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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49776	Mercurius centralis, or, A discourse of subterraneal cockle, muscle and oyster-shels found in the digging of a well at Sir William Doylie's in Norfolk many foot under ground and at considerable distance from the sea / sent in a letter to Thomas Brown by Tho. Lawrence.	Lawrence, Thomas, A.M.; Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.	1664 (1664)	Wing L687; ESTC R30491	16,672	106

Eyres in White-Parish in the County of Wilts as they were digging of a Well about thirty foot deep as it was related to me between two veins of sand were found infinite numbers of Oyster-shels in a bed both shels closed together and nothing discernable between them but a little dust But farther yet what can we say of those Tables of stone in which are seen the Pictures of divers Planets of Frogs Serpents Salamanders nay Principum illustrium virorum imagines as Sennertus saith are found in Islebia I my self have seen an Agate with a natural foil like a Black-moores head and another like an Oaken leaf that some have went to brush away and yet it was within the stone and so exact too that it deceived the very sight Erasmus describeth one that he saw in England in a Temple at the feet of the image the Virgin Mary in which there was the form of a Toad I will set it down in his own words Og. Ad pedes virginis est gemma cui nondum apud Latinos aut Graecos nomen inditum est Galli à Bufone nomē dederunt éo quod bufonis effigiem sic exprimat ut nulla ars idem possit efficere Quodque majus est miraculum pusillus est lapillus non prominet bufonis imago sed in ipsa gemma velut inclusa pellucet This Menedemus that discourseth with him imputes rather to the fancy of the beholder as Children think they see heads and faces and bulls and swords in the Clouds But he answereth Imò nè sis nesciens nullus bufo vivus evidentiùs exprimit seipsum quam illic erat expressus And from his companions incredulity taketh occasions largely to discourse the strange forms of stones Now although it be impossible to find out the certain causes of these most noble and recluse works of Nature these being such things wherein we have very great reason to admire the providence of God and his most perfect work-man-ship that hath given to each creature as Scroder calls it rationem seminalem or as Severinus the knowledge or science of its own proper form And indeed some of them are in this as certain as the most voluntary agents And even those which casually obtain these shapes may be guessed at for besides the lusus naturae which most flie to the creatures they represent may be petrefied à spiritu lapidescente or may be inclosed as in a Coffin in the purer unconcrete matter of stones which being speedily hardened and those in some measure assimilated to that stony substance their lineaments shine through as Flies cased in Amber are seen almost as clearly as if they were out of it And particularly for such shels we are now to discourse of there may be some conjecture had of some of their forms and this brings me to distinguish between Muscle and Cockle-shels really and such in shape and appearance only for I have seen many stones in the shape of these which I imagine were thus made The Oyster Muscle or Cockle-shels lying in such places where they have been cast out by men have casually received the succus lapidescens or unconcrete matter of stones and have become a bed or matrix to it and so hath that stone been shapen according to this mould as gourds while they are young put in glasses grow not according to their usual natural form but according to the shape and proportion of the glasses 2. If they were really Muscle and Cockle-shells that could not be the place of their generation but they must be by some violence and impetuosity hurried thither and for their loco-motion we can find no other Media than the earth or air And first for the air Those that have sailed to the Indies can inform you with what force Hircanoes or Turbines which some distinguish but I think that there is no other difference between them than that the Hircano is a circumagitation of the air or whirlewind tending downwards and the Turbo the whirlewind tending upwards the meeting together of contrary furious winds have taken up whole Seas of water and what should hinder them that when they fall foul near a shore they should not rake the Seas and carry other bodies besides the water Some Mariners in the North-west discovery were eye-witnesses of such a whirlwind that for the space of three hours together took up vast quantities of water furiously mounting them up in the air And altogether as strange hath the force of it been on dry ground of which Bellarmine gives us a relation that it is so incredible that he premiseth this Quod nisi vidissem non crederem He thus describeth it Vidi ego à vehementissimo vento effossam ingentem terrae molem eámque delatam super pagum quendam ut fovea altissima conspiceretur unde eruta fuerat pagus totus coopertus quasi sepultus manserit ad quem terra illa devenerat It is ordinary in most histories to read of bloud falling in showres or at least of what is analogous to bloud of wood wool worms Munster tells us of Frogs Mice and Rats that fell with some feculent showres in Norway There is one at this time living that