then the Sun at once must illustrate more then the mediety of the Globe and consequently the nights would be shorter then the daies although under the Line at the season of the AEquinoxe but that is false ergo Again were the Sun greater than the Earth ergo its heat would be communicated in an equal violence upon all the parts of it for why should it not as much powr out showers of heat conically as you say it doth its light Here you cannot accur to excuse your self by the distance or remoteness of the Sun thence contracting its heat for then it must likewise contract its light 3. They assert supposing the shadow of the Earth to be conical that therefore the Sun must be necessarily greater But for what reason Not because the Sun is greater but because the light is larger wherefore the largeness of the light doth not conclude any thing touching the bigness of the Sun I not the light of a Candle or Touch much larger than its flame Is not the same Candle apt to overcast an Object much bigger than it self with light that shall exceed its mediety and consequently the shadow of such a body must be conical Whence it is that a body ten thousand times less than the air is capable of illuminating its whole tract because a body of that proportion is big enough to obtend the air throughout its whole depth But if you should imagine with the Peripateticks that light is efficiently produced by the lucid substance of the Sun I know not how then indeed the body of the Sun must be many times bigger than the earth because the Lumen would be but just of the same extent with the Lux. But I need not to answer to this since the contrary hath been plainly proved After all this I state II. 1. That the Sun were he so much lesser than the terraqueous globe than I suppose he is would be big enough to illuminate its whole Hemisphere at once for if the light of a Candle doth illuminate the air thirty leagues round much more would the Sun the whole Hemisphere whose substance is by far more pure lucid and bigger in that proportion in comparison with the aerial region then a focal light being of an impure dark substance is in comparison to the Circumference of 30 Leagues III. 2. The shadow of the earth is to some extent cylindrical I prove it Is not the shadow of a man standing in the Sun cylindrical to some extent Is not the shadow of a Pen or other small body being held at some distance before a Candle whose Lux is bigger than the body objected cylindrical to some extent Besides as I proved above it is evident in the Equinoxes The reason is because a dense body doth obscure and dead the light as far as it is dense now the earth being dense all about the entire Horizon no wonder if it doth dead and obscure the Suns light to the extent of its Hemisphere IV. 3. The Sun existing in the Equinoctial doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the earth from one Pole to the other If the Sun existing in the Meridian is seen at once by those under the torrid Zone from the Ascension of the AEquator that are 90 degrees off Eastward and as many Westward from its Descension then the Sun must also be seen as many degr off to the Southward as to the Northward that is to each Pole because the Sun being globous doth obtend the air equally about to all the parts of the Compass But the Sun in the Meridian is seen at one time by those that are 90 degr Eastward or Westward ergo V. 4. By so many degrees as the Sun declineth to the North by so many degrees doth a perfect shadow or darkness cover the South polar Earth and the like conceive of the South Declination 5. The Suns gradual declination causes a prolongation or abbreviation of its diurnal light and shadow or the equality and inequality of the daies and nights 6. The Sun is much greater than he appeares to be because the clouds and depth of the air do diminish its species in the manner of a great fire appearing but like a small spark at a great distance Astronomers are not only forward in prescribing the bigness of the Stars but also their distances And how is that possible since they cannot sensibly demonstrate the Diameter of the World or define any certain extent in the Heavens for to compare another Terrestrial length unto neither can they ever find out an exact account of any length upon the Earth responding to a degree of any of the Orbs of Heaven If so what do all their observations touching the Stars Paralaxis amount unto VI. The body of the Sun is usually expressed as resembling a mans face whose Marks and Signatures are nothing else but certain protuberancies and spots The like is apparent in the Moons face These protuberancies are nothing but inequalities of their cloudy bodies appearing like unto clouds in the air thicker or more compact in one place and thinner and looser in another The Telescopium or Prospective Glass discerns those spots to be moveable and not unlikely since they being the external parts of those gross and looser clouds are apt to be displaced and change their situation through the obtrusion befalling them by the most rapid motion of the Heavens These do sometimes increase and accrease either through dispersion or apposition of new clouds floating here and there in the Planets their way as they move which oft causes a distinction of their bigger or lesser appearance at some times than at others VII The Moon is by all Astronomers believed to be less than the terrestrial globe because the shadow of the eclipse of the Sun is much too little to obtenebrate all the Earth But supposing the Sun to be of so inapparent a bigness and distance from the Earth as the vulgar of Astronomers do receive him to be of and the Moon to be of a far greater distance from the Earth than she is certainly the shadow which she would cast must be much less than her body although it were forty times bigger than it is because the Sun being greater than she must according to the ordinary Doctrine of shadows only suffer her to cast a conical shadow whose extreme point not reaching to the Earth or if it did could not be a certain token whence to draw the proportion or distance of Stars Wherefore according to their own principles the Moon may be conceived to exceed the Earth far in bigness since they cannot attain to any probable account of the distances of the Stars 2. We must also suppose the Moon to be a lucid body although yielding to the Sun in that particular and therefore to illuminate the Earth somewhat for otherwise in every total perfect Eclipse it would prove as dark as pitch if so what ground doth there remain to take measure of her shadow since
because steel is purified from its grosser parts which did before somewhat hinder the ingress of the Influence of the Loadstone and cohibite the Effluvia of the affected body Sixthly It attracts Copper or Brass because of the likeness of its Pores and mixture to Iron whence it doth aptly receive the Energy of the Loadstone The Reason of the Seventh may be drawn from the Third 8. The Magnete happens to lose its strength through Rust because its decoction is thereby stayed and its temperament subverted Moysture and its being exposed to the air do lessen its vertue because the latter doth so much disperse its emanations and accelerate its decoction the former dissolves its temperament Spices weaken its attraction because through their heat they disperse and discontinuate the emanating spirits the like may be said of the juyce of Garlick and Onions Mercury doth also destroy the temperament of the stone It s vertue happens at last to relinquish it through the natural course of Decoction The Reason of the Eighth is because the emanations do in that position easily joyn together slowing in like course and figure from their bodies Many more Conclusions might be deduced from the Experiments of the Loadstone whose solution may easily be stated from what hath been already proposed VI. It s Nautical Vertue is the great wonder of Nature to all Naturalists to whom the Cause is no less stupendious This Property is whereby one part of the stone moveth towards the South the other to the North. Bodintu Lib. 2. Theat Nat. proposeth an Experiment relating to this Property somewhat different to what others have observed An Iron Needle saith he being gently rubbed against that part of the Magnete where it lookt towards the North whill◠it stuck to the Rock and placed in a Balance doth place that extremity which was rubbed against the stone towards the North. The same vertue it exerciseth towards the South if the Needle be rubbed against the South part of the Loadstone Neither is the strength of the Magnete less in its Eastern and Western part although the stone cannot turn it self towards the Regions of the world yet the Iron Needle can What we have said cannot be understood unless it be experimented for if you lay a piece of the Magnete upon a Board swimming in the water and lay that side of the Magnete which looked towards the South before it was removed out of its natural Seat against the side of another Loadstone which before it was cut out lookt likewise towards the South then will the swimming stone flee to the other side of the Vessel in the water If you should turn the North part of the Magnete to the South part of the other Magnete swimming in the water the swimming part would suddenly come near and through a wonderful consent be both joyned to one another although the wood of the Vessel be between The same will also happen if you put an Iron Needle into a Glass full of water being run through a piece of a Reed and hold a piece of a Magnete in your other hand one side of the Magnete will attract the Needle the other will repel it Thus far Bodinus The last Property of attraction doth not appertain to this place the cause of which may nevertheless be made clear to you by what is foregoing The former touching its Vergency is observable if it be true but I doubt he hath not made tryal of it Besides none else do make mention of it which were it real they would not omit the Observation That which may next be disputed upon is whether the Loadstone turns to the South or North Pole of the earth or to the said Poles of the Heavens or to neither In the first place I wonder what they intend by a North and South Pole of the Earth Those that agree to Copernicus hold that they are the extream points of the Axeltree whereon the Earth doth move Others who deny Earth a motion affirm them to be those points of the Earth that are responding to the Poles of the Heavens that is which do lie perpendicularly or diametrically under the said Poles The former Opinion states the Poles of the Earth different from those of the Heavens Among the latter some have consented to believe the Poles of the Earth to be where the extremities of the Compass-Needles do diametrically point to the arctick and antarctick Poles that is where the length of the Needle is according to a right Line coincident with the imaginary axletree of the Poles of the world The onely place of coincidence is concluded to be near the tenth degree beyond the Fortunate Islands but that is false since the same coincidence is also observed in other places from whence for that reason most do continue their mensuration of the Earths Longitude But grant the Poles of the Earth be at the points forementioned why shall we apprehend the Loadstone rather to move towards the Poles of the Earth then of the Heavens What the Earth say they attracts the points of the Loadstone to her Poles An Absurdity why should not the Earth through the same principle of attraction draw other terrestrial bodies to it or what is it they intend by a principle of attraction I had thought that among the wandering Philosophers nothing but Fire and Air had been attractive Moreover did the Magnete alwaies incline towards the Poles of the Earth then it must be exempted from all deviation which it is not for in divers Meridians it hath divers respects to the Poles of the World and consequently to those of the Earth In Nova Zembla it deflects 17 degrees towards the East In Norway 16. About Neurenburgh 10. So in the Southwest Climates its deviation is no less various Wherefore after all this we must be constrained to assert the Magnete not to incline directly either to the South or North Pole of the Heavens or of the Earth although as I said before its Vergency is towards the North and South The points of the Magnets Vergency are directly tending to the Poles of the Air That is The Poles of the Loadstone are directly coincident with those of the Air. You see its Poles are primarily neither perpendicular to those of the Heavens or of the Earth Ergo its Poles do appropriate a particular situation But before I prove their seat it will not be improper to prefer the probation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their Poles The emanations of the Loadstone move circularly ergo they must have real Poles or immoveable points for a Body is uncapable of a circular motion in all its parts A real Axis is no less necessary It being impossible to conceive two extream immoveable points in a globous body without being fastned or continuated to other fixt points which must likewise remain void of the same circular motion and so on from one extream point to the opposite extream point That the steames of the said stone affect a
a Porringer Poole or Lake striving no longer for a Center for it enjoyes one there doth not move downwards of it self or is thence circularly reflected as water is when it is deprived from its Center wherefore that motion downwards which is in the water in a Porringer Lake or Pool is not caused intrinsecally through a bent for a center but by an extrinsick impulse of the air striving downwards for it center and meeting with thick water which it cannot easily pass it bends and forceth the stronger upon it that so it may give way But the air in a Compass box is still detained from its center especially by the intercurrent emanations of the Needle about whose extremity both air and Magnetical steames move circularly together as upon one of the Poles More than all this the air within the Box is still continuated to the whole tract of the air whereby it is assisted and furthered in its circular motion Whereas water is discontinuated from its intire body But you may instance That the Box together with the glass atop doth interrupt the continuation of the air within the Compass from its Elementary body without or if that did not certainly the whole Compass Box being thrust deep under water would and nevertheless the Needle would point South and North. I answer That a thousand glasses or boxes would scarce be sufficient to hinder the communication of the air since they are all pervious Yet I cannot but grant that the water may which if it doth it doth only diminish the strength of the Needles Vergency but doth not quite abolish it unless the air within begins to be incrassated by water entring in vapours and then its circular motion and consequently the Needles Vergency is quite lost and abolished Wherefore I conclude That the air in the Box although under water doth continue in a circular motion because of its detention from a center untill it is incrassated by water XII But before I come too near to the conclusion of this Chapter let me take the leasure to balance what Cartesius sets down upon this matter After the enumeration of the properties of the Magnete he observes that there are striated particles that are sent down from the South part of Heaven and bowed quite into another kind of shape different from those that rain down from the North whence it is that the one cannot enter into those Channels and passages which the other can He further observes that the South particles do pass directly from their seat through the midst of the earth and when passed return back again with the air that is cast about the earth because the passages through which they pass are such that they cannot return back again through the same The like is to be understood of those particles that press through the earth from the North. In the mean time as many new parts as there do alwaies come on from the South and North part of the Heavens so many there do return or fall back through the East and West parts of the Heavens