick and moveable heat which not being subtil enough to be united to the fixt or connate heat is protruded to the external parts and is subjected to putrefaction so that in the body of man the food that is daily ingested its subtilest part serveth to be converted into innate heat and to be substituted into the room of the last consumed innate heat The courser parts are converted into moving and external heats By Heats Calida understand hot Particles 6. How is it possible that so little innate heat as is contained within a Dram or two of Sperm should be sufficient to heat the body of a big man XII Corruption is the dissolution of a mixt body into the Elements or into other bodies more resembling the elements then it The Cause of Corruption as I said before is the greatest putrid alteration whereby the innate heat is violently dissolved In Putrefaction the moving heat alone is altered which is reducible but if it continues to a great putrefaction then the innate heat suffers danger and is yet likewise reducible but if the greatest putrefaction seizeth upon a body then the innate heat is strongly putrified and is rendered irreducible because through it the greatest part of the innate heat is corrupted which to expel the remaining innate heat finds it self too impotent But if only a less part be corrupted and the greater abide in power it may overcome the other and reduce it self Hence a reason may be given why many men having been oft seized upon by Feavers yet have been cured and their innate heat is become more vigorous then ever it was yea some live the longer for it The reason is because in most curable Feavers the moving spirits alone are affected neither doth the Alteration reach so deep as greatly to disturb the innate heat but oft times the body being foul and the bloud altered by peregrine humours the body is cleansed and by its fermenting and expelling heat the bloud is freed from these noxious humours after which the primogenious heat is less oppressed and acts more naturally then before through which life is prolonged Here we may answer fundamentally to that so frequently ventilated doubt whether life may be prolonged to an eval duration Paracelsus and many of his Sectators do maintain it affirmatively to whom three hundred years seemed but a slight and short age and in stead of it promising a Life of Nestor to those as would make use of his Arcana Mysterious Medicines yea a life to endure to the Resurrection But these are but Fables and Flashes for since that a man is unequally mixt and that one Element doth overtop the other questionless the predominant element will prove a necessary cause of the dissolution of that Mixtum but was a man tempered ad pondus equally and as Galen hath it tota per tota his Nature would become eval all the Elements being in him composed to an equal strength in an equal proportion If then otherwise the radical heat and moysture do sensibly diminish certainly old age or gray haires cannot be prevented Possibly you may imagine a Medicine the which having a vertue of retarding the motion of the vital heat must of necessity prolong its life in the same manner as I have read in some Author I cannot call to mind which a Candle hath been preserved burning for many years without the adding of Moysture to it by being placed in a close and cold Cave deep under ground Here if true a flame was retarded in its motion by the constringent cold of the earth and thereby the Tallow was saved by being but a very little dissipated through the motion of the fire I say then could the natural heat be retarded by such a constrictive medecine as to catochizate it and hinder its motion life might be protracted to some hundreds of yeares But again then a man could not be suffered to eat or drink in that case because that must necessarily stirre up the heat which excited if it were not then ventilated by the substracting the forementioned constrictive Medecine whereby it might dissipate the acceding moisture must incur into danger of extinction But this prolongation of life pretended by Theophrast Par. is attempted by hot Medecines such as they say do comfort and restore the natural Balsom of man which is so far from retarding old Age that it rather doth accelerate it for if the heat is augmented then certainly it must acquire a stronger force whereby it procures a swifter declination as hath been shewed Besides Experience confirms this to us Many having accustomed themselves to take a Dram
1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sun or Moon the principal causes of this motion 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 24 hours and somewhat more to flow about the terrestrial Globe 4. A further Explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans Circulation and likewise the minima's descending from the Moon and the Polar Regions I. HAving in one of the Chapt. of the precedent Book posed a demonstrative and evident ground of the universal course of the great Ocean and the straitness of that Chapt. not permitting the finishing of the fabrick intended by us upon it Therefore this present plain shall serve for to compleat the delineation thereof but encountring with some rocky stones thereon it is requisite they should be rowled aside before the said Atlantick waves may procure a necessary assent of the true cause of their dayly circular floating The conceit of some Philosophers hath induced them to state the copious irreption of many large and deep Rivers into the Eoan Sea for the principal cause of its circulation the which tumefying its body do thereby press it westward This solution seems void of all reason the evacuation of the presupposed Rivers having no proportion to the replenishing of so extended a body as the Ocean scarce of a Lake or an inland Sea as we have observed of the lake Haneygaban and the Euxian Sea Besides many great Rivers disburdening themselves into the Occiduan Sea might upon the same ground return the course of the Ocean Eastward But imagine it was so why should not the said tumefaction rather incline the sea westward than further eastward Others rejecting the former opinion have in their fansie groven the ground whereon the sea beats deeper and deeper towards the west and so the ground being situated higher in the East shelving down gradually to the west the sea doth through its natural gravity rowl it self to the deeper lower Plane but then the eastern waters being arrived to the west how shall they return to the east again for to continue the said motion Wherefore this opinion may take its place among the Castles in the air Shall we then ascribe the cause of this motion to the rarefaction of the sea through the beams of the Sun which as it is successively rarefied doth swell and press its preceding parts forward As touching the Moon she cannot come into consideration here as being rather noted for condensation than rarefaction First I deny that the Sun doth any whit rarifie the Eastern Ocean because according to their Tenent the rarefaction of the sea happens through the commotion of the subsidencies and terrestrial exhalations contained within the bowels of the sea and scattered through its substance whereby it becomes tumefied