walking through a low marish ground in England in a foggie morning had his Hat almost covered with little Frogs that fell on it as he walked and many at some times on the tops of houses and leads have found great numbers of such creatures At Arles in France in the year 1553. Infinite swarms of Locusts fell on their fields and immediately devoured all that was green Magnâ incolarum admiratione consternatione So we read that by an East wind the Locusts which covered the face of Egypt were brought on it by as a strong West wind they were carried off again Exo. 10.13 19. Stones likewise have thus fallen In Iapan on a day when they solemnized a great Festival to their Idol there fell among them a great showre of stones which slew many and put the rest to their heels to shift for themselves And it is very likely that those showres of hail that slew so many in several stories were grandines lapidum as Lactantius calls those showres of vengeance that God will at the last send on the Devil and his accomplices to which the expression of history agrees At the time of Alexanders birth Saxea de nubibus grando descendens veris terram lapidibus verberavit And to this is the Scripture consonant Ios. 10.11 For what is called hail in the later part of the verse is stones in the former And as they fled from before Israel and were going down to Bethoron the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah and they died And that heterogeneous bodies are found in mines and on the tops of mountains Aristotle insinuates this to be the cause viz. that they are brought to such places by the winds It

Mercurius Centralis OR A Discourse OF Subterraneal COCKLE Muscle and Oyster-shels Found in the digging of a Well at Sir William Doylie's in Norfolk many foot under ground and at considerable distance from the Sea Sent in a Letter to Thomas Brown M.D. By THO. LAWRENCE A. M. LONDON Printed by I. G for I. Collins and are to be sold at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1664. Imprimatur Iune 13. 1664. Roger L'Estrange TO THE Reader READER I Am unwilling to make those Common-Pleas with which thou hast been sufficiently tired already for my exposing this to the publick lest I become as censurable for those as for the Tract it self I must confess that I sent it willingly into the light and although I cannot pretend any general good in it yet it may be useful to some that are studious of Natures book as another mans discoveries or rational Discourses may be to me I do not fear to say that I have so much doated on the Volumes of the Creation that as I cannot think the meanest of Gods creatures so despicable but that its contemplation deserves to be matter of business as well as of diversion to the wisest so to those that are considerate and observing the Arcana Naturae or if it be lawful so to call these the magnalia Dei are much more valuable and worth our search If I have discovered any thing in this little handful as I hope I have or if the discovery can be to any any way useful as I hope it may be either to satisfie or at least to actuate them to a further inquiry the Field is large enough we need not jusle I have my design And though it were or be but a partial detecting of a concealed truth yet even that will hide some indiscretions in the management However as he said of Evils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I may say of my faults The secrecy of the business discoursed will hide the errours of the discourser But if thou shouldst judge me fond of a phansie or invention I shall not fail of thy excuse since I am not the first that have run naked into publick with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my mouth what is amiss amend and Farewell T. L. Mercurius Centralis OR A DISCOURSE OF Subterraneal Cockle Muscle and Oyster-shels found in the digging of a Well c. DOctor I have made the best inquiry I could in so short a time after the truest cause of that vein of Cockle and Muscle-shels that was digged up in Norfolk so many foot deep under the surface of the Earth And upon my most serious examination do believe that that reason which I casually bolted out when you first mentioned it to me is the most likely and probable if not the only that can be given of it of which I will give more than empty conjectures in the following Discourse But before I come to unfold that my opinion I will insist on some things that relate to it both for method sake and to gain a little the more Reputation to it and then will give you or any else leave to judge of it as you shall think fit nor shall it displease me if any are of a different judgment God that made the Universe for Mans use and delight hath beautified it with infinite varieties In the animal kingdom what diversity of Creatures Volatile Reptile Natant and Gradient How different their shape use colour greatness and smalness their sents their tempers natures How various their amities enmities sympathies and antipathies In the Vegetable kingdom how different their shapes proportions colours orders tastes the first second and other qualities of their leaves flowrs roots barks seeds fruits tears and gumms Nor is Nature less skilful in generating and ordering the strange Forms and Figures of Subterraneal bodies Amongst an hundred thousand stones on a strand a man shall not find two that in all things exactly agree