or else are dispersed in their journey and lose their Figures not in passing the middle Region of the earth because there their passages are made fit for them through which they flow very swiftly without any hinderance but in returning through the air water and other bodies of the outward earth wherein they find no such passages they are moved with much more difficulty and do constantly meet with particles of the second and third Element by which they labouring to expel them are sometimes diminisht Now in case these striated particles hit against the Loadstone lying in its natural position then they find a clear passage and go through because he saith a Loadstone is pervious in the same manner as the earth is and therefore calleth the Earth also a Magnete The Poles of the Loadstone he states to be the middle points of its passages on both ends That which is the middle point between those passages that are disposed to receive the particles descending from the North part of the Heavens is the North Pole and its opposite point is the South Pole But when the striated particles that come from the Poles of the Earth hit against the passages of the Magnete lying athwart then they do by that force which they have of persevering in their motion according to right Lines impell it untill they have reduced it to its natural position and so they effect that its South Pole provided it be not detained by any external force turns towards the North Pole of the Earth and its North Pole towards the South Pole of the Earth Because those particles that tend from the North Pole of the Earth through the air to the South came first from the South part of the Heavens through the midst of the earth and the others that return to the North came from the North. Here you have the chief of the forementioned Authors fansie upon the demonstration of the properties of the Loadstone In the first place how can any one probably conceive that there are striated parts sent down from Heaven for consider the immense distance which he agrees to the interposition of thick clouds filled up with dense exhalations and the continuous depth of the air Is not the air potent enough to dissolve all bodies contained within its bowels doth it not dissolve the thick frozen clouds into snow hail and thick rain Doth it not dissolve the coagulated exhalations of the earth that are so tenacious Much more those striated parts which he himself confesses are dissipated at their return through the force of the ambient air that in so short a time passage Why should these striated particles descend more from the polar Regions of the Heavens than from the East and West parts Are not the Poles of the Heavens immoveable of the least efficacy Are not those parts of the Firmament alwaies discerned to be clearest and most freed from obscure bodies Is not the North and South air so much condensed and congealed that it is impossible for it to give passage to such subtil bodies as the pores of the Magnet do require I say impossible to subtil bodies because they need force to press through and so much the more because they are discontinuated But had our Author asserted them to rain down from the East and West parts where the air is thinnest and less nebulous and where the Coelestial bodies exercise their greatest influences it would have deserved a freer reception but then his Chimera would have been rendred monstrous and unfit to explain the reasons of the Magnetical vertues The south streaks saith he are intorted in a form different from those of the North whence had he that news what Because one Pole of the Magnete inclineth to the North and the other to the South therefore these streaks must needs be sent down from the North and South Is this a Mathematical Demonstration to conclude
ground into whose room a great depth of water is succeeded undermining it all about The Island Ferro is not irrigated atop with any fluent moisture as Lake River or Springs except only with the abundant droppings of a tree drawing moisture from a great depth or by collecting the dew of the air which sufficeth to quench the thirst of all the Inhabitants and their Cattel because consisting throughout of high Mountains their sand lying very close deep and heavy doth detain the water underneath them The earth is much more depressed under the torrid Zone and as much more raised towards the Poles because the Ocean being gathered into a vast body under the forementioned Zone depresseth all the land under it and near to it with one collected and united force of weight towards the Poles which doth undoubtedly assure me that under both Poles Artick and Antartick the firm land doth stick out far above the waters And questionless Greenland is protracted quite throughout the Northern polar Region The Mountain Serra Leona in AEthiopia bearing up to the height of the clouds wherewith the top is alwaies beset although raised within the torrid Zone is suffulted by a great gulph collected through the meeting of two or more parts of the Sea under ground And whole Africa seems to be inflated into high mountains from the limits of AEgypt until the farthest part of the Atlantick mountain through communication of Lakes which again arise out of the concourse of waters propelled from the Mediterranean Eruthrean AEthiopian and Atlantick Seas Arabia is likewise lofty through hills vaunting upon waters immitted from the Persian and Arabian Gulphs Muscovia and Lithuania are for the greater part Champian Countries because their soil is too much soakt for to be raised up into hills 2. By reason of the multiplicity of Lakes and Rivers through which the subterraneous waters are vented Sweden Norway Scania are very abundantly watered with Lakes and Rivers the Sea upon those Coasts exceeds in depth the length of Ships Cables The reason is because those waters are very much intended in their pressure downwards through the vast number of cold and frosty minima's raining down from the North Pole VIII Before I digress from the subject of this Chapter I am only to shew you the possibility of Marin waters their pressure out from the depth of the Ocean in to the innermost parts of the earth This I shall easily accomplish in mentioning that the force of fresh waters within the land have moulded through the ground the length of many Leagues if so the same is much more possible to salt water The River Niger bores through a heavy dense and deep ground the length of 60 miles before it evacuates it self into the Lake Borno The River Nuba doth likewise force a Cavern many miles long into the earth The Spaniards vaunt excessively of a long Bridge whereon ten thousand Goats and Sheep reap their pasture and is nothing else but the passing of the River Anas alias Guadiana the dimension of 8 or 9 Leagues underground beginning to disappear near Medelina The Tigris runs her self under ground on one side of the mount Taurus and comes up again on the other side and beyond the Lake Thorpes hides it self again within the earth 18 miles further Camden in his Britannia makes observation of the River Mole in Surrey diving under ground near white hill and appearing again a mile or two thence near Letherhed bridge Historians tell us that the Alphaeus floats secretly under ground as far as Sicily where with its appearance makes choice of a new name viz. Arethusa famous for gulping up of offals that had been cast into the Alphaeus at the Olimpick Games usual every fifth year The Danow runs some miles under ground before it flows into the Sava Upon the top of the mount Stella is a certain Lake near 12 Leagues distant from the Sea which oft vomits up wracks of Ships that were cast away at Sea 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 Fountain of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epyrus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 1. THe Fountains of Thrace Arcadia Sarmatia Armenia Lydia and Sicilia are deleterious through the permixtion of crude arsernical juyces transpiring out of the earth The same causes operate the same effects in the Founts of Wolchenstein Valentia Berosus c. The Lethe of Boeotia owes its effects to crude Mercurial vapours immixt within its substance Another in the same Countrey produceth a contrary effect through a succinous exhalation The Fountains of Cea and Susae differ little in causality from the Lethe The Lincystis inebriates the brain through repletion by sulphurous exhalations The Fountain of Arania makes use of crude nitrous juyces for the accomplishing of its effects The Fountain which Solinus affirms to conduce to foecundity must be a thorowly attenuated and well concocted water like to that of the Nile The other opposite to this in operation must be very Saturnal A sulphureous Nitre or a mixture of Sulphur and Nitre into one close juyce dispersed through the waters of the Fountain of the Sun among the Garamantes renders them very cold in the day time because the Nitre then predominating condenseth and incrassates the waters the more because its sulphureous parts which do otherwise rarefie them are through the Suns beams extracted disunited and dispersed Whereas in the night season the sulphureous parts benâ—g united through the condensing cold of the night and condensation of the nitrous particles turn into an internal flame causing that fervent heat The Eleusinian waters are irritated to a fermentation of heterogeneous mineral juyces through the percussion of the air by a sharp musical string whereby through continuation the waters are likewise percussed and its contenta stirred In the same manner is the next related fountain cast into an exestuation through the shrill acute vibrating and penetrating percussion of the air by the lips whereas the walking about stirring the air but obtusely cannot effect such a penetrative or acute motion The Fountain of Illyrium contains secret Vitriolat sulphureous flames within its substance whereby it proves so consuming The Fountains of Epyrus and Cyreniaca vary in heat by reason of the greater or lesser dispersing and rarefying or uniting and condensing of their sulphureous flames Springs remain cool in the Summer through the rarefaction of their fiery spirits exhaling and passing out of the ground in the Summer they produce a small warmth through the condensation of their igneous
motion much more air whose fluidity and coherence is much more disposed to a circular motion 2. Fire is a contiguous body but that moves circularly ergo air much more because it is continuous 3. The uppermost clouds are alwaies observed to move circularly ergo the air that doth contain them 4. Comets whereof some are seated near to the extremity of the supream Region of the air do move circularly ergo the air must also move circularly III. Against the airs circular motion may be objected that the clouds swimming in the air like a ship in the water are carried about with the air but the said clouds do move variously sometimes Eastward Southward or Northward c. Ergo the air is also various in its motions I answer 1. That the clouds only near the Polars are various in their motion which variety is only befalling the inferiour clouds Herein it bears a resemblance to the motion of water near the Polars varying although but accidentally from the course of the Ocean Besides that there is a difference in motion between the superiour middle and inferiour clouds is manifest by the Moons light about her quarters disclosing the inferiour clouds to move one way and those above another way 2. The clouds do oft stream against the tide of the air as you shall read by and by 3. The clouds in the torrid Zone namely the superiour ones are very uniform in their motion constantly floating from East to West IV. The air taking its beginning of circular motion underneath about the Center the Globe constituted by the weighty Elements must needs be thought to be its Axletree whereupon it moves Its Poles must be corresponding to the North and South extremities of the said Globe which together with the Axis are doubtless immoveable and consequently must only be apprehended in the earth because that alone is immoveable Here observe that the air in the torrid Zone moves swiftest because it is equidistant from its Poles and hath the most space to accomplish Where it is near the Poles its motion is of the least vigour and nearest seems to be immoveable V. The proportion of the Element of air to the Element of fire is the same as water is to earth Because air is the same in its respective nature comparatively to fire that water is to earth for as water is a continuous heavy body immediately superadded to earth being of a contiguous weight so is air a continuous light substance annext to fire being of a contiguous levity wherefore then the same reason infers air to have the same proportion to fire that water hath to earth Hence we must conclude that the profundity of the tract of air is much larger than it is stated by vulgar Astronomists and the profundity of fire much less than it is computed by the same phantasticks Otherwise it would seem an improportion and disorder in the Elements not to be supposed The profundity of the air we may aptly distinguish into three equal Sections or Regions 1. The first or supream is constituted by air most infested by fire 2. The middle Region is where the air is lightest and thinnest and enjoys its greater purity 3. The third Region comprehends those thick visible clouds I will begin with the description of the first Region As far as the uppermost Region of water is attenuated by the air so far considering the diversity of proportion is the air also rarefied by fire and as the air doth press down to the bottom of the waters even so doth the fire in it strive for the Center to the extream depth of air but is much more in proportion in the supream Region The middle Region is purest in her own parts because of the equidistance from her neighbouring Elements but is nevertheless somewhat nubilous The lower Region is as much incrassated with clouds or vapours concreased and reduced from its extream tenuity as the waters are attenuated and reduced from their extream crassitude to that degree of Attenuation through air Because those parts of water whose places are replenisht with others of air must recede into the air for to place themselves somewhere Against this discourse Nonius lib. de crep Alhazen lib. 3. perspect Vitell. li. 10. Pr. 60. and others may seem to set themselves as appears by their demonstrations although obscure enough inferring the tract of air not to exceed 25 Leagues in profundity because Comets being generated in the air and keeping their station there do seldom or never clime up higher But on the contrary will they assert the Maculae or spots of the Moon which doubtless are aerial and near to the supream region of the air and other clouds that seem not to be far distant from the Moon to be no higher than 25 Leagues An absurdity Neither are Comets so near some appearing but little lower than the Moon some higher others in the same degree of Altitude so that Comets if any while durable are not seated in the air but in the Region of fire because they move from East to West with the same swiftness that other lucid bodies do that are contained in the fiery Region CHAP. XV. Of the production of Clouds 1. What a cloud is how generated its difference How a Rainbow is produced Whether there appeared any Rainbows before the Floud 2. The generation of Rain 3. How Snow and Hail are engendred 4. The manner of generation of Winds 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 I. Nubes a cloud is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to swim because a cloud seems to swim in the air A Cloud is an aerial body engendred out of air incrassated by water and somewhat condensed by earth Its kinds are very various differing in mixture magnitude equality colour situation and motion Some appear disrupted discontinuated others intire uniform Some are great others small some even flat hollow unequal others are black red blew brown luminous dark others of various colours reflecting Rainbows Some are situated in the North South c. Others move uniformly difformly swift slow Eastward Westward c. Their generation is thus the air and fire irrupting incessantly into the earth and water are after their arrival thither shut in and cut off from their bodies and being violently compressed from all sides are forced by the over-powring of the weighty Elements to return to their former region whereunto they after some contention do yield yet not without carrying away a measure of water and earth closely adhering to them These retroceding particles as they come out give entrance to other air attempting an irruption with its body whereby they are elevated continually untill they are arrived to that part of the Region of the air where it is least infested with the fiery Element Here the air finding it self strongest and least oppressed