which I grant in case the Sun casts its beams obliquely into the depth of the Ocean but I prove the contrary supposing the Sun doth cast its beams directly into the Eastern waters In AEgypt it seldom rains because the Sun casting its beams directly into the waters doth through the same degree of heat through which it might raise vapours dissolve them again likewise in the East Ocean the Sun subtilizing the waters doth doubtless through its heat commove exhalations and subsidencies but the waters being through the same heat attenuated are rendred uncapable of sustaining those terrestrial bodies wherefore they sinking deeper to the ground rather cause a detumescence of the sea I have alwaies observed that waters swell more through the cold than heat and that inundations happen for the most part after a frost besides it is obvious that Rivers are much tumefied when they are frozen and that by reason of the foresaid tumefaction inundations happen more frequently in the winter than at any other time of the year Des-Cartes imagineth the compression of the Moon together with the Earths motion about her own Axis to be the cause of the waters circular motion pressing it from East to West and the variation of this pressure to depend upon the various removal of the Moon from the Center of the Earth effecting the anticipation and various celerity of the waters motion So that where the Earth is obverted to the face of the Moon there the waters must be at their lowest being pressed towards the next quarter of the Surface where they are at their highest whence they are carried about through the Earths proper motion c. 1. I deny his supposition of the Earths motion as being fabulous which we have confuted elsewhere He might as well assert that there be as many Neptunes under water moving it circularly as Aristotle stated intelligencies to drive the Heavens for even this he might excuse by saying it was but an Assumption to prove a Phaenomenon of the water 2. What needs he to affirm a tumour of the water for since he assumes the Earth to move circularly we cannot but grant that the water must also move with it as constituting one Globe together 5. Why doth he in vain reassume in the 55 Sect. that out-worn Doctr. of Aristotle touching the Moons driving of the water which argues him to be very unconstant with himself 4. His stating the air to be so complicable and soft a body renders it very unfit for compressing and driving so vast and weighty a body as the Ocean 5. Can any one rationally or probably conceive that the Sun much less the Moon being so remore and whose forcible effects are so little felt by sublunary bodies should be capable of driving so deep so large and so heavy a body as the Ocean which is as powerful to resist through its extream gravity as all the Celestial bodies are potent to move through their extream lightness What because the Ocean and the Moon move one way therefore the one must either follow or move the other What can a passion so durable and constant and so equal depend upon a violent cause Since then such phansies are ridiculous and not to be proposed by any Philosopher let us now proceed in the unfolding of so difficult and admirable a matter as the course of the Ocean which we have formerly demonstrated to flow about the earth once in 12 hours and somewhat more II. Moreover besides this single motion making a sharper inspection into the drift of the Ocean it will appear to us to absolve a compounded periodical course in a perfixt time namely in 15 daies which space may be called a marinal or nautical month The meaning hereof is imagining a part of the Ocean to flow circularly from a certain point or more plainly a Bowle to rowl circularly
to my apprehension all that Country must necessarily be subjected to such deluges since it swims upon the water Touching Inland Inundations as that which befell Friesland in the year 1218 where near 100000 persons were buried in the water and that of Holland and Zealand in the Reign of Charles the fifth Emperour of Germany in the year 1531. and several times since as that of the last year when a great part of the Country all about Gorcum was seized upon by Inland waters Their causes are to be attributed to torrents streaming down out of the melted snow as also to the swelling of the Inland waters through receiving a great quantity of frosty minima's pouring down from the North in a cold Winter The River of Nile proves yearly extravagant in AEgypt for two months and ten daies because being situated very low it is obliged to receive the superfluity of water falling from above out of severall great Rivers and Lakes as the Lakes Zembre Saslan Nuba and the Rivers Cabella Tagazi Ancona Coror and many others besides the water which it draweth from the hills and other grounds These Rivers and Lakes do constantly swell every year by reason of the great rains that fall there at certain times of the year Besides the heat of the Sun exercising its power very vigorously near the latter end of May doth very much subtilize and rarefie those waters whereby they are rendred more fluid penetrating and copious and lastly the Sun conversing in the northern declination doth impell the Ocean stronger against the Northern shores whereby the waters are also much increased Hence it is that the waters of the Nile are so subtill that they deceive the air in carrying of them up in vapours viz. because they are so subtilly strained No wonder then if they prove so healthy The same causes are appliâ—ble to the excessive increase of the Rivers Ganges Padus Arrius Danow Tiber and Athesis CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-mentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate I. VVHat the cause of those effects of the Lake Asphaltites should be the name seems to contain viz. The water glued together by an incrassated air and condensed fire constituting the body of a certain Bitumen called Asphaltos whence the said Lake doth also derive its name It is uncapable of breeding fish because through its sulphureous thickness it suffocates all vitall flames On the contrary the Lakes Avernum although deep 360 fathom and that of AEthiopia are so much subtilized through the passing of rarefied air that they are uncapable of sustaining the least weight Touching their pernicious quality to fowl it must be attributed to the venomous spirits permixt with that rarefied air infecting the whole Element of air as far as it covers them The Lake Lorna and the other in Portugal cause their effects through the permixture of a quantity of crude nitrous bodies which prove very depressing That Lake of AEthiopia is unctious through the admixture of incrassated air II. The Lake Eaug in Ireland acquires a sideropoetick vertue under water from the imbibition of crude Aluminous juyces by means of their indurating and constrictive vertue changing wood sticking in the mud into an Iron-like substance that part which is under water into a stone-like substance because of the diminution of the said Aluminous Juyces which through their weight are more copious in the mud the part of the wood that sticks out of the water remains wood as being beyond the reach of the said heavy juyces The Lakes