and yet there is many times some more general and gross likeness But if we examine the several species of Mineral bodies there will be visible an admirable and pleasing variety Some are seen in the form of Cylinders of which I have been present when many thousands have been taken out of Marle-pits Some are exactly spherical like Bullets but much bigger so equally round that no art can be more exact and of them many Ship ladings between two Hills in Cuba Many hundred flints in the same form I have found dispersedly near the place I live in In which also I have observed that their coat and external covering is white next to that the stone is very black but nearer to the Centre it is of a brighter colour in which by the help of a Microscope I have seen as it were little sparkling Diamonds in others of the same form I have found with my naked eyes many thousand such sparkling stones as big as pins-heads and some as big as small barley-corns of an excellent lustre when they are held in the Sun I have seen likewise Fossiles Aetites if I may so call them stones in an Oval shape as big as Pigeons Eggs hollow in the inside and impregnate with lesser stones which on the shaking betray'd themselves by their sound as the kernels in the dry stones of Peaches Diamonds and our Cornish and Bristol stones are all generated with spires or points A friend of mine imparted to me a fluor that grew on a rocky stone that is very clear and shoots in the same form and is so hard that it will cut glass Some are seen in the form of Cones some of Pyramids some of Semispheres and gutter'd and furrow●d on the sides like the pummels of some Swords some smooth some writhed Crystal doth shoot in sexangulos I saw stones digged out of a little Cavern by a Springs-side between St. Ives and Somersham in Huntingdon-shire every one of them had the same Figure and were in compass sexangular with two broader and more depressed superficies on either side it made a perfect Rhomboides clear as Crystal but very soft and apt to scale of which none knew any considerable use only the powder of it was found good to Cicatrize green wounds And indeed almost all sorts of stones whether more choice and orient or more base and vulgar have for the most part besides their different vertues several Figures and Colours But these are mean low and common observations What shall we think of that Cornu Monocerotis fossile those ossa subterranea fossilia which are very often generated of osteocolla and the like substances and have given conplexion to those stories of Gyantick races in several Countries because this like bones of men hath been found of a vast bigness What shall we think of those bones of Fish and such Subterraneal Muscle and Oyster-shels found at Darmstadt in the Palatinate and at other places near Heidelberg and in Silesia and those you mentioned to me At New-house a seat of one Mr.

that slew ten thousand Iews Marcley hill with us in Hereford-shire Anno 1571. with a great noise removed it self from its place and went continually for three dayes together overthrowing Kinnaston Chapel bearing the earth 400. yards before it And therefore Exhalations may be granted to remove stones and sands and with them such heterogeneous bodies as lie on them from one place to another from the sea to the hills from a coast far into a countrey But Earthquakes are not frequent in any places unless near Vulcanoes and are less usual in these parts and yet in most places all over Europe such heterogeneous bodies have been found under the Earth at great distance from the Sea Again the force of Exhalations is most evident in mountainous rocky countreys because when they are pent into such places they cannot have vent whereas these bodies are often found in mosses bogs and marish grounds as frequently as in other earth 5. So that they are most likely to be hurried thither by the force of waters passing from the Sea through the caverns of the Earth The reasonableness of which opinion will the better appear if we consider that 1. As the Earth is of a vast compass and no less than 7000 miles in Diameter of which the Water doth not make above one third part of the Globe and that on the surface of Earth too and so far as was ever yet discovered of the Earth no part of it is destitute of some mineral substance continually generating in it unless where either the Sun exhales the force of it or Nature is otherwise imployed in producing Vegetables So that if the Earth be kept from the sight of the Sun and the production of plants nor is apt to other generations yet it fails not to produce Saltpeter or Nitre in good quantity And this is the reason that Saltpeter-men dig in Stables Cellars and other houses So that in the whole bowels of the Earth what vast heaps what mountains of metalls are there Some in fieri some in facto esse perfect and imperfect mean metalls Stones Fluors of all sorts Salts and concrete Iuices besides the several sorts of Earths Chalks Boles Bitumina and the mixtures of all or any of these of which it were much too large and more besides my purpose particularly to discourse 2. Where there are so vast and numerous generations 't is impossible that they should succeed without vast quantities of water Nay to speak more home the first matter that hath been yet discovered of all Minerals is no other than a certain Iuice or water