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
any further to propose the Opinions of others concerning the first Principles Elements and Constitution of natural Bodies Baptista van Helmont impropriating the knowledge of true Philosophy and Physick to himself alone cals Hippocrates Galen Aristotle and all other wise men Fooles and terms their Dictates figments but withal propounds new foundations of Philosophy and Physick threatning a great danger to those who did obstinately adhere to their Tenents and promising an infinite treasure to such as should receive his Wherefore I shall first contractly relate his Philosophick Principles then examine them Fol. 33. of his Ort. Med. Dist. 3. He reproves the heathens for falsly teaching the Number of Elements to be four as also for asserting three Principles to wit Matter Form and Privation All things saith he are idle empty and dead and therefore stand only in need of a vital and seminal Principle which besides life have also an order in them He denieth the four Genders of Causes the first matter the causality of a form receiving it for an effect alone Further he states only two causes namely Matter and her internal Agent Efficient or Archeus In the same place he terms Matter a co-agent not a subject which he saith was improperly attributed to her by Philosophers And in Dist. 21. he denieth the congress of the four Elements yea not of two of them to concur to the constitution of mixt bodies His two Causes or Principles he cals bodies in one place in another as you may read below he detracts it from the latter The first of the said Principles is called ex quo out of which the latter per quod through which Dist. 23. he concludes water to be a beginning out of which initium ex quo and the Ferment to be the seminal beginning through which that is Disposing whence the Semen Seed is immediately produced in the matter which it having acquired becometh through it life or the media materia the middle matter of that being extending to the period of the thing it self or to the last matter Dist. 24. The Ferment is a created formal being which is neither a Substance or Accident but neither in the manner of light fire magnal forms c. created from the beginning of the world in the places of their Monarchy for to prepare and excite the semina seeds and to precede them I consider the ferments to be truly and actually existing and to be individually distinguisht through Species kinds Wherefore the ferments are Gifts and Roots establisht from the Lord the Creator to all ages being sufficient and durable through their continual propagation that they might raise and make seeds proper to themselves out of the water to wit wherein he gave the earth a virtue of germinating he gave it as many ferments as there are expectations of fruits Wherefore the ferments produce their own seeds and not others That is each according to its Nature and Properties as the Poet saith For nature is underneath the earth Neither doth all ground bring forth all things For in all places there is a certain order placed from God a certain manner and unchangeable root of producing some determinate effects or fruits not only of Vegetables but also of Minerals and Insects For the bottomes of the earth and its Properties differ and that for some cause which is connatural and coeval to that earth This I do attribute namely to the formal ferment that is created therein Whence consequently several fruits bud forth and break out of themselves in several places whose seeds we see being carried over to other places come forth more weakly like to an undercast child That which I have said concerning the ferment cast into the earth the same you shall also find in the Ayr and the Water The difference which there is between the ferment and efficient is that the former is the remote Principle of Generation and produceth the latter which is the semen which is the immediate active Principle of a thing Here you have a Synopsis of his Philosophy which in the progress throughout his Book he repeats ad nauseam usque II. When I first took a view of the Title of his Volume which was The Rise of Medicine that is The unheard of Beginnings of Physick A new Progress of Medicine to a long Life for the revenge of Diseases by the Author John Babtista van Helmont Governour in Merode Royenlorch Oorschot Pellines c. He might be Governour of himself in those places but not of c. I wonder what those places signified since the people of Brussel admired upon what his Heir liveth This old man in his life-time was strangely melancholy and by Fits transported into Phanatick Extasies questionless had he been of a Religious House he would much have added by help of these Raptures to the incredible Bulk of the Golden Legends but his Daemon turned them to Physick He had a great Design in Christening his Son Mercurius to have made another Trismegistus of him and not unlikely for wherever he is he is all-knowing I was much abused by the Title of his Tract hoping to have found a new sound Archologia and lighting upon ignorance of Terms abuse of words but a most exact Orthography limiting almost every second word with a Comma or a stop as being measured by his asâ—matick breathing The Fame which he deserved from his Countrey-folkes was equal to a famous Mountebank The Church-yard was the surer Register of his Patients His Arrogance and Boastings were Symptomes of his depravate conceptions His Cruelty fell it last upon his own bowels through which he lost his Life for the neglect of very ordinary means This is the account I had at Brussels of his Life and Transactions which I thought was not unworthy of my insertion in this place thereby to disadvise some from a rash belief to his vain words that so they might avoid the same Dangers and Cruelties upon their own and other mens Lives III. But in reference to his Dictates He rejects the number of four Elements without proposing any Argument for Confutation He denieth the existence of a first matter also without giving proof for the contrary Both which we have already demonstrated The form is an effect saith he and not a cause this argueth his misseapprehension of a cause and effect for most Authors agree that a cause in a large sense is whatever produceth an effect now the form produceth an effect in giving a specification to the whole It seems he intends nothing for a cause unless it be really distinct from its effect which in a strict and proper sense may be allowed but if granted nevertheless he is in an Errour for asserting Matter and the Archeus to be causes neither of which are really distinct from the being constituted by them Further it is no reason that because the form is an effect therefore it can be no cause for all beings in respect to their own production are effects and yet
compress its parts any more then it was compressed before but a stone or other mixt heavy body lying upon the ground presseth a hole into the ground yet if as much more earth as there is contained in such a stone were cast upon the same place it would not make any sensible cavity or Impression the reason is because in a stone or mixt body the earth is violently detained and therefore useth the greater force or compression to the Center but earth being in its natural seat doth not This quality may be called coldness supposing it to be a passion wrought upon the tact by the earth punctually pressing to the Center In this sense coldness is an absolute quality in another it may be taken for a privation of heat because it seizeth upon the tact only in the absence of heat According to the former sense doth the Poet elegantly explain the nature of Cold. Nam penetrabile frigus adurit For the penetrating cold doth burn By penetrating its compression is intended That the cold is penetrating and pressing none that ever hath been in Greenland will deny wherefore in that it is an absolute quality In the latter sense it may be taken for a privation for it is the absence of heat which effecteth Coldness yet not per se but per accidens because as long as the heat is in a body it doth through its motion ad extra balance and temper the motion of cold ad iutra but the heat being departed then coldness doth through its compression punctually divide the continuous parts of the body as the ayry and waterish parts of it and so coldness is reduced to action through the defect of heat to balance it This we are sensible of in the Winter at which time there being a detraction of the ambient heat the earthy parts contained in the Ayr do then through their weight press down upon us and being arrived to our skin they repel the heat which being repelled they joyn with the earthy parts of our Body and so cause a greater punctual compression whence we soon feel a dense acuteness thence an asperity and thence a hardness or rigidity When again we approach the fire then its heat joynes with our internal heat and expelling the extrinsick cold parts it doth force the intrinsick ones back to the Circumference and so we grow hot again VIII There is also a Compression observeable in water but much different from that caused by earth water compressing the tact with a continuation and not punctually and therefore the compression made by water is equal thick and obtuse whence it is that when we have newly washt our hands with cold water we feel a thick levor upon them caused by the continuous pressure of the water The division which produceth this cold passion in our tact is not by separating or disjoyning its continuous parts but by squeezing the Ayr contained within its pores which being squeezed impelleth also the fiery spirits seated about these Pores from which impulsion we feel a punctual and acute division so that the passion raised by water doth per se only compress obtusely the continuous parts of our tact through a squeezing and per accidens it disuniteth them punctually by impelling the fiery spirits effentially inhering in the said tangent parts besides water containing some earthy points doth by reason of them excite withal a small acute compression Arist. Lib. 2. de ort anim Cap. 4. and in Lib. 1. de Meteor Cap. 4. seemes to assert that coldness is nothing else but a privation of heat For saith he the two Elements implying water and earth remain cold by reason of the defect of circular motion making heat Zabarel Lib. 2. de qual Elem. cap. 3. makes good my Opinion although by guess or at least we must say that coldness is really in it self a positive quality but wherein this positive quality consisteth he knoweth not but that it ariseth from a privation of heat and in respect of heat it may take place among privations This tends to the same purpose as I have stated before namely that coldness cannot act unless heat be absent in such a proportion as that it may have power over it The same is appliable to heat and the other qualities viz. that they are privations in regard they cannot act without the absence of their Opposites but that they are positive because they act sensibly in the absence of the said opposites But what shall I think of Aristotle who hath soon altered his opinion in Lib. 2. de Ort. Inter. Text. 9. Cold is that doth equally conjoyn and congregate bodies that are of the same Gender as well as those of a differing Gender A plain Contradiction for that which doth conjoyn and congregate bodies by condensation must be positive according to his own words yet nevertheless above he asserted it to be a Privation I wave this and proceed in making disquisition upon his Definition Broath as long as it remaines boyling hot the fat of it is contained within it being exactly mixed with the water but assoon as it cooles it is separated and cast forth to the top ergo cold doth segregate heterogenea from homogenea Earth separates her self from water and water segregates her parts from fire and ayr but water and earth are cold and yet do not congregate their own parts with others of another gender Ergo. 2. This is no more but the mentioning of one of its remote effects for they themselves grant that it produceth this effect through condensation ergo cold is not formally defined but described through one of its effects It now proves easie to us to decide that inveterated dispute concerning the primum frigidum That which doth most divide the tact by compression is the primum frigidum or the coldest but the earth doth most compress our tact or tangent parts for it doth compress the tact acutely and water obtusely only ergo it is the coldest 2. According to their own Tenents that which doth most condense is the coldest but earth condenses most for it condensates her own parts into Metals and Stones but water although it incrassates yet it cannot condense bodies into that consistence which earth doth ergo 3. That which is heaviest is the coldest for condensation is an effect of weight but earth is heaviest ergo Lastly If it be your pleasure to name Earth a frigidum in summo and Water a frigidum in remisso Fire a calidum in summo sive intenso and Ayr calidum in remisso you may without Offence CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualities of the Elements 1. The Second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The State of the Controversie 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilst he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning then a