of Thrace and Gerasa prove pernicious through admixture of crude arsenical exhalations The Lake among the Troglodites being Mercurial is infestuous to the brain The Lake Clitorius through its nitrosity disturbs the stomach and attracts a great quantity of moisture to it and infecting it with an offensive quality causes a loathing of all Liquors The sudden tempests befalling the Lake Laumond and Vadimon are caused through winds breaking out of the earth through the water Lakes resist induration by frost through igneous expirations pervading them The Lake Benacus shews its fury when its internal winds are excited by external ones causing a Concussion and a Rage in the water like unto an aguish body which is disposed to a shaking fit by every sharp wind raising the sharp winds within III. The River Abda passeth freely through the Lake Larius without any commotion of its body because the waters of the Lake through their extream crassitude are depressed downwards and so are constituted atop in a rigid posture whereas the River is impelled forwards and very little downwards But were it to flow through a shallow water whose quantity doth not bear any proportion to receive the pressure of the air downwards against the earth they would soon communicate in streams 2. The waters of a Lake differ much in crassitude and density from those of a River and therefore do exclude its streams The Lake Haneygaban doth not visibly disburden it self of those waters but thrusting Caverns underneath into the earth raises all those hills through the intumescence of the said waters that are near to her out of which some Rivers do take their rice Pilats Pool is stirred into a vehement fermentation by flinging any pressing body into it because thereby those heterogeneous mineral juyces viz. Vitriolat and Sulphureous substances are raised mixt together and brought to a fermentation and working Through this fermentation the water swells and exceeds its borders but the water being clarified the commotion ceaseth Neither needs any one wonder that so small a matter should be the cause of so great an exestuation since one part of the water doth stir up the other and so successively the whole pool comes to be stirred Pools owe their rice to great rains or torrents which sometime do slow visibly over the meadows or through Rivers causing inundations Sometimes through Caverns of the Earth as that near Laubach CHAP. XI Of the rice of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rice of Fountains examined 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rice of Fountains The rice of many principal Fountains of the world 4. Why Holland is not mountainous 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived 7. Whence it is that most shores are Mountainous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the polars The
meet with both upon the Coasts of Guiny Congo and Coramandel General winds are those that blow one way throughout the greater part of the year Thus off the Cape of Good Hope a Southerly wind is general and thence Westward towards Brasil between 28 and 8 deg South Lat. a South Southeast and Southeast wind is general To these you may add the fiery winds which the Spaniards call Bochornos derived from Boca de Horno i. e. the hot steam of an Oven Common winds are distinguished into Cardinal and collateral winds The former are such as blow from the principal corners of the world viz. East blowing from the rising of the AEquinoctial West blowing from the going down of the AEquator North erupting from the arctick Pole and South deriving from the Meridies The latter are such as erupt from those parts of the Horizon that are interposed between the four principal corners their number is 32 viz. Next to East towards the South you have East and by South East Southeast Southeast and by East Southeast Southeast and by South South Southeast South and by East Between South and West are inserted South by West South Southwest Southwest and by South Southwest Southwest and by West West Southwest West and by South From West to North are accounted West and by North West Northwest Northwest and by West Northwest Northwest and by North North Northwest North and by West Between North and East do blow North and by East North Northeast Northeast and by North Northeast Northeast and by East East Northeast East and by North. Among these collaterals the Northeast Northwest Southeast and Southwest are termed principal collateral winds From their temperature winds are distinguisht into cold and dry as the Northern and Western winds above all the North Northeast in the Winter or in warm and moist winds viz. The Southern and Easterly winds and beyond the others the South Southeast in the Summer A west Southwest wind is for the most part moist damp rainy cloudy and sometimes tempestuous North Northwest winds are stormy cold bringing oft Snow and Hail along with them A South wind is unwholsome putrid pestilential rainy hot in the Summer raising thunder and lightning and makes a thick cloudy sky The South Southwest wind in the Summer is temperate and warm moist and sometimes a concomitant to thunder The South Southeast wind is moist and warm Touching the wholsomness of winds those that are of a warm and dry temperature are the wholsomest and the pleasantest because they attenuate clarifie and rarefie the air disposing it to the ventilation and quickning of our vital and animal spirits Next to these cold and dry winds are the wholsomest because they purge and serenate the air descend from a pure and clear corner void of all putrid and pestilential vapours Next those that are simply cool or warm come into plea. All moist winds are feaverish putrid and sometimes pestilential causing catarrhes and rheumes stirring all the excrementitious humours in the body Very cold winds are better than the next foregoing yet do oft cause a constipation of the pores and of the belly But let us take in the opinion of Hippocrates upon winds lib. 3. Apho. 17. Now what concerns the dayly winds the North Northeast ones do render bodies solid and firm and fit for motion and well coloured They sharpen the hearing but yet they dry the guts moreover they bite the eyes And if any one hath been troubled before with a pain in his breast they make it sharper But the Southern ones do quite dissolve bodies and render them moister besides they occasion dulness of hearing and heaviness of the head and darkish meagrims moreover they cause a difficulty of motion both to the eyes and to the whole body and do moisten the guts VVinds do also vary much in wholsomness according to the Climates or places which they pass through For if they are infected with putrid vapours and exhalations arising from dead carkaffes after a field battel stinking caves corrupted pooles c. their remperament is soon changed although blowing from the East or North. VVinds blow equally or unequally continuately or interrupted high stormy or a moderate gale or a small brife Some winds rise in the day and are laid again or decrease at night as the North winds Others are laid in the day and rise in the night as the South winds The North winds raign on the Land the South at Sea Now concerning their causes Trade