impregnate with the seminal vertue of this or that Mineral stone or Metall which from water when it hath found a convenient matrix becomes a gelly and from a gelly this or that stone or metall This is obvious from several springs whose water impregnate with the seeds of stone having found a place of rest convert into perfect stone Of which sort we read of some in Hungary of others in Peru by Acosta In Guancavilica there is a Fountain that turns into a Rock with which an whole village is built At Newnham Regis in Warwick-shire our Geographers tell us of a Well that after the same manner turneth wood into stone of another in the the North that dropping from above into a Cave becomes clear and very hard stone beneath Rivus est apud Scotos Ratra dictus in cujus ripa est spelunca in qua guttatìm ex fornice distillans nnda lapidescit in metas quae nisi tollantur humana industria spatium totum opplerent Some Minerals are no other than certain kind of Iuices accreted as Allum Vitriol c. And Mine-masters have sometimes found Metalls liquid and unconcrete when they have peirced a Mine too soon Mathesius mentions liquid Silver found by some And for this without doubt among other causes is water by the Ancients called Panspermia for that the seeds of things in the Earth have very little vertue without this Moses insinuates Gen. 2.5 where he gives this reason why no Plants yet grew viz. because they lay in arido for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the earth I am very confident that the Poets did not only call Venus the Goddesse of generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spume-born Goddesse from the saltness of the spume though some of later date have therefore called her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but from the waters that bare it Nor is there any question to be made but that the Inhabitants of the waters are therefore more numerous than other creatures not for any saltness which at the most can but irritate to copulation but doth not render the seed ever the more prolifical For fresh water fish are as multiplicative of their species as the other in proportion There is not a fish that swimmeth in the deep that hath a greater quantity of spawn considering his bulk than a Carp yet it is a fresh water fish Nor can I believe there can any other reason be given why the Irish women have so many Children than because their Country and consequently themselves are so exceeding moist as appears by their stature their pale countenances their flaccid soft and phlegmatick habit of body And indeed I think that it were as reasonable to seek for taste in an egg as for salt in the sperm of fish or any other creature for by virulent Gonorrhaea's it appears that a sharp and saline quality is a token rather of corruption than of any active and generative energy Et quod verissimum est dicimus Novimus jam nosco mulieres varias conjugatas sat juvenes quae ab erroribus dietae à Pica sive Malacia causatis praecipuè à salitorum vel potiùs ab incommisti salis esu non tandum sordidos pallidos faetidosque obtinuere colores cutes impolitas rugosas ventriculos nauseabundos verumetiam suffocatae omnino evaserunt steriles But although I attribute the effects above mentioned to water rather than salt ye● I would not be conceived to imbibe Thales Milesius opinion that aqua is so named quasi à qua omnia as if all things were from it and yet do believe that it is causa sine qua non and a great nurse and fosterer of Generations if not a Parent of them And of Minerals too especially if we should embrace the opinion of the Peripateticks that all mixed bodies are immediately composed of the four Elements for then these being the most ponderous bodies must needs have in them the most weighty Elements in good quantity and those are Earth and Water 3. The Sea is the original of all Waters nor could any fountain else afford enough to supply the Earth to all uses That which by the Neotericks hath lately been found out of the Circulation of the Bloud and Humours in the Microcosm was long since discovered which might possibly hint that in the greater world Eccles. 1.7

seems I must confess the more colourable that things should be brought this way from the Sea because the Sea both of old and more lately hath been deemed to be the father of the winds Erasmus describing Parathalassia saith In propinquo est oceanus ventorum pater and the old Poet speaking of the generation of the winds finds out the same cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore winds have in some places been observed to be Obsequious to the course of the Moon as the waters are which that Roman Poet hints Thracio bacchante magis sub interlunia vento 'T is true no man can tell the force and fury of the unbridled winds that are so mad that they know not whence they come nor whither they will But yet were such heterogeneities which are found so deep this way brought they should be found in all or most places alike and they should be found above ground too unless we can imagine that immediately on their falling the Earth suffer some Chasm and doth ingulf and swallow them into its bowels And therefore it is most probable they are brought to such places from the Sea the place of their Generation generally under the Earth 3. If they are brought from the Sea to the place they are found in under the