such a Rarefaction or greater Condensation because it consisteth as I have proved out of indivisible minima's If then we should grant a rarefaction or greater condensation we must allow the minima's of earth to be divisible for how could they either be retcht or give way into themselves else and so it would be divisible and indivisible at once which is absurd The same Argument serves against the condensation and rarefaction of fire But more of this in our Discourse de vacuo IV. Condensation Rarefaction Attenuation and Incrassation although impossible in this sense yet in another are usually received and may be allowed Condensation in a tolerable acception is when a rare body is united to a dense body and because it is then as it were made one body with the dense substance it is said to be condensed Thus when fire is united to earth it is said to be condensed but through this condensation there is nothing detracted from or added to the natural rarity of the fire 2. Condensation is also taken for the frequent and constant following of one particle of fire upon the other Now you must not conceive that the fire hereby is condensed or impacted in its rarity no but that one part pusheth the other forward and being so pusht forward one before the other they are said to be condensed that is following one another so close as that they just come to touch one another Thus we say that condensed fire warmeth or heateth the hand because many parts follow one another and so push one another forward into the substance of the hand so that condensation of fire in this sense is nothing else but an approximation of the parts of fire that were dispersed before 2. Fire burneth the hand when its parts being condensed according to both these two acceptions are received and collected following close upon one another and so do burn the hand The reason is because as the force of earth and water is intended by violent detention so is fire which being violently detained by earth and water doth move with greater force Besides through the latter of these condensations the parts of fire are more collected and united The fire is violently detained when it is detained from moving from the Center to the Circumference Besides according to these two latter acceptions you are to understand condensation above whereas I have attributed it to fire A body is said to be rarefied when it is affixed to a rare element thus they conceive earth to be rarefied when its minima's are diffused by a portion of fire A body is attenuated when it is united to a thin Element so water is attenuated when its parts are diducted through the renuity of Ayr. A body is said to be incrassated when it is adjoyned to a thick Element Thus Ayr is understood to be incrassated when it is cloathed about with water Remember that I have made use of these words in my foregoing Discourses according to the said Interpretations V. The Third Relative Qualities are such as do immediately emanate from the Second The third respective Quality of fire is Dryness A Dryness is an expulsion of Moysture which fire doth by forcing it to the Circumference and dividing ad extra its continuity Dryness in the earth is an effect of coldness through which it divides ad intra the continuity of moysture inwards and forceth it to the Center Moysture is an effect of water through which it overlaies a body with its own thick substance expanded in ayr it is a quality whereby it overlayes a body with its thin substance Aristotle in stead of describing these qualities he sets down one of their Attributes Moysture is that which is difficultly contained within its own bounds and easily within others This is openly false for the ayr is difficultly contained within the bounds of others insomuch that it striveth to break through with violence and therefore is more easily contained within its own bounds So water is easier contained within its own bounds for when it is poured upon the earth it vanisheth presently which is not a containing of it Besides granting this Attribute to them both it is only a mark of Moysture and not the Description of its formality No doubt but water is moyster then ayr because it is more apt to cleave through its thickness and adhere to a body then ayr which by reason of its tenuity is not so tenacious Wherefore it is Idleness in thâ—se who say that the ayr is moyster then water although water moistneth more because of its thickness And as concerning the primum siccum it belongeth to the earth because that obtaineth greater force in detracting waterish moysture which is the moystest That it doth so appeares hence because the waterish moysture through its weight is more obedient to the impulse of earth then of fire But if you agree to term nothing moyst but what hath a palpable Dampness and that drying which removeth the said dampness then water alone is moystning and ayr drying because ayr through its tenuity divides the crassitude of the water and so disperseth it CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three Conditions required in a Mixtion 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really 3. Aristotles Definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt Bodies 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion HItherto we have sufficiently declared the absolute and respective Qualities of the Elements That which I must next apply my self unto is to enarrate the qualities befalling them joyntly in their union one with the other I. Their union is called Mixtion which is an union of the Elements in Minima's or Points Observe that mixtion sometimes is taken for the union of parts not in points but particles and is termed Union by Apposition as when you mixe Barly and Oates together into one heap Anaxagoras and many of the ancient Philosophers did opiniate that Mixtion consisted only in the apposition of little parts to one body but Aristotle hath justly reprehended them for this Assertion and confuted their Opinion Lib. 2. de Gen. Corrup Cap. 10. Properly Mixtion is effected through an exact confusion of parts and their union in Minima's or the least particles the exactness consisteth in this that there must be an equal measure sive ad pondus sive ad justitiam of parts Parts are either little or great The great are constituted out of little and the little out of the least In mixture to wit an equal one are generally three condititions required 1. A mutual contact without which there must be a vacuum in misto a mixt body 2. This mutual contact must be in points whereby every point of an Element toucheth the minimum of another hence they say well mixtio fit
have explained the Elements to move each according to their proportion as in Coction Earth doth as much conduce to it through its contiguous and punctual motion to the Center as the fire doth in moving to the Circumference wherefore the Elements are to be adjudged equal causes of Coction VII Thus far we have spoken concernig Coction in general and as it may be supposed applicable singly to the Elements What remaines is to treat of the Species of Coction depending upon the combination of the Elements to wit upon heat incrassated heat condensed water rarefied and attenuated earth rarefied c. The Objectum circa quod of Coction is Crudity The Species of Coction are accounted to be three Maturation Elixation and Assation Maturation is a Coction performed by a thin and moderately condensed heat together with the co-action of the other Elements whereby immaturity is overcome and its subject perduced to maturity or a temperament ad justitiam This kind of Coction takes place in man who in his younger years is said to be immature and by process of time to be perduced or come to maturity All animals are perduced to their consistent Coction by Maturation Maturation takes its beginning from the Center whence it is that the innermost flesh of Beasts is the sweetest because it is the first soonest and best concocted Maturation renders a mixt body more compact and solid then it was because it consumes and expels the ayry waterish parts which being diminisht the remainder is left more solid and compact Through Maturation a body becomes sweeter as we may observe in all fruits growing sweeter through Maturation whereas they before were acerbous and austere A body through Maturation is exalted to a greater purity Elixation is a coction performed by a rarefied and attenuated moysture that is an ayry and fiery water and the co-action of the other Elements Thus the equality of temperament in Fishes and other waterish bodies proceeds from Elixation Through this thin and rare moysture all the parts of a mixt body are equally laid and through its fluor thick parts are attenuated dense ones diducted and rare ones condensed Assation is a Coction effected from a dense heat acting socially with a just proportion of the other Elements Thus hung Beef and dryed Neats Tongues are concocted All Metals are likewise concocted or purified by Assation I shall not spend more words to shew the manner of the variety of Coction since it is apparent by what hath been said before VIII A Decoction is an equal wasting of a concocted body hapning through the continuation of a concocting alteration Or otherwise it is an overdoing or an overcoction of a mixt body through which it must necessarily be wasted which notwithstanding remaines the same thing or according to Aristotle remanet idem Subjectum sensibile But in putrefaction a body doth not only wast but makes way also for a Dissolution and the subject is sensibly changed 2. Putrefaction derives from an unequal alteration caused by an immoderate and unequal adjunction of an extrinsick influent or adventitious quality to the least parts of one or more of the Elements But Decoction is equal and performed by the same causes that Coction was Or in a word the one is a violent and sudden motion to dissolution of the parts of a mixt body into their first Elements the other is a gradual successive flow durable prolonged and natural dissolution of a mixt body into its Elements As for the manner of Decoction it is thus You must conceive that in Coction the innate heat or whole temperament suffereth but little loss or dislocation because at the formation of any body the heat is so arctly joyned to the central parts that although it is attenuated through the Ayr yet firmly adhering to minima's of earth and surrounded with minima's of water it cannot be entirely loosned from its adherents before it is minutely divided and spread equally through all the body 2. The Minutes of weighty Elements arctly compassing the fire do detain the same fire from exhaling 3. When the Coction is perducted to its height and the Elements are equally laid their forcible alteration ceaseth but nevertheless a smal alteration doth still continue every minim yet pressing against the other whereby the superficial heat doth by little and little exhale whose vacuity the nearer light parts do succeed to fill up and afterwards those of the central parts next following When now the heat is so much dispersed expelled that it is grown invalid to balance the other Elements it is suddenly suppressed in an instant after which instantaneous suppression another form succeeds at the same nick of time and verifieth that Maxime quod Substantia generetur in instanti that a Substance is generated in a moment The reason why a form is so suddenly and in the least time expelled and another received is because when the heavy superficial parts and those next to them are freed from their light elements they move all together with one force which force faâ—â—ing suddenly and violently upon that small part of the remainder of the light Elements doth then violently and suddenly chase and expell them By this it appears that Decoction is natural because it is from an intrinsick Principle IX Putrefaction is a violent alteration of the Elements in a mixt body from too great an irruption of an extrinsick elementary quality which joyning with its like overpowers the mixtum and frees that Element from its nearest alligation to the minimal parts of the other Elements and so do both easily overcome the mixture Wherefore the cause of Putrefaction is an unequal temperature or distemper effected by the superaddition of an extrinsick elementary quality The Causes in particular are four 1. When the intrinsick earth is impowered by the adjunction of external pressing terrene minims which overpressing the innate heat and dividing it from the Ayr first extinguisheth its flame and then presseth it out from its body This Species of Putrefaction may be called a tendence to petrification and terrification I will give you an Example A man who is frozen to death is properly said to have been putrified by a tendency to Terrefaction for the external frosty Minims pressing hard upon him together with the intrinsick earth of his body do at last extinguish his vital flame 2ly and 3ly when external Moysture is adunited to the internal Moysture it doth also cause a putrefaction of that Mixtum through over-relaxing and opening the body whereby the light parts easily procure a vent This may be otherwise signified by a tendency to moulding Those small filaments that do usually adhere to the surface of a moulded body are nothing else but a diduction of the circumjacent Moysture into length and tenuity by the egress of Fire and Ayr. The Greenness or Grayishness of the said filaments is nothing but the fire splending and glistering against the circumjacent Moysture the refraction and reflection of which arising
makes all bodies therein contained shew greater Besides water containing much air in her body suffereth also an obtension of that whereby bodies must necessarily appear bigger then they are The reason why a piece of Money in a Bason with water appears bigger then it is is because the water through impregnation with peregrine air proper thickness and continuity doth reflect and admit much obtended air or light which being altered by the colour of the money doth appear much bigger then if seen through thin air alone Light is diminisht because the air is condensed so that whatever doth condense the air must diminish its light and obduction Whatever body light appulses against it is thereby darkned because the body which it strikes against condenses the air According to this degree of condensation the light is gradually diminisht and darkned if it be terminated in a most dense earthy body then it appears black if against a body that hath less earth or density it appears brown that is to say at the point of reflection against an Object and so gradually in all other This change being wrought upon the terminating obtension by an objected body it is repercussed to a certain distance namely as far as the repercutient action of that object can reach which is as far as until the Air doth recover its proper station If we are far off from an Object it appears less then it is because its action doth diminish gradually like unto the streams of water which about the center of action are greater but the more remote they are the less they grow A Flame is called a Light Lux because it begets light The light begot in the Air is called Lumen an Illumination Wherefore these lights are not really distinguisht but ratione Neither is a flame to be called a light unless when it doth obduct the Air neither is the Air to be termed a light or illumination unless when it is obducted by a flame Radius a Beam is a diducted line of a flame tending directly from the Center to the Circumference A Splendor is the intention of light by a reflection or refraction upon a thick continuous smooth body The Lights begot by the Stars and other flames are not distinguisht specie because they depend upon the same causes namely upon Fire and Air. Their difference consists in consistency purity bigness c. The Coelum Empyreum or Heavens of the Angels are said to be lucid which may be understood tropically or properly If properly possibly it hath a vertue of obducting the air like unto a flame If tropically lucid is equipollent to glorious The Bodies of the risen Saints shall appear glorious and splendid possibly because they shall be more ayry and fiery that is flammy CHAP. XXII Of Colours 1. The Authors Definition of a Colour That Light is a Colour Aristotles Definition of colour examined 2. Scaligers Absurdities touching Colours and Light 3. What colour Light is of and why termed a single Colour That Light doth not efficienter render an Object visible How a mixt Colour worketh upon the sight and how it is conveyed to it 4. The Causes of the variations of Mercury in its colour through each several preparation 5. That Colours are formally relations only to our sight That a mixt colour is not an intentional quality That besides the relation of colours there is an absolute foundation in their original Subjects How the same fundamental colours act 6. That there are no apparent colours but all are true 7. The Differences of colours What colour focal fire is of The fundamental colours of mixt bodies 8. What reflection of light is What refraction of colours is Aristotles Definition of colour rejected The Effects of a double reflection The Reasons of the variations of Colour in Apples held over the water and Looking-glasses The variation of Illumination by various Glasses 9. The Division of Glasses The cause of the variation of colour in a Prism 10. The Nature of Refraction Why colours are not refracted in the Eye I. COlour is a Mode or Quality of a mixt being through which it moves the sight if so then certainly Light is a Colour For 1. It proceeds from a mixt body 2. It moves the sight primarly immediately and per se. I prove it We do distinguish light from darkness and a light body from a dark one by our sight ergo it moves the sight Probably you may deny my Definition of colour wherefore I shall for your further satisfaction compare it with that of Aristotle and prove it to be consentaneous to it differing only in Precision ours being less universal and nearer to sense then his Lumen which is equipollent to colour est actus perspicui quatenus perspicui Light or rather Illumination is the act of a perspicuous body quatenus perspicui is redundant By actus is implied an actuation or motion 2. By perspicuous is intended a body that is capable of receiving or rather of reflecting light And is not the sight capable of receiving or reflecting light and of being actuated by it Or if you will take colour for a quality following the temperament and mistion of the Elements the difference is not great this being a Definition of colour as it is considered in it-self a priori the other described a posteriori relatively and accidentally for it is per accidens to it to move the sight I cannot but reflect at Scaligers boldness who pretending to exceed Cardan in subtility so as he seemed to reprehend and correct him in every Distinction but with more absurdity then he supposed Cardan to be less subtil and particularly about Colours and light Exercit. CCCXXV d. 2. Here he infers a real and formal difference between an Accident and its Subject the contrary hath so plainly been demonstrated 2. That an Accident is constituted out of a Power and Act. The falsity of which is detected in my Disp. of Pow. These Assertions are not exempted from Absurdities 1. An Accident and a Substance being really and formally different and owing their production to one substantial efficient it follows that a Substance produceth effects differing from it self in specie 2. That a Substance is an efficient of a Power and Act. Power and Act being two positive contraries one substancial efficient is inferred to be an efficient secundum idem ad idem of two positive contraries for a power according to Aristotle is not a privation for then it were a non ens reale but a positive 3. Neither is Power or Substance the true matter of colour Not the power for that is like to the matter not the substance that being the sole whole substance Wherefore if neither power or substance be the true matter it cannot be any real thing because whatever is real consists of Matter and Form Wherefore saith he we should say that it hath a substance for its subject wherein it is inherent but in it self it hath a power and act out