winds are generated out of eruptions of incrassated air bursting through even and continuated clouds situated in the middle or at least the upper part of the inferiour region of the air for only there clouds are diducted in continuation out of whose various spouts the winds are continuated for six months viz. Out of the North North Northeast or Northeast side of the clouds of the South Hemisphere blowing to the North North Northwest or Northwest whilst the Sun is passing through the North from Aries to Libra and out of the South South Southwest or Southwest side of the clouds of the North Hemisphere blowing to the South South Southeast or Southeast whillt the Sun is measuring that tract from Libra to Aries through the South The cause of the copious elevation of vapours uniting into clouds in the South Hemisphere during the Suns peragration through the North must be imputed to the Suns oblique rayes raising a vast measure of vapours out of the Oriental and Occidental Ocean which excited are beyond the sphere of the Suns direct rayes whereby they might otherwise be dissolved 2. Or because they are most apt to be gathered and concreased in a Region that is privatively cold through the continuation of the air forcing the vapours more potently together So likewise the Sun conversing in the Northern declination of the Ecliptick occasions ventous clouds in the South Hemisphere through the same efficiency Next we shall tell you why the Sun existing in the North declination of the Ecliptick the winds burst out from the South 1. Namely because that side of the clouds which is obverted to the Sun is discontinuated by the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims demitted from him 2. Because the air is strongest in its compression from the Polar side as being less discontinuated by the fiery minims and inforced by the cold minims from the pole wards Likewise for the same reason the winds burst out from the North when the Sun is seated in the opposite Hemisphere This is observable in those Monzons that near the AEquinoxes they blow but little or not at all because the Sun through its burning rayes which he spreads when he is perpendiculan over the middle of the torrid Zone doth so much rarifie the air that it is rendred unfit for the concretion of clouds But the further the Sun declines the more high strong those winds grow and are at their strongest when the Sun is near his remotest declination because through his greater
Suns continual torrid beams and the multitude of waters underneath It is reported that in the Northern Countries winds are sometimes so furious that they cast horse and man down to the ground and in Tartary the winds blow so violently though in the Summer that there is no travelling at such times Likewise about China and Japan tempests are out ragious beyond belief Tercera one of the Azores or Flemish Islands suffers such violences from winds that the bars of Iron that are fastned to the houses although of the thickness of an arm or two are grinded away to the smalness of wier and holes are eaten into the Rocks about the said Island of the bigness of a horse through such tempestuous winds 5. Statarian winds rage commonly every Fryday in the Indies insomuch that Ships are provided with an Anchor more on that day on the Sunday it groweth calm again It will not be amiss to add the cause of the variation of winds perceived by Ships that are in sight of one another and why the wind at Sea differs oft a point or two from the wind at Land viz. Because the wind bursting out low doth reflect against the tumour of the Sea interjected between the two ships or against the Promontories and Hills of the Lands reflecting the wind some larger others narrower The Seas grow oft very turbulent and incensed 1. Through the eruption of winds descending from above and piercing through their body which they raise into high waves by their swelling and strife of passing 2. The said winds do raise other winds and flatuosities within the body of waters partly out of their own substance and partly out of their mud The Sea is much more disposed to disturbations in some places than others As off the Cape of Good Hope likewise between China and Japan where Sea-men oft are forced to pawn their ships and lives to the Ocean CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their Effects and some strange instances of them 1. What an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The Coucomitants thereof 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes 4. Their Effects upon the air I. SInce we have lately discoursed upon eruptions of incrassated air out of the clouds we shall next insert a few words touching the eruption of incrassated air out of the Earth whose egress causeth that which we call an Earthquake and is nothing else but the trembling of the earth ordinarily following or preceding the bursting thereof through subterraneous winds vio ently breaking forth The manner of its production is thus A proportion of air and water being lodged in a Cavern underground is further attenuated into subterraneous clouds thence into vapours and thence into incrassated air through fiery minims entring and penetrating through the pores of the Earth whereupon the earth pressing strongly suffers a diruption in the same manner as we see a bottle filled with water being close stopt and exposed to the fire is broke through the force of incrassated air or attenuated and rarefied water within Whence we observe these concomitants to be necessary in an Earthquake 1. A strange great noise 2. A trembling of the Earth 3. A great blast 4. A spouting out of water 5. Sometimes an unequal discontinuation and excavation of the Earth 6. Sometimes a flame II. The kinds of Earthquakes are taken 1. from their effects and manner of motion some causing a shaking or quaking of the earth named by some an Inclination by Aristotle a Tremor through which houses walls or other buildings are weakened in their foundation and thence are occasioned to fall down thus many Cities of Asia in the fifth year of Tiberius of Bithynia near the extream passion of our Saviour the City Nyssena Bâle and particularly Ferrarae a City in Italy were demolished this last was surprized on Martins day in the year 1570 beginning about ten a clock at night with most terrible sounds as if the City had been battered with great pieces of Ordnance next a very horrible shaking or trembling followed raising all the Citizens out of their beds putting them to their beads pouring out their prayers thrice louder than ordinary and forcing them to quit the City and to behold the ruine of their houses in the fields The Palace of the Duke and other great buildings yielded to this violence many were frighted out of their lives others killed through these prodigious accidents not ceasing before the next day at night No less were the Citizens of Constantinople amazed by those most raging Earthquakes in nothing less terrible than the former described by Agath lib. 5. de la guerre Gothique The strange kinds of noises sounds thunder whistling howling cracking that were then perceived are incredible Campania in the time of the Consulship of L. Cornelius and Q. Minutius was infested