Earth it must be either by a natural or by a supernatural impellent or mover by spirits or by a natural vehicle No man that is either a Philosopher or a Christian can doubt of the power of spirits by Gods command or permission to effect this and many more actions that are far more difficult and unlikely And Paracelsus with some others would have us believe that there are innumerable such spirits or genii that inhabit the Earth as he hath projected there are Inhabitants of the Sun Moon and other Planets which he calls Solar Lunar Saturnine c. and of the air which he styles aerial And to their managements referreth all the natural motions of Generation and Corruption and the violent as of Chasms Earthquakes and other alterations in the bowels of the Earth Nay they reduce them to several Classes and Orders and with a little invitation would be ready to swear that many of them are Engineers that contrive the Water-works and make Rivers and Aqueducts that some are Blacksmiths by Trade that work in the Vulcanoes that some are Brewers that boil natural baths and use Minerals instead of Mault But these opinions are such that besides their own natural absurdity our Religion will teach us to explode and are then confuted when they are only named For though we grant that some such things are possible to be done by the Devil that is not so the Prince of the power of the air as not to be the God of this lower world yet to impute all things to them must needs be asylum ignorantiae and a Remora to all ingenuous and Philosophical disquisitions of the nature and causes of all things and actions in the bowels of the Earth and a means to make us know no more of nature than what is obvious to sense So that I take it for granted that some natural ordinary vehicle there is under the Earth that brings such heterogeneous bodies from their native and genial seat and proper place to such Vaults Hills Veins and Caverns where they are found 4. Now the most likely movers of all others to carry bodies of weight under the Earth are two either exhalations or waters for as for vapours I look not on them as capable of carrying any thing of weight especially so low in the Earth where they cannot be so much rarefied by reason of the natural coldness of that Element 'T is true May-dew which is a vapour condensed will carry up an Egg-shell in which it is put by the help of a Pike or Spear placed by it But this is in the sight of the Sun and if so much as a thin cloud interpose it falls again immediately Again the shell is exceeding light besides that the dew is sealed in it that it cannot get out and even this moves upwards towards the Sun not side-wayes along the Earth So that it must be concluded that vapours cannot be serviceable to our purpose so as to force whole veins of shels or other bodies to places so far distant from the Sea and there to ram them in It remains then that this be effected by one or other of the former means As for exhalations and that their force is such that can impetuously move bodies of the greatest weight we need look no further than our Gun-powder and the Machines or Engines that are used by or with it such as Cannons Bullets Balls of Lead or Iron Stones Granadoes c. of which some by the help of a cold and dry exhalation pent in the Niter or Salt-Peter and suddenly by fire flying out make as stupend refractions of the air and obtain a violence equal to that of our usual thunder and lightnings And after the same manner is their force and light caused the violence and noise of Aurum Fulminans And these exhalations which have such effects above have the same strength under ground as appears by Earthquakes with which there are usually heard a murmur and sound When Sempronius Gracchus was setting on the Picaeni and they were just joyning battel tam horrendo fragore terra tremuit ut stupore miraculi utrumque pavefactum agmen hebesceret These make the Earth tremble the Mountains rowl the Rocks quake and especially if the exhalation that causeth them be impregnate with Nitro-sulphureous spirits which have sometimes thrust out hills where there were plains Islands in the midst of Seas made huge Rivers where there were none turned the current of some stopped others left vast caverns and holes depressed Mountains swallowed Cities and Armies subverted Temples and Palaces Cizicus a City of Misia minor with the famous Temple of Iupiter there were both swallowed in an Earthquake and so was Philadelphia another City of the same Misia and one of the Churches St. Iohn writ to Apoc. 3.7 In an Earthquake in Vinianfu in China the Nitrosulphureous spirits burst out of the Earth in such an actuall flame that it consumed the whole City and innumerable people At Hien in the same Country the fall of the houses by the same Earthquake slew eight thousand At Enchino●n an hundred thousand perished Immediately on the bitter persecution of Dioclesian a fearful Earthquake happened in Syria by which Tyre and Sydon were almost destroyed and many thousands were kil'd Quatiente ruina Nutantes pendere domos Or as the same Author elsewhere describeth an earthquake Cardine tell us Subsedit veterémque jugis nutantibus Alpes Discussere-nivem We read of one in Iudeah at Uzzah's usurpation of the Priests office which rent the Temple and a Hill in the East was removed four furlongs towards the West of another in Herods Reign