dense body wherefore it is ridiculous to opinionate that lumen of the Stars otherwise termed their Influences should be the causes of so great effects upon great bodies as are adscribed to them VI. Colours are generally divided by the Peripateticks into two sorts viz. into true and apparent True Colours are such as do really inhere in their subjects in the same manner as they are represented to the eye Apparent ones are those which are not really inherent in their subjects in the same manner as they seem to be to our sight such are the colours of a Rainbow or of a Peacocks feathers or of the Sea-water because these according to the several distances and position of the eye seem divers The cause they impute to the light Lumen which according to its various aspects renders the said colours various the errour of this Doctrine will appear from these Conclusions 1. All Apparent colours are real and true colours as for their being real colours but few do doubt of it because they do really move the sight That they are true colours I prove hence That which is a real colour must be a true colour because a being and true are convertible ens vernm convertuntur wherefore if it be a colour it must be a true colour or else none for it doth as really and truly move the sight as that which is strictly called a true colour or how should we see it else To this you reply that you do not deny it to be true a colour in one sense namely metaphysically but in another and in respect to a true colour strictly so called it is not true I answer That all the difference I find between them is that the one is more durable or less changeable than the other which doth not make the one more or less true than the other for did an apparent colour move the sight otherwaies than it doth it would be no true colour but it moves the senses as it is and to most mens sight it is the same continuing its duration For when we see a Rainbow its colours do appear the same to all standing in the same place but were they not true they would appear in one shape to one and in another to another As for their different appearances and shapes at several distances and positions is as well incident to those which they call true colours as to apparent ones For a Picture where the colours are all real and true will vary at several distances and positions You will say That a Picture will not vary in colour if you look upon it from the right opposite place where the light is cast in a due proportion I answer Neither will that which you call the apparent colour of a Picture vary keeping the same place and distance And what difference can you then make between them The only difference between them is their more or less durability and changeableness which proceeds from its greater or less compactness of mixture The colour of a Rainbow is as true a colour at that position and distance as of any other object it differing alone in durability for suppose a colour to be altered by a reduplication or over-casting of another colour in substance but the same in appearance as for instance a painted face having its natural colour hid under a painted colour certainly you will say that the latter is only an apparent colour if so wherein is the latter different from the former being a true colour as you call it but in durability To wit the paint wears off and the other abides The same is observable in the clouds whose lasting colour is blewish their fading or painted colours are the rayes of the Sun incorporated with their bodies really and truly altering their lasting colours nevertheless this latter is as true a colour as the paint was upon a painted visage VII The differences and number of colours are various and many for every temperament hath a several colour attending it But as it was not every insensible alteration of temperament that constituted a new temperature saving that alone which is sensible so neither doth every insensible alteration of colour constitute a new colour but only such a one as is sensible Colours are either durable and less mixt mixti è paucioribus non vero minus mixti or changeable and more mixt that is with extrinsick heterogeneous bodies So that a durable colour arises from a compact temperament of the Elements included by extrinsick bodies the other depends upon a less compact union of the Elements Changeable colours are various also according to the lights reflection or refraction and its various incidencies upon objects which causeth them to appear either whiter or blacker or otherwise lighter or darker A changeable colour is sometimes accidental to a persistent colour as appears by the fore-mentioned instance of a painted face Colours are extreme or intermediate Extreme ones are such as cannot be intended or heightned in their action as black I mean that which is blackest cannot be heightned that is it cannot be supposed to pinch and drown the light more than it doth These extreme colours depend upon the extreme or greatest proportion of the superating Element in reference to the whole So that in case fire is the greatest predominant its body is white if the earth its subject is black According to this supposition there are four extreme colours because there are four extreme proportions of the Elements Which are these White Black Crystalline and Pellucid This is made known to us 1. In that Sea-coal consisting of most earth is black 2. A Flame consisting of most fire is white to wit the Sun 3. The Ayr consisting most of ayry parts is Pellucid 4. Ice consisting most of waterish parts is crystalline I will further prove this by reason If blackness be proper to earth and earthy bodies whiteness must be proper to fire and fiery bodies they being opposite correspondents to one another in all qualities The colour which is in water and waterish bodies is neither white or black ergo it must be an extreme colour of it self for since that each Element obtains distinct extreme qualities the same must also be in colours Who would say that water is white or black or partakes of any white or black from fire or earth wherefore Theophrastus was to be blamed for adscribing yellow to fire and white to the three others That which moved him to appropriate yellow to focal fire was because for the most part in flaming or burning it seems yellow and reddish To this I answer That the colour of focal fire is not an extreme colour because fire is not inherent in focal fire in its greatest proportion and predominance it having much earth to obscure its extream whiteness and so it is turned to a yellow or red but where fire is in his greatest predominance and least counterpoised by earth there it seems alwaies white as appears in the colour
of Magnitude or sometimes of the universal Center 4. None but the whole body of the Elements do tend to or strive for the universal Center but particular or mixt bodies for their own particular Center as you may read further in the Chapter of Local Motions II. The earth is and must necessarily be the Center of the world or of all the other Elements within which it is contained like the Yolk of an Egge within the White and the Shell I prove the Proposition If the nature of Earth be to move conically from the Circumference to its own Center through a contiguous gravity and the nature of Air Fire be to be equally diffused from the center through their levity ergo the earth must needs fall to the midst of them all its parts tending circularly and conically to their Center The earth being arrived to the center it resteth quiet and unmoveable the Reason you shall know by and by Return back to the explanation of the manner of the dissolution of the Chaos which cannot but demonstrate the evidence of this Point to you Nevertheless let us consider that old Phansie of Pythagoras Plato Aristarchus Seleucus Niceta and others upon this Matter revived by Copernicus in the preceding Centenary and weigh its probability 1. He imagineth the fixed Stars and their Region to be the extremity of the world and both to be immoveable 2. That the Figure of that Region doth appear to us to be circular but for what we know our Sense may be deceived 3. That the Sun is the Center of the aspectable world being immoveable as to its ex ernal place notwithstanding since through help of the Telescopium is observed by the discerning of the motion of its Spots to change his face about although still remaining in the same external place its own Axis in 27 daies 4. Between these two immoveables the Planets are said to move and among them viz. between Mars and Venus the Earth is imagined as a Planet to move about the Sun and to absolve her Circuit in twelve Moneths 5. That the Moon is seated between the Earth and Venus and is thought to move through its own particular motion about the earth between that space which there is granted to be between her and Venus and between her and Mars Besides the Moon doth also move with the Earth as if she were her Page about the Sun absolving her course much about the same time In like manner are the four Stars first discovered through a Telescopium by Galilaeus said to follow the motion of Jupiter and to move with it about the Sun in twelve years there being besides another motion adscribed to them whereby they move about the Same Jupiter between the space which is between it and Saturn and between it and Mars the innermost whereof absolves its course about it in a day and a quarter the next in three daies and a half the third in three daies and four houres the last in sixteen daies and eight houres besides these they have found out by the help of the said Telescopium Stars which are Concomitants to each Planet 6. That the space between Saturn and the fixed stars is almost immense That the Region of the fixed stars is immoveable he takes for granted without giving any probable proof for it for which notwithstanding may be urged Omne mobile fit super immobili that all moveables do move upon an immoveable which if granted doth not inferre that therefore the Region of the fixed starres must be immoveable since he hath stated one immoveable already namely the Sunne what need is there then of more Further if we do grant two universal immoveables we must also grant two universal contrary motions whereof the one is moved upon one immoveable the other upon the second but the universal diurnal motion of the stars we see is one and the same ergo but one universal immoveable is necessary Lastly He cannot prove it by any sense only that it must be so because it agrees with his supposition and what proof is that to another The holy words in Eccles. do further disprove his position where it is said that God moved the Heavens about within the compass of his Glory His second Position denotes him no great Naturalist The third Position infers the Sun to be the immoveable Center of the world 1. This doth manifestly contradict Scripture which doth oft make mention of the Suns rising and going down And in Isaiah 38. 8. the Sun is said to have returned ten degrees back And in another place Let not the Sun move against Galbaon 2. The Sun is accounted by most and proved by us to be a fiery body or a flame and therefore is uncapable of attaining to rest in a restless Region which if it did its flame would soon diminish through the continual rushing by of the fiery Element tearing its flames into a thousand parts whose effects would certainly prove destructive to the whole Universe but especially to all living Creatures 3. Were the Sun immoveable and enjoying its rest ergo that rest must either be a violent detention or a natural rest not the first because that could not be durable or what can there be thought potent enough to detain that vast and most powerful body of the Sun for that must also be sensibly demonstrated and cleared otherwise you do nothing Neither can it be the latter for were it natural it must not only have a natural principle of rest but also be contained in a vacuum or else in a Region whose parts have likewise attained to a natural rest through the enjoying of their Center It is a property of a Center to be as a point in comparison to the Circumference but nothing can be contracted to a point but Earth and water as I have shewed above whereas according to their own confession the Sun is a vast great body and its Beams spreading and dilating ergo it must be only Earth and Water Now what sign of predominance of Earth and Water is there apparent in the Sun for were it so the Sun would shew black and give no light The Moon is liker if any to be the Center it consisting by far of more earth then the Sun as her minority in body motion and degree of brightness do testifie Lastly Is it not more probable that our sight should hallucinate or be deceived in judging the Sun not to move then in judging it to move all Astronomical Phaenomena's being so consentaneous to this latter Judgment Besides how is it possible for us to judge whether the Sun doth move or rest since that according to this supposition we are carried about with that swiftness By the same reason we may doubt of the motion of all the other Planets The fourth Position concludes a most rapid motion of the earth What principle of motion can the earth consist of Of none certainly but of fire and air which are admitted into her body in