with a trembling for many daies together Many do write of such Earthquakes as these that lasted a month a year some two years but by fits I suppose In Parthia above two thousand Villages have been demolished by Earthquakes besides many others in Sicily in the 16th year of Charles the fifth in the month of April In October of the 18th year of his Reign another hapned near Puteoli in Campania Others have been observed only to cause a single elevation or puffing up of the Earth afterwards sinking down again without the appearance of any other violence and are by Aristotle named Pulses By these the earth and houses upon it have been lifted up to a great height and sunke down again without the displacing of one single stone Thus the houses of a Town in Switzerland called Friburg were twice at several times lifted up in the year 1509 once in the night the other time in the day By the same accident some houses about Burdeaux in the year 1545 in the month of August were lifted up and sunke down again into their former places Others cause a bursting and excavation of the earth swallowing up its whole Surface where it bursted with the Houses Men and Cattle upon it as when a part of the Island Lango or Coos famous for being the Country of Hippocrates was swallowed up at which time the Inhabitants were not a little amazed by an incredible thunder and fury of its commotion Camden gives a relation of a very stupendious Earthquake that befel the east part of Herefordshire in the year 1575 in March where the earth and a rocky hill called Marcley hill was removed to a far distance thence with the Trees and all the Sheep that were upon it Some other Trees were cast out of the ground whereof many fell flat upon the ground others hapned to fall into the seams of the Hill and closed as fast as if they had taken their first root there The hole which this eruption made was at least 40 foot wide and 80 yards long lasting from Saturday in the Evening untill Munday at noon Likewise a whole Town was
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
the first smart impulse The truth of the foresaid reason and manner is apparent in shooting a pole through the water where we may see the water at the farther end raised into a tumor which running about the sides to the other end causeth its propulsion Whence it is also that when there appears no more of the tumor of the water before the pole its motion doth instantly cease XI Disruption or bursting is a sudden separation of the parts of a body through a violent force moving from within This we see happens oft in Canons when over-charged or in bottels filled with water being frozen in the Winter o. Wine in the Summer being close stopt The cause of these latter must be imputed to frosty or fiery minims entring through the pores of the bottels in greater quantity than their capacity can take in and disrupting them for to avoid a penetration of bodies Bodies are oft said to burst through driness as Instruments c. but very improperly since it is the fiery or frosty minims entring their pores and filling their capacities and afterwards disrupting them because of avoiding a penetration of bodies So Instrument-strings are apt to break in moist weather because their continuation is disrupted through penetration of moist bodies into their pores Undulation is a motion whereby a body is moved to and fro like to water shaken in a basin or to the motion of a Bell. The cause is likewise adscribed to the first motion of the Impulsor which being terminated at the end of its return is beat back through the direct descent of the air impelling it by reason it lieth athwart Recurrent motion being but little different from this I shall therefore say no more of it The cause of reflection is the return of the impulse impressed upon the air or water both being media deferentia perpendicularly or obliquely upwards from a hard and plane reflecting body Of refraction the cause is the shuving off of the impulse downwards by the shelving sides of an angular hard body CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated 3. How the other Planets were generated 4. How the fixed Stars were generated 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated I. THe ground of the fires tending downwards you may easily collect from what I have set down touching the waters and airs commerce with the other Elements It s profundity we may likewise divide into three Regions The first whereof containing the Planetary bodies the next the fixed Stars and the third consisting most of purefire II. The inferiour Region through its nearer approximation to the air and its immersion into it is cast into a subtil flame whose subtility doth effuge our sight and Tact. The Sun is a great body generated out of the peregrin Elements contained in the inferiour igneous Region consisting most of condensed fire and incrassated air extended and blown up into the greatest flame and conglomerated within the greatest fiery cloud These igneous clouds are like to the windy clouds of the air which as they do daily blast down wind upon the earth so do these cast fiery rayes among which that which surrounds the Sun doth vendicate the greatest power to it selfe The manner of casting of its fiery rayes is the same with that of winds viz. The Region of fire forceth up every day or continually a great quantity of air somewhat incrassated and condensed into its own sphere through its descending force striving for a Center This incrassated and condensed air is impelled violently into the body of the Stars by other subtil flames as being more forcible to drive the said adventitious matter from them because their parts are so closely ingaged that they can scarce slow a minim without a penetration Wherefore they must necessarily be impelled gradually into the bodies of the Stars because these are mixt bodies that give way so much in themselves by expelling fiery or torrid minima's down into the air as to be capacious enough of receiving so many airy particles as the Elementary fire doth force up every moment But before I proceed in unfolding the manner of the Celestial mixt bodies their ventilations I must insist somewhat further upon their constitution III. The Celestial mixt bodies are not only like to clouds in their daily and minutely ventilations but also in their constitutions viz. The inferiour ones as the Planets are constituted out of the courser and more mixt matter of the finer cloudy air in the inferiour Region of the Element of fire like the clouds of the inferiour Region of air are constituted out of the courser part of vapours Their coagulation is effected through the force of the fiery Element crushing their matter from below upwards and again is repelled back from the superiour parts of the said fiery Elements because through its being pressed up are scanted of room and therefore do press downwards not only for room but also because of reuniting where they are divided by the said coagulated bodies Now it may easily appear to you 1. Whence that rotundity or rather globosity doth arrive to them viz. because they are circularly crusht 2. Because the air and fire of the said Planets do naturally spread themselves equally from the Center to the Circumference whence a circular figure must needs follow Also 3. That Stars are nothing else but the thicker and denser part of the Heavens coagulated into fiery mixt bodies to wit flames 3. That as they do decrease by Ventilation every day so they do also increase by the introsusception of new aerial particles 4. That they must necessarily be very durable because of the duration of their causes For as the great force of the inferiour parts of the igneous Heavens never desist from striving for the Center and do every day cast up great proportions of aerial matter so do the superiour parts never cease from compressing them into the bodies of the other condensed flames being disposed as I said before through their ventilation to receive them 2. Because the aerial parts being got into the Center of the flames cease from all external Local motion striving only to maintain their Center in rest IV. Fixed Stars are generated out of the subtiler parts of the forementioned aerial evaporations being through their less resisting gravity redounding from water earth in them rendred capable of being screwed up higher to the second Region where they are coagulated through the same motions of the Heavens that Planetary clouds are These are responding to the permanent clouds of the second Region of the air which as they are spread into more large
the way VI. Before I go on any further I will prove that such a vast measure of fiery winds blows down from each of the Polar Regions for six months together It is certain That a great proportion of fiery clouds is cast from the middle or Equinoctial of the fiery Heavens towards the Poles because there they are the strongest as appears by their strong and swift motion measuring more way by far there than about the Polars wherefore the greatest part of those fiery clouds must necessarily be detruded towards the Polars as being the weaker parts of the heavens and therefore the apter for their reception These clouds being obtruded thither in great quantities are compressed by the force of the Superiour heavens whereby the condensed fiery minims break forth in great showers which blowing constantly for six months do alwaies blow the Sun from them towards the opposite side 2. If clouds of the air are most detruded towards their Polars and blow thence constantly for a long season as Mariners tell us they do Ergo the same must happen in the fiery Region since the efficient causes and materials are corresponding 3. The fiery Region pressing strongly about the middle parts must needs cast up most air towards the Polars 4. Before there can be an eruption of these fiery clouds there must a certain abundance or proportion be collected through whose over possession and exceeding swelling they may sooner give way to burst out and then being opened they continue their fiery winds for six months and by that time they are quite evacuated In the mean time the other Polar side is a filling and is just grown swell'd enough for to burst out against the other is exhausted Here may be objected That whilst one Pole is evacuating it should attract all the matter from the other Pole because it gives way whereas the other cannot I answer That those fiery clouds through their giving way are still daily somewhat supplied by the continual casting up of the heavens for otherwise their ventilation could hardly be so lasting but however that is sooner evacuated than the clouds can be shut up again so that the ventilation lasteth untill all its contained matter is expelled 2. It is impossible that the air should be attracted from the opposite side since the greatest force of the middle parts of the inferionr Region is between which screweth the matter up equally towards each Pole VII The Suns deficient motion that is when he is accidentally moved through the succession of the Constellations of the Zodiack if compared to himself is observed to be regular that is in comparing one tropical or deficient course with another both do agree in the measure of space being over-runned in an equal time viz. of 360 Solar daies and in an equal Velocity moving in the same swiftness through the same Constellations in one year that he doth in another But if the particular motions of one defective or tropical course be referred to others of the same annual motion we shall find that the Sun is more potently withheld under the Meridional Signs than under the Septentrional ones That is moves swifter through the Austral Mediety in the Winter consuming but 178 daies 21 hours and 12 minut in that peragration and flower through the Boreal Signs in the Summer spending 186 daies 8 hours 12 minutes computing with the Vulgar 365 daies 5 hours 49 min. 16 sec. in the year so that the difference is 7 daies and 11 hours 2. The Sun appears sometimes at some seasons of the year higher then at others that is sometimes nearer to us and other times farther from us or otherwise the Sun is at the highest and farthest in the Summer in the month of June being then in Cancer and at the lowest or nearest in the moneth of December being then in Capricorn VIII The greatest declination of the Sun hath formerly in the daies of Hipparchus Ptolomy been observed to be of 23 deg 52 mi. which according to Copernicus his observation is reduced to 30 min. by others since to 28. The cause is evident and is to be imputed to the Suns or rather the fiery Regions gaining upon the inferiour Elements namely the water gains upon the earth and diducts her mole the air gains upon them both and insufflates their bodies and lastly the fire gains upon the air through which means it must necessarily incline nearer to the Center of the Earth which approximation must cause a diminution of the Suns declination For instance suppose the Sun in Hipparchus his time to have been at the height of o being then in his greatest declination from the Equinoctial a b if then since through the fiery Regions having gained upon the other Elements the Sun is descended from o to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being there nearer to the Center of the Earth his greatest declination in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be less to ε than it is from o to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IX Hence we may easily collect the duration of the World thus If the fiery Region hath gained from the time or years of Ptolomy to Copernicus so many minutes of the other Elements in how many years will the fire gain the restant minutes This being found out by the rule of proportion will resolve us when the World shall be returned again into a confusion or Chaos so that you may observe as at the beginning of the world the weighty Elements did gradually expell and at last over-power the light ones so the light ones do now gradually gain upon the weighty ones and at last will again over-power them and so you have a description of the long year consisting of 20 thousand Solar Circuits gaining near a degree every 68 years but towards the latter end will prevail much more because the nearer they incline the more forcibly they will make way And so you see all things are like to return to what they were viz. The immortal souls of men to God and the Universe in o the same Chaos which as I said formerly will abide a Chaos to all Eternity unless God do divide it again into a new World and raise new Bodies for the Souls that have of long been in being At the latter end of this descent you shall have Christ descending in the greatest Triumph Glory and Splendor appearing in a body brighter than the Sun Here must needs happen a very great noise and thunder when the Elements do with the greatest force clash against one another which cannot but then strike the greatest amazement and anguish into the Ears of the Wicked This Doctrine may prove a plain Paraphrase upon those mysteries mentioned in the Revelation of St. John For instance Chap. 9. v. 1 2. where a Star is described to fall down from heaven namely the Sun opening the bottomless pit and raising a smoak viz through his burning and consuming rayes c. No wonder if mens fancies are so strongly missed in