so improportionable a measure that they cannot be thought to impel the earth to the least local motion Moreover earth is of so heavy a body that it is rendered altogether incapable of circular local motion otherwise were the Mass of earth so prone to such a swift circular motion certainly its parts as terrestrial mixt bodies would retain the same inclination to the same motion which we find to be contrary According to the Perip this supposition all light bodies ordinarily so called must be said to be heavy and all heavy bodies light for bodies by them are counted heavy which move downward that is towards the center ergo fire must be said to be heavy earth light because the one moves upwards to its supposed universal center the other from it But this is absurd Can a point move through so vast or almost immense a Region and with that velocity In all other Natural things we find that a Point of any Element hath no force or proportion to move through a span of another Element although that point be supposed to be detained violently Take a particle of Earth which is no point and let it fall out of your hand it will hardly move down to the earth or if it doth it is so slow that is hardly perceptible but much less would a point move If then the earth be but as a point to so immense a Region it cannot be supposed to move Possible you do reply that it is impelled by an extrinsick movent Suppose I granted it its motion being violent could not be durable besides the proportion of a point is insinitely too little for to receive such a most swift impulse which through its littleness it would doubtless effuge Were the Earth a Planet or Star it is supposed it should cast a light which is repugnant to its Nature through which as I have shewed before she is rendered dark and is the cause of all darkness Were this absurdity admitted all our knowledge which hitherto wise men have so laboured to accomplish would be in vain for as I said before earth and earthy bodies must be light fire and fiery bodies must be heavy and enjoy their rest water and waterish bodies must be likewise heavy the air and ayry bodies must be weighty and enjoy their rest for if the earth moves it is certainly moved through the air the which according to that supposition must be immoveable because all moveables omne mobile sit super immobili are moved upon an immoveable Subject All dark colours must be supposed light all Astronomical appearances shadows sounds tasts Sents and all mixt bodies must then be understood to be contrary to what really they are Scripture is likewise plain against it Job 26. 7. Psal. 24. 2. For he hath founded it namely the earth upon the Seas and est ablisht it upon the flouds Job 38. 6. Whereupon are the foundations there of to wit of the Earth fastened or who laid the corner stone thereof Psal. 104. 5. Who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be moved for ever What need there more words to consute so absurd an Opinion But to return to my Proposition That the Earth must necessarily be the Center of the world I proved it above where I did defer the reason of its rest to this place The earth of all the elements doth alone enjoy her rest because she alone doth possess a Center whereby she enjoyes her own natural internal motion but suppose another element to possess the place of her center the Earth to cover it immediately then doubtless the Earth would continue in external motion because its parts are violently detained from a center press upon that body which doth oppose it by keeping her out of her place until she had removed it which being removed it could not be thought to be longer in external local motion since she had recovered her natural place unless we should absurdly imagine that one part should move against the other for to gain a penetration of bodies If then N. Copern D. Origan and others who strive to maintain the threefold motion of the earth viz. of inclination and declination its dayly and yearly motion had discovered that the earth were violently detained by some other Element or body then they might have thence demonstrated a motion but then this motion could have been no other than the motion of water is about the earth whereby the earth would have moved about its detaining body which if it had it would have been immoveable nevertheless as to its external place only it would have turned about and have made several appearances of faces or spots in brief it would have had the same motion which Copernicus adscribed to the Sun Hence it is more than apparent that the earth is the Center of the world and doth enjoy her rest The reason of its rest is so demonstrative that no rational body can deny it I proceed III. The earth may commodiously be divided into three regions differing from one another in purity of body weight density c. The first Region I call the central region because it extends nearest about the Cencer It s Periphery is about 120. degrees its Diameter is 38 â— â— This Region consists of most pure earth and most freed from the peregrin Elements wherefore its weight and density is the weightiest and most dense It contains no mixt bodies within it self because it is so remote that the peregrin Elements cannot move thither besides that smallest proportion of peregrin Elements which may happily be supposed to be detained in the central region is so much depressed and firmely detained by the weight of the earth that it is impossible it should come to any head to constitute a mixt body It s colour must be conceived to be a pure fundamental black The second or the middle region contains in its circumference 240 degrees its Latitude is 191 9 degr This region is less weighty and dense than the central as being accompanied with a greater proportion of extraneous Elements It harbours some mixt bodies as imperfect stones but no Metals The reason of this assertion is drawn from the proportion of the Elements which there are not enough in quantity to constitute the body of metals or perfect stones besides we cannot imagine that the earth should contain any hollownesses in the second region which are requisite as I shall shew by and by for the generation of perfect stones and metals IV. The third region of the earth comprehends in its circuit 360 degrees in its Latitude not its compleat diameter 191 9. This last or extreme region consists of most that is more than the two former regions extraneous Elements because it is situated nearer to the proper regions of the said extraneous Elements which do violently strive to enter her body as you shall read anon whereby and through which the earth especially near to her surface is
were digged for deeper under the ground their labour would be richly answered by finding purer and better metals 3. The coldness of these places must be a proportionable coldness for if the places be too cold then the liquid parts will be detained from arriving to cast up hollownesses by being too much incrassated and condensed whereby the energy of their rare and subtil parts is suppressed 4. The liquid matter must also have a due proportion of the Elements whereby to constitute certain kinds of stones and metals If the matter be thick and terrestrial not containing many subtil and rare parts then it will generate into a course stone The reason of the courseness is because the terrestrial and aqueous Elements are but rudely mixed by reason they wanted internal heat whereby their parts might be divided into lesser particles and so become the more concocted and harder In case the matter be more subtil and rare and that the course parts are united in less particles then the said stone will according to its degree of fineness and concoction prove flinty Marble Jaspis Cornelian c. In case there be more thick water than earth the body thence generated becomes crystalline as Crystal Diamonds Rubies c. In these water doth retain almost its natural consistence as I shall tell you immediately In case there be an equal part of earth and water and these well concocted and intirely mixt together it produces Gold If there be something more of water than earth and they well percocted and permisted they ingender Silver If there be an equal proportion of water and earth and they only rudely concocted and but half mixt it generates Copper If there be more earth than water and but half mixt and concocted it constitutes Iron If there be more water than earth and they but rudely mixed and rawly cocted the effect will prove Lead or according to the proportion of the ingredients and coction Pewter Mercury is generated out of water being rendred fluid through much air and fire containing withall a small part of earth These do not only differ in proportion of materials but also in degree of internal heat and of the temperament of their Matrix otherwise termed a vein from its Cylindrical Figure Gold had the strongest heat whereby the parts were firmly united in minima's which heat did after the performance of its office exhale by degrees nevertheless suppose that there was a degree of heat left the matrix of Gold must be very close for to retain that intense heat so long until the constituting parts are well permisted and concocted As for the external temperament of the climate it is little material to the business since we see that Gold Silver c. are generated in cold countries as well as in hot in moist as well as in dry It is the internal temperament of the earth which supplies fit matter for the generation of metals The Matrix of Silver is less close the matrix of Brass more open than it and so gradually in the others Mines or mineral veines are usually found to be in hills or mountains because these do generally contain hollownesses especially if they appear dry and sandy without Those mountains are for the most part best disposed for the generation of metals that are situated at a convenient nearness to a pure crystalline river Easterly mountains are most to be suspected provided the River which is not far distant from them be easterly withall The clearness of sky is no small token A long Bar of Iron thrust into the ground after having digged to some depth if it changeth whitish or yellowish gives no small suspition of Gold or Silver A long trunk peirced likewise into the ground where suspected as deep as may be and afterward applying the ear to it if it renders a tinging or sibulous boyling noise is a sign of some hidden treasure under that soile That the generation of Metals is such as I have proposed may be demonstratively proved by sense from their colour consistency difficulty of liquation from the theorems of concoction the which since you may easily collect from what hath been hitherto discoursed upon I shall omit any further proof V. The present occasion doth urge me to touch somewhat upon the transmution of Metals The difference which there is between them you may collect from their matter degree of coction and disposition of matrix However there is more agreement between themselves than there is between them and stones wherefore the question is Whether Silver is transmutable into Gold Here I propose the doubt according to its most probable appearance there being less difference between Gold and Silver than between Gold and any of the others I answer That naturally it cannot be because it is impossible that after Silver hath once acquired its form it should be convertible into a perfecter form Because heat is deficient for it is exhaled neither was there ever at its highest internal heat enough to have concocted it into the nature of Gold or had there been heat enough there would have been too much water and air The case is less probable after its constitution specification individuation that it should change into another species or another individuum If the transmutation to a greater perfection of all other species and individua be impossible so must this also But the Antecedence is true ergo the consequence likewise I grant that it is possible to reduce it to a more imperfect and base species that being plain in all corruptions Wherefore I say that it seems more possible to reduce Gold into Silver Silver into Brass or Pewter Brass into Iron and Iron into Mercury by means of an artificial corruption because the finer Metal may be thought to contain the courser as an inferiour degree whence it is ascended but the finer cannot contain that in it self which is finer than it self is Neither can our proposed transmutation be effected by any art of man unless he knew a means wherby to detract such a proportion of the redundant waterish parts of the Silver as that there might remain just as much as is required to constitute Gold besides the work will need a strong and vehement internal concoction and that to a certain degree and for a certain duration It will require also a justly disposed matrix all which I conceive impossible to art They may as well strive to make a Ruby or a Diamond out of a Flint Happily you will object That some have converted Silver and Brass into Gold through the admission of some volatil subtil penetrative particles which were of that force as might be supposed to have divided the whole mass of Silver and penetrated into and through all its minima's whereby the gross parts fell closer to one another and become perfectly concocted so as through their consistency to represent the true weight and colour of Gold which might really pass our censure upon a Touchstone I answer That
it is possible to change a courser metal so that it shall be like to Gold both in weight and superficial colour but then this colour will not be equable throughout all its parts neither are the parts so digested concocted and closely united as they should be In fine this artificial Gold is no more real Gold than an artificial Pearl is like to a true Oriental one or a glass Diamond to a true one At the best it is but counterfeit Gold which immediately shall be dissolved by Aq. Fort. whereas the other will not suffer it self to be toucht by it unless it be fortified by a rectification upon salt Armoniack Chymical furnace hunters do strangely boast of their secrets of preparing aurum Potabile or tincture of Gold Others do through ignorance of the art and want of skill assert the said preparation to be impossible Questionless were the thing of a harder nature these laborious Vulcans would work it out nevertheless their arrogance and immodesty in proclaiming of the transcendent and admirable effects of it doth forfeit their modesty and wrong that noble Art Aurum potabile say they is an universal medicine curing all diseases restoring youth and retarding old age prolonging life to an eval duration in fine Aurum potabile is good for all things or rather Aurum portabile is Here you have a great many rash and vain words the contrary whereof I have so oft seen come to pass I have known it to cause a dysentery through its corrosive spirits which it retains either from its last menstrunm or from its first Dissolvent viz. Aqua Regia It provokes Sweat and Urin but withall is very offensive to the Liver and heart because of the said adventitious spirits That which they call the tincture or quinta essentia of Gold is nothing but the outward rust of Gold which the aquaregia begot upon it through its corruptive quality In summa the natural fixt spirits of Gold are inseparable or at least those that are separable are corrupted by the poysonous spirits of the dissolvent Suppose they were separable from its body without being stained the most we can conceive of them is that they are a subtil diaphoretick and then hardly comparable to others whose nature is more consentaneous to ours as spir C. C. tinct Croci Lilium Antim Paracelsi c. Besides these forementioned hard bodies the earth doth also ingender others less hard and some soft ones consisting of a more ayry and fiery nature These are in like manner conceived in Matrices or wombs differing from the others in length exility and shape Of these there is a double sort observable the one being more fiery and waterish the other more ayry and fiery The first is saline the other unctious Stones and Metals being more earthy and consentaneous to the nature of earth are retained and cherished within the earth but the others being much distant from its nature are expelled nearer to its Surface I shall first begin with the salin bodies VI. There is a certain fermentation within the earth which is nothing else but the contraction of the earth by the compression of its parts upon one another whereby the extraneous Elements are expelled but since these cannot be abstracted from the body of the earth without the firm and close adherence of some earthy minima's they do draw them along the proportion of which earthy minima's and their degree of closeness of union do constitute the differences of all earthy mixed bodies The Salin juyces are attenuated waterish bodies permixt with condensed fire and a small proportion of earthy minima's which do concrease by the evaporation of the greater part of air leaving behind it water thickned naturally through its absence Fire is closer united to these salin juyces than it is to the unctious ones to which air is more close united than to these Many of these salin juyces are transparent through the predominance of water others are of other colours according to the proportion of earth We see that among these many concrease in an angular form as appears in Allume Vitriol c. which happens through the degrees of the airs evaporation for the air evaporating unequally causes such an angular induration The air doth evaporate unequally in that it doth sooner desert the extream parts as being less thick and dense more remote from the centrical ones which do retain the air the longest The first evaporation leaves an acuteness for an angle the second subtilities is being more slow evaporate by degrees so causing a greater obtusion from the foresaid acuteness The evaporation it self is caused by the weighty Elements expelling the light parts through their weight The earthy salin juyces are principally these Common salt Salt gemmae Saltpeter Allume Salt armoniack and Vitriol Common salt is nothing but the relict or residence of sea water or of saltish fountain water being evaporated This kind of salt contains more loose air but less fire than others Salt gemmae is a fossil salt digged out of the earth and is somewhat more fiery and consistent of closer ayr than the former Saltpeter is threefold 1. Is drawn by coction from nitrous earth 2. Sweats through stone walls and concreaseth upon their Surface like unto a white frost or mould 3. Is gathered from the rocks This salt consisteth of more dense parts of fire pent in by close air which again is enclosed by subtil minima's of earth Allume comprehends five sorts 1. Roch allom which is drawn from Rocky stones 2. Which is digged out of Mines 3. Which remains after the evaporation of mineral waters This salt is of a courser nature consisting of more water and earth than the others Salt armoniack is a salin juyce sweating out a certain earth of Libya and concreased under the sands That which we use instead of it is an artificial salt by far of a lesser efficacy made out of five parts of mans urine one part of common salt and half a part of wood soot being boyled together and evaporated to a consistence This sort of salt is stronger than any of the others consisting of a dense fire closely knit with air and incorporated with a watered earth Vitriol is known in several sorts 1. There is Hungary or Cyprian Vitriol of a sky colour like unto a Saphir compact like Ice and dry 2. Is of a greenish colour concreased in grains or crums like unto common salt but withal or somewhat unctious 3. White Vitriol like unto loaf-sugar Vitriol may justly be censured half a metal it consisting of the same course parts of which Iron and Copper do consist of It contains much earth mixt with a dense fire VII The unctious and bituminous bodies generated and cast forth by the earth are Sulphur Arsenick Amber Naptha Peteroil Asphaltos Oyl of earth Sea-coal and Gagates or Jeat stone Sulphur is an unctious juyce of the earth concreased within a particular matrix and consisting of dense fire inhering in a loose
moulded and compressed up into all those great mountains which we see every where about the Sea-shores and into all those great Banks and Rocks which Sea-men do meet withall every where yea some being stuffed up a great way from the shore as witness many Ships that have run aground in the Atlantick Ocean above 60 80 or 100 Leagues from the shore likewise a great banke lying off the Cape of St. Austin and extended near 70 Leagues long Lastly A great part of the receding earth was cast up into great and small Islands especially those numerous ones in the East and West Indies Let us then suppose those said small Isles together with the great ones of the East Indies to be accompanied with great and large banks or shelves whereof some are visible others not This supposition must needs force another from us viz. That the waters passing from West by the North to the East are retarded and partly stopt by the said Isles shelves or banks In the mean time during this retardation and partial stoppage the waters flowing from East by the South to West do decurre decrease and evacuate themselves unto the west grove untill such a degree that they are run off as low as possible at which time the other is at its highest and then they overflow the borders of the Eastern shelves and free themselves from the retention of the Isles by which means the Eastern grove begins to fill and encrease whose swift decurrence of waters being stopt and retarded by the Western borders and banks fils up until high water This discourse may seem strange to you since the waters are never visibly stopt by any shelves or banks these alwaies lying covered but were it so that they proved a stoppage it must be imagined they should lye dry Hereunto I answer That supposing the waters to move from underneath they arriving at a deep grove must needs be retarded through its shelving sides as being against their natural inclination to move upwards This retardation of the water on the bottom of the grove must necessarily cause the waters atop to swell and become turgid or tumide ever framing a round figure atop which is a certain sign denoting the grove to be of a parabolical figure This tumefaction the Ancients did abusively term an exestuation as if proceeding from a fermentation within the water The water underneath being depressed on the bottom of the grove according to its greatest capacity and having withall elevated the waters atop to their greatest height doth now begin to strive to clime up the shelves of the grove being thereunto moved through its own force continuated against the Earth but reflected by the same upwards and propelled by the succeding parts of the water as also compressed and squeezed by the greatest weight of the waters atop lying upon them which compressing is much augmented by the great force of the air and fire bearing against the water and earth for to gain the Center Whence the waters do now begin to flow over the banks of the said shelves making a tumefaction and gradually a high water wherever it comes and so evacuating it self out of one great grove into another happens to cause a low and high water in the Ocean Hence now you may easily collect the reasons and causes of these several properties befalling the Ocean in its diurnal course 1. Every twelve hours there appears a rising of water in either of the universal groves viz. South and North grove continuating the space of 6 hours because the bottom of either grove is 6 hours in filling out of the one into the other Likewise every 12 hours the Ocean falls for 6 hours because its water beneath is so long in evacuating it self 2. The beginning of the swelling of the Ocean is ever slow for two hours much quicker the next two for one hour before the last is quickest of all and the last moves in an equal velocity with the latter of the two first it is at its slowest a little before the pinch of high water at dead low water The beginning is slow because that part which causeth the beginning of the tumefaction of the water is weakest as being most remote from the central parts and employing its greatest force in making way and mounting over the shelves loseth its strength which it recovers when it is backt by the body or central parts of the water following it and so promoting its course with a greater swiftness And being with its whole body arrived to the bottom of the grove it doth as it were rest there for to recover its strength which doth occasion its greatest slowness the same consequently causing the greatest diminution of motion at low water in the other grove 3. High and low water of the Ocean is retarded every natural day near three quarters of an hour that is 34 â—4 2â— minutes of an hour in every single period or 12 hours because it accomplisheth but 348 degrees of the terrestrial AEquator in every 12 hours which doth want 12 degrees of its compleat circuit and before it can absolve those 12 degrees through the beginning of a new period there passeth 24 24 29 minutes of an hour which gives us the true reason of the Oceans retardation every day near three quarters of an hour This course lingring every natural day so many minutes doth in 30 periods or 15 daies stay back full 360 degrees being the total circumference of its circuit and so as it were absolves a compounded period through its retardation in 15 daies which space agreeing with the time of the Moons middle motion between her conjunction and opposition no wonder if the Ocean also agrees to be at its height at a prefixt and constant time alwaies being one and the same when the Moon her aspect is New or Full. 4. The Ocean happens to be augmented or elevated higher than ordinary every Full or New Moon because every thirtieth or middle period which ever falls accidentally but not as if only depending upon the Moon as upon her New or Full Aspect it hath acquired its greatest force of flowing whereby it drives before it and carrieth along with it a greater confluence of water than at any other season This intension of course it procures gradually more and more every period untill at last it comes to its highest after which in like manner it decreases again untill it is descended to its least remission which is upon every thirtieth circuit coincident for the most part with the Moons quarters that is the Ocean at its high water is in comparison to the high waters of the other precedent or following courses at the lowest when the Moon appears in her quarters because the force of the Oceans course is then most remitted Here we may observe the beginning of this intending or periodical compounded course to be when the Ocean moves with the least force causing the lowest high water and the highest low water which
The number of these cavities we must suppose to be fifteen on each half of the terrestrial Globe because the Sea doth in every periodical compounded course make thirty stations or so many tumefactions by which it must needs work it self into so many cavities This supposed it doth infer another assumption viz. That since the Ocean moves over so many borders or shelves of cavities it must necessarily move in Bores A Bore or more properly a Bare is a tumefaction of water underneath moving very swift and elevating the waters atop into a tumefaction proportionable to it underneath An example of Bores you have in the River of Seyne and many other Rivers where great shallows obstruct the floud of the waters underneath But of this more hereafter The Ocean then moving in a great bore must raise a tumefaction wherever it passeth This tumefaction being originally in the middle parts causes the floud by sending a proportion of waters falling through their gravity from the top to the sides as being lower situated to the coasts on both sides which it passeth Hence we may collect that where ever the borders of the foresaid cavities do respect the Coasts there the Inhabitants must have a swise appulse of the floud The Ebbe is nothing else but the waters returning from the sides to the middle parts being left lower through the recess of the Oceans bore or tumefaction but this by the way It is most certain that the Western Ocean directs its waves towards the East but whence this continual course of water is supplied may justly be doubted and although the Eastern Ocean doth constantly flow towards the West yet how and where Mar del Nort meets with Mar del Zur remains to be made to appear Their visible communication through the straits of Magallan or of Le maire or the straites of Martin Forbisher and of Anjan cannot be imagined to conduce any thing considerable towards the presupposed evacuation that of Magallan little exceeding a League in breadth or above 10 or 12 fathom in depth besides the many turnings and windings and length of near 110 or 120 Leagues hindering any considerable course of water The others not much surpassing these either in breadth or depth seem to conduce as little But to make the course clear beyond all dispute the West-Indian Earth is boared through deep underneath by the former compression of the Ocean through which immense perforation the great bore of the Sea enjoys a free passage and rowles along under the Peruvian Ocean By means of this vast perforation the Indian Earth is much elevated and in most places hath acquired the full height which it obtaineth being clome up atop the Sea by many Leagues whence it is that the Land by far overlooking the Ocean doth appear to Mariners three or fourscore Leagues off at Sea 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 sorough 2. Why the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rice of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rice of this Sea I. HItherto we have followed the main course of the Ocean Westward In the next place let us cast an eye towards the Northern coasts where we shall meet the Sea rowling contrarily now from the South to the North then from the North back again towards the South This contrariety must not perswade us although authorized with Scaligers subtility that the Sea is an Animal neither need we to lay hold upon that notion of the Libration of the universal waters for to salve this doubt However I will not think it much to tell you the meaning of it The Libration of the Ocean is the projection of its parts from the Center to the Circumference through a diurnal fermentation raised by the torrid rayes of the Sun or according to Libavius his droling through a diurnal-egurgitation of water out of a bottomless pit of the Ocean called its navil and projected toward its extream parts As this kind of spouting should be the cause of the floud so its returning back into the Earths tun belly or the cessation of the foresaid fermentation should be the cause of the Oceans reflux from the said parts be they Northern or Southern c. The exposition it self of this subject will evert its supposed reality for if such a fermentation were granted the Ocean must at one and the same time move to all the points of the Compass and at the same time return from the same points to the Center But what expert Mariner is there that will not testifie otherwise And where is this Center Possibly in the torrid Zone between Madagascar and Los Romeros where a very strong tide is generally observed but not moving Eastward and Westward at one time if so no Ship could pass without yielding her self to the bottom Neither can Libavius his fansie be admitted because such a Gurges spouting out would cast Ships from it at one time into all parts with an unimaginable force and likewise would attract Ships from those parts back again with no less force and swallow them down into her belly That these properties would necessarily accompany such a vast Whirl-Pool is proved by that dangerous Whirl-Pool in the North sea near the coasts of Norway by Mariners called the Navil of the world through its egurgitation casting Ships to a great distance from it and through its ingurgitation drawing them from the same distance into her throat These Hypotheses insisting upon no sparke of appearance we are forced to make choice of our precedent one whereby to demonstrate the different flowing and ebbing of these narrow Seas towards and from the Septentrional Polar There be few but knows that the Narrow Seas undergo a gradual tumefaction a rowling up of their waters being withal very swift and arriving successively from one coast to another as also a successive detumescence and decurrence of the said waters Now the reason why these waters do not accompany the Ocean from the East towards the West is their shallowness and inclosure between narrow borders For the bore of the Ocean coming rowling down the AEthiopian Ocean towards Mar del Nort is discontinued as it were in its depth through the shallow bottom of the polar Seas and therefore doth only give them a cast or throw in passing For the bore arriving and swelling gradually doth through that gradual swelling squeeze the shallow polar seas towards the Poles in passing by notwithstanding continuing its course Westward The bore being passed the Ocean beginneth to wax detumescent whereby the shallow waters being deserted
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
with bodies discontinuating its substance doth press those heterogeneous bodies together into clouds through its vertue of moving to an union and not through its coldness for air of it self where it doth in any wise enjoy its purity is estranged from cold and is naturally rather inclined to warmth The reason why clouds are less apt to concrease where the Sun hath power is because the parts of the air there are weakned through the rarefaction and discontinuation by torrid minima's These clouds according to their mixture vary in continuation viz. some are thicker and more concreased than others which through their greater renixe are propelled from the others of a less renitency Clouds containing much earth and thence rendred dense appear black if they are much expanded according to their diduction they refract the light variously appearing red white blew c. The clouds through their gradual proportion of renitency being disrupted and sinking gradually under one another refract the light of the Sun according to their graduall situation seeming to be illuminated with several and gradual colours whose appearance is called a Rainbow viz. The lower being more thick and dense than the rest refract the light blackish that above it being less dense brownish that above this purple or greenish the other reddish yellowish c. A Rainbow is not seen by us unless we be interposed between the Sun and the Clouds reflecting and refracting that is we must stand on that side of the clouds that is irradiated In Thomas's Island the Moon doth sometimes cause a light kind of a Rainbow after a rain Touching the figure of a Rainbow it is semicircular because the air is expanded in a circular figure and moved circularly towards us Many do make a scruple whether there ever appeared any Rainbow before the Floud gathering their ground of doubting from Gen. 9. 13. I do set my Bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a Covenant between me and the earth Hereunto I answer That these words do not seem to make out any thing else but that God did assume the Bow for a sign rather implying that the Heavens had been disposed to the susception of Rainbows from the Creation For even then were the Heavens filled up with clouds fit for the reflection of such a light That a Morning Rainbow doth portend wet and an Evening one fair weather is vulgarly reported which nevertheless is very uncertain For the most part it either doth precede rain or follow it The reason is because the forementioned gradual declination and incrassation doth cause a rain Rain is the decidence of clouds in drops Clouds although incrassated and condensed gathered and compressed by the ambient air striving to be freed of them yet cannot be expelled and protruded all at once because their extent is too large and their circumference obtuse whence they are unfit to be protruded at once unless they were most condensed into an acute or cutting Surface Why they cannot be compressed into a less compass and a greater acuteness is because of a great quantity of air contained within them Touching their diruption into drops it is to be imputed to the external compression of the clouds squeezing the internal air into particles which as they burst out do each protrude a drop of rain Or thus Suppose the clouds at such times to be puft up with bubbles of internal air and the diruption of each bubble to send down a drop of rain Oft times with rain a great wind blows down along with it which is nothing else but the air pent within the said clouds and bursting out of them A windiness doth oft hold up the rain because it shatters and disperses the parts of the said dense clouds wherby their consistency is broken Rains are very frequent in the Autumn and the Winter because the Sun casting its rayes obliquely towards those Countries where the seasons of the year are manifestly observed doth raise a greater abundance of vapours more than it can dissolve or disperse besides a great number of clouds are sent from other places where the Sun doth through its Summer heat raise such a great quantity of vapours which meeting and being impacted upon one another and etruded cause great rains at those times of the year The Moon hath also great power in dissolving a cloud into rain for she sending down and impelling great abundance of dense weighty minims doth very much further the descent of drops Frosty minims exercise a strong vertue in stifning the air whereby it is rendred more firm to contain the clouds and hinder their precipitation besides they do also disperse the clouds through their effective crassitude Whence it is that it rains so seldom in frosty weather But as soon as the thow is begun likely the clouds meet and fall down in a rain Which if sometimes pouring down in great showers is called a Nimbus if in small drops but descending close is called an Imber The cause of this difference depends upon the density of the clouds and the proportion of air pent within them Those rainy clouds do sometimes contain a great quantity of earthy minims which meeting are through a petrisick vertue changed into stones raining down at the dissolution of the said clouds Other contents consisting of reddish or whitish exhalations drawn up from the earth may give such a red or white tincture to the clouds which when dispersed into rain may appear bloudy or milky Frog or Fish-spawns have sometimes been attracted up into the air being inclosed within vapours where within the matrix of a close cloud they have been vivified and afterwards rained down again A Nebula is a small thin cloud generated in the lower Region of the air out of thin vapours The reason why those vapours ascended no higher is because they were concreased in the lower parts of the lower Region of the air through the force of the air in the night being rendred potent through the absence of the Suns discontinuating raies A mist is the incrassation of vapours contained in the lowermost parts of the air The dew is the decidence of drops from subtil vapours concreased through the privative coldness of nocturnal air III. Snow is the decidence of clouds in flocks whose production depends upon the concrescence of drops by frosty minima's and their attenuation through aerial particles whence they are soft and do reflect the light whitish It usually falls after a degelation when the congealed clouds are somewhat loosened It dissolves or melts through deserting the frosty minima's Hail is the decidence of drops in hard small quadrangular bodies Their congelation is also occasioned through the detention of frosty minima's within the drops of water Their hardness is from a less commixture of air whence the water doth the more enjoy her own crassitude and hardness IV. Wind is a violent eruption of incrassated air pent within the clouds puffing disrupting and taring the Element of air asunder Hence when
sudden an alteration Wolfgang Meverer in his Com. Meteor p. 140. makes mention of a man being suddenly seized upon on the way between Leipsich and Torga and lifted up into the skies by a lightning never appearing again to any Wine hath sometimes been bound up together with a thin skin through the like accident the cask being broke asunder This doubtless depended upon the incrassation and condensation of the external parts of the Wine through the compressing force of the Lightning impelling the aerial and igneous parts to the Center Wine thus affected becomes very noxious and poysonous through the infection of the Celestial sulphur I must not forget to insert a word or two touching Thunder stones differing in hardness and figure some being Pyramidal others Globous Oval or like to a wedge c. Touching their generation Authors are much at variance Sennert opiniates that they are generated upon the Earth through the great heat of the Lightning melting and afterwards concreasing the sands into a very hard stone A gross mistake 1. These stones are observed to fall down from the Heavens after a thunder with such an acute pressing weight that they are forced according to Pliny lib. 2. c. 55. five foot deep into the earth according to others 9 yards and some would have them press to the Center of the Earth but that is ridiculous 2. A stone of that hardness is not generated in so short a time 3. These stones must then be supposed to be generated without a matrix But to the matter They are generated within very dense and thick clouds whose denser and thicker part is sequestred into a closer seat for a womb where after some time it concreases into a stone And lastly its greatest hardness is accomplisht through the intense heat of the fire united within the same clouds and happens to fall down through the great concussion and disruption caused by a Thunder III. To these Igneous Meteors a Comet is likewise to be referred touching whose seat and production a deal of dispute is made But before I direct my Pen to those particulars it will not be amiss first to set down its description A Comet or blazing Star is a fiery Meteor that is a mixt body of no long duration sublimed into the air generated out of some dense fiery and thick airy parts contained within the clouds of the second region of the air It chuseth a difference from its figure colour time motion duration and place whence some are globous beset round with fiery hairs and therefore are called Cometae criniti Or others seem to be barded whence they are termed Cometae barbati Or others again appear with a tail and for that reason are named Cometae caudati Some appear in a light golden or yellow flame others redish bloudy dusky red c. Some are moved slowly others swiftly some are moved more regularly than others Some appear in the Spring others more frequently in the Autumn rarely in the Summer more rarely in the Winter Some are of a weekly or monthly duration others remain six months in sight Commonly they keep their station without the tropicks and but rarely some do appear within the Tropicks But in reference to their place of production many believe their seat to be in the Elementary Region viz. The upper Region of the air that is according to their meaning near the Concave of the Moon where the actual flame of the Stars may the better kindle them judging the coldness of the second Region to be very unapt for the generation of these bodies Others again allott the Celestial Plage for their reception And among these Anaxagoras and Democritus thought them to be the appearance of several Planets united in company and in their lights Pythagoras asserted them to be Planets but none of the seven Common ones that had remained hidden all this while under the beams of the Sun and through their digress from him came now into sight in the same manner as oft befals to Mercury The first opinion owned by the Peripateticks doth somewhat thwart their own Tenents 1. They asserted that the kindling of all the preceding fiery Meteors was occasioned through the intense coldness of the air in the second Region effecting a violent commotion upon exhalations contained within its jurisdiction whereby they were inflamed or took fire and that in the night because its season doth superadd somewhat to the cold Whereas here they contradict themselves and maintain the second Region to be too cold for to kindle a flame 2. There they proclaime the Solar or other intense heat to discusse and disperse the exhalations in the torrid Zone and therefore fiery Meteors appear seldom there here nothing but a flaming actual heat will do it What inconstancies are these 3. Can any one probably imagine that such great heaps and mountains of exhalations as the great Mole of a Comet requires at that distance should be attracted to the highest Region of the air It is a question whether the whole Earth can afford so much sulphureous matter were it all exhausted Or if she could would that intense coldness as they imagine of the second Region of the air or those thick dense clouds of the lower Region give passage to such numerous and thick passengers Or do you not think that they would be sooner discussed through the intense heat of the upper Region than concrease into a body Neither can Astronomers with their Telescopes discern in them such a propinquity to the fiery Region or Moon but to the contrary a very great distance As for Democritus his opinion it is scarce worth the time to confute it but let me confirm my own I say they are generated in the second Region of the air not that second Region which the Peripateticks have chalckt out but the middle between the lower and upper Region where those stiff and permanent clouds are swimming not beginning from the tops of the mountains but from the tops of the Erratick clouds The said permanent clouds move with the body of the air from East to West and so do the Comets 2. The permanent clouds are alone capable of condensing and uniting those subtil exhalations that are escaped the thick dense clouds of the inferiour Region into a compact flame durable for a certain term of daies weeks or months according to the seat of that Region and the quantity of exhalations Neither is this flame apt to spend it self much because it is as it were partially catochizated through the privative coldness of the air and positive coldness of its clouds 2. It is supplied with pure incrassated air not infected with many dense terrestrial or thick waterish particles Touching its hairs they are nothing else but the light of its flame illustrating or obtending the air contained within those clouds in so many streaks for it cannot obtend it equally all about because it is permixt with water whose crassitude will not bear obtension wherefore it divides
and propelled upwards which commonly tends to the emitting body because the greater quantity of those steams are gathered perpendicularly under the said emitting body and so do return the same way Hence observe That Amber doth not attract so potently on the top of high Mountains because its steams being weightier than the air is there do spread themselves further whereby they are deprived of a return Neither will Amber attract in a thick vapourous air because its steams are detained from dispersion IX Fire and fiery bodies as Onions Soap c. are said to attract but improperly because their attraction is nothing else but an expulsion of those bodies which they are imagined to attract For instance Fire is said to attract water air c. This is nothing else but fire piercing into the substance of water or air whereby it doth expel them into those places which it leaves or which are near to it Hence vapours are seldom attracted or rather expelled into the places where fire doth continually pass as directly under the AEquator because it fills those places with its own presence but are reflected towards the sides as towards the North and South Pole whose spaces are not filled up with its torrid rayes Now judge a little of that most barbarous practice among Physitians in applying Reddishes Salt leaven yea Epispastick Plasters to the Wrists and Feet of Feaverish Patients What rage what torments are poor men put to how are their Feavers Paraphrensies exacerbated through their diabolical practice These things do not attract without piercing into a mans Veins and Arteries and through their greater force of heat and violence do protrude the less heat of the body and by a short stay do put the whole body into a consuming fire How many men have I seen murthered in that manner 'T is true in malignant and Pestilential Feavers they have their use but not in single putrid ones Now by what hath been proposed in this Paragraph we may easily apprehend the manner of all water-works and of raising water higher than its source as that which is performed by the invention of Archimedes through a brazen or leaden Serpent or by wheels impelling water into Pipes c. Hence we may also conceive the manner of the attraction or rather expulsion of the degrees of water in a Thermometer or invention to measure the degrees of heat and cold and the differences of them in several Rooms Towns Seasons of the year c. The Instrument is nothing but a long glass Pipe towards the end somewhat turning up being left open for to poure in any liquor which according to the rarefaction or condensation of the air contained within the Pipe above will either ascend or descend in so many more or less degrees as the air is altered by rarefaction through the heat of the