constructing the obscurities of the late quoted Book of Divine Predictions some imagining a plenary abolition of the Elements others their conversion into a hell for the damned some thence deducting Christs Personal Reign before the consummation of the World others judging quite contrary what strange phanatick deductions and constructions do some Spirits suggest to themselves expecting every moment a subversion of the world and alas God hath ordained the World to run out its natural course which doubtless He will in no wise contradict and how long that is like to last may be infallibly proposed from what I have here stated where we cannot but note that all those depravate conceptions do derive from mens ignorance in Philosophy and Nature Gods great work But me thinks I see some ready to condemn me for stating assertions touching things of the Divine Purpose and such as God hath reserved within himself and therefore none ought to dive into those secret Counsels I answer That we are to make a search into all things as far as our parts will bear us out in and we are commanded so to do because we may the more admire God in all his Attributes 2. God hath given a man power of searching into all intelligible things and therefore ought to make the greatest use of it he can 3. It is impossible for man so much as to make an attempt to search into Gods Secrets because God hath limited him with a finite power So that there is little fear that any should search into any such mysteries But this by the way CHAP. XXIII Of the Magnitude and distance of the Sun and Moon and the motion of the other Planets 1. That the Magnitude of the Sun hath not been probably much loss certainly stated by any The Arguments vulgarly proffered for the proof of the Suns Magnitude rejected 2. That the Sun might be capable enough of illuminating the World were he much lesser than the terraqueous Globe than I suppose him to be 3. That the shadow of the Earth is to some extent Cylindrical 4. That the Sun existing in the AEquator doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the Earth 5. Concerning the diminution or increase of the shadow of the Earth within the Polars together with the cause of the Prolongation and Abbreviation of the daies That the Sun is much bigger than he appears to be 6. What the spots of the Sun and Moon are and their causes 7. That the Arguments proposed by Astronomers for rendring the Moon lesser than the Earth and proving the distance of the Sun are invalid 8. That the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth 9. Several Phaenomena's of the Moon demonstrated 10. Concerning the motion of Venus and Mercury 11. Of the motion of the fixed Stars and their Scintillation 1. THe body of the Sun is by far exceeded in mole and bigness by the weighty Globe but before I insist upon the proof of this I will repeat the Arguments produced by those who assert the Sun to be many times bigger than the said Globe In the first place I must take notice of the great variance which there is between those great Coryphaeans in Astronomy touching the Magnitude of Stars many of them differing from each other in their compute 10 12 or more Diameters of the Earth which is accounted but a slight disagreeance Now if these Grandees are disagreeing from one another in so many thousand Leagues in defining the Magnitude of a Star what shall we judge of their most certain as they pretend demonstrations 2. Let us examine their Instruments whereby they aspire to fathom the body of a Star such are an Astrolabe Semicircle Quadrant c. These being divided according to the proportion of 360 degr contained in a Celestial Orb are well enough fitted to explain the number of such degrees but then the difficulty remains the same still viz. What proportion a degree of Longitude in the Heavens bears to any certain known Longitude of the Earth Neither are they wanting in this asserting a degree of Longitude of the Solar Orb to be equal to 15 German Leagues because the Sun doth remove the shadow of 15 Leagues from the Earth through the progress of each degree But suppose this were granted it followeth that a degree of Longitude of the Solar Orb is equal to a degree of Longitude of the Firmament because the Firmament doth likewise make 15 Leagues by its gradual progress or how could it absolve its diurnal circuit in 24 hours but this is false So neither doth the Sun's removal of the shadow from the Earth infer the said proportion because the Sun according to their Supposition far exceeding the earth in bigness cannot describe a true and equal Longitude of its progress upon the Earth but only his light being terminated by the Earth is alone denoted to vary its termination so many Leagues by moving one degree 3. If Astronomers do vary so much from one another in assigning the Earths Longitude whereunto we are so near we have greater reason to suspect their conclusions of the Stars their mensuration which are so remote from us to be void of all foundation Aristotle pronounced the Circumference of the Terrestrial Globe to contain 50000 miles assigning 1388 9 miles to every degree Hipparchus allowed 34625 miles responding in 96 â—â— 7â— miles to every degree Eratosthenes stated 31500 miles allowing 87½ miles to a degree Ptolomy granted 22500. Alphraganus 204000. Fernelius 24514. Others who have sailed about it state 190010 miles for the Circumference of the Earth Judge what a vast difference there is between them 4. Another Argument proposed by them is because the Suns absence or opposition to us effects a conical shadow or darkness Ergo the Sun must be greater than the Earth But how can the shadow be conical since it drowns the Moon whose Diameter according to their own confession contains a 39th part of the Diameter of the earth which extends to a greater largeness than a Conical Figure should do 2. Were the shadow of the Earth Cylindrical then they would confess the Sun to be of an equal bigness with the earth but that they say it is not ergo I deny the Minor and prove the contrary The Sun existing in either of the equinoctial points makes day and night equal the whole earth over ergo the shadow of the earth must be columnal because the obverted surface of the earth doth clip or stop the light from the other opposite surface to the extent of half the globe Wherefore the terraqueous shadow of the one side of the earth being equal to the light of the other side must needs be columnal And although this columnal shadow is not extended further than above half way to the Region of the fierie element where it begineth to be contracted and gradually diminisht yet that hinders not but that the said shadow may be columnal to some certain extent If now the said shadow were conical
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
quieter in the night than in the day Answ. Because in the day the air being fluid and continuous is agitated into waves by the Suns fiery beams whose bodies clashing together cause a small noise in the day which the night season is freed of CHAP. IV. Containing Problems touching the fire 1. Why doth water cast upon unquencht chalk or lime become boyling 2. Why doth common salt make a cracking noise when cast into the fire 3. Who were the first inventers of Gunpowder 4. VVhat are the Ingredients of Gunpowder 5. VVhence arrives all that flaming fire that followeth the kindling of Gunpowder 6. Whence is it that Gunpowder being kindled in Guns erupts with that force and violence I. VVHy doth water cast upon unquencht chalk or lime become boyling Answ. Because fire in lime is detained or imprisoned within a thick glutinous moisture which being attenuated through the thinner moisture of water is forced to suffer the igneous parts before dispersed and imprisoned to unite whence being condensed and incompassed by a thin glutinous air is changed into a hidden flame whereby the water is rendred boyling hot II. Why doth common salt make a cracking noise when cast into the fire Answ. Because the flaming fire exufflating the spirituous air of the salt within its body doth also force it to burst out the report whereof is not unlike to a cracking noise III. Who were the first inventers of Gunpowder Answ. In the first place touching the dispute whether the invention of it is to be adscribed to the Chineses or the Europeans it is very probable the Chineses were the first Authors of Gunpowder because they were found practising upon it at the same time that it was first invented in Europe Next who was the Author of it among the Europeans is uncertain but certain that he was a German whose name some would call Berthold Swarts a Monck of Friburg said to have found it out accidentally by leaving a mixture of Saltpeter and Sulphur in a Mortar covered with a stone whereinto a spark of the candle lighting by chance forced the stone up with no small report from this he was also supposed to have taken the fabrick of a Gun IV. What are the ingredients of Gunpowder Answ. Its materials are ordinarily Saltpeter Sulphur and dust of Charcoal All which being very igneous do very much intend one anothers force in blowing up a fire V. Whence arrives all that flaming fire that followeth the kindling of Gunpowder Ans. The Saltpeter which is the chiefest of the ingredients consisting of very weighty dense and waterish parts contains a great proportion of fiery minims within its body but dispersed through those weighty parts and suppressed by them these being somewhat diducted and opened through the rarefying and expanding vertue of an external actual flaming fire give occasion to the fiery minims interwoven with incrassated air to unite and through the compression of the weighty parts to be condensed whence erupting into the air doth attract other fire latent or rather is forced to it by the accurss of the ambient air and dispersed throughout the air whereby its flame is much amplified and continuated for it seemeth very improbable that so much fire should have been latent in the Gunpowder as the flame requires 2. The dilatation of the said erupting flame is also attenuated by the accurss of the air expanding the thick and course erupting flame gradually into a thinner larger flame whence it is that the flame near where the Powder was kindled appears dusky red and further off light and flashy VI. Whence is it that Gunpowder being kindled in Guns erupts with that force and violence Answ. The Powder being kindled into a flame at the Touch-hole divides or discontinuates the air more than any other body imaginable whereunto the air accurrs from all parts especially from above with the greatest velocity and force for to expell the flame which being propagated further partly by its own force partly by the intrusion of the air causeth a more violent discontinuation of air within being pent up whereunto again a greater power of air accedes from without and attenuates the flame within whereby together with the compression of the sides of the Gun and the great access of air from without the flame is violently expelled effecting a great report through its disrupting and pluffing of the air Here observe 1. How the flame is augmented within the Gun not by a vertual rarefaction as if the parts of the Gunpowder could be augmented without access of other matter from without for that would suppose either a Vacuum and a new creation of parts or a penetration and an annihilation of foregoing parts Wherefore I say it is augmented by attracting fire out of the acceding air and secondly by being attenuated and diducted into a large flame by the parts of the irrupting air 2. That it is the air entring at the touch-hole that doth expell the flame is evident 1. Because the air is shut out before by the bullet and tow 2. The touch-hole being stopt at the next instant after the Powder begins to kindle the flame is immediately suppressed and extinguisht or at least bursleth up behind Whence it doth appear that it is the air entring doth attenuate vulgarly termed rarefie and expand the flame which the advenient fire doth augment and that the said air doth expell the flame out at the muzzel 3. That the air doth make use of the weighty minims of the salt-peter in compressing and expelling the flame outwards 4. Why is a hot glass bursted by casting a drop of cold water upon it Answ. Because the fiery minims contained within its pores are condensed and violently compressed by the gravity of the water whereby they are forced to disrupt the glass Why doth a woodden Arrow being shot out of a Gun pierce deeper than an Iron one Answ. Because the woodden one gives way into it self or shrinks as it makes a hole whence being rendred lesser passeth the easier through whereas an Iron one is stubborn and is rather somewhat flatned against the body aimed at whence being rendred more obtuse and bigger at the point is hindred in penetrating Labore constantia Soli Deo triuni gloria honos in Saecula Saeculorum AMEN Errata PAge 9. line 12. dele that p. 11. l. 3. read into p. 21. l. 20. after Pellines c. must be inserted those words below beginning l. 30. I was much abused c. ending at l. 34. at breathing p. 35. l. 14. r. Fire is rough p. 44. in marg r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fundo p. 135. l. 25. r. a man couragious p. 144. l. 13. r. Medicine p. 145. l. 28. r. procatarctick p. 148. l. 4. r. it s naturall p. 167. l. 18. r. the lumina p. 170. l. 21. for are r. is p. 191. l. 26. r. Cyzicum p. 194. l. 15. r. in oyl for that is a tast mixt out of a waterish and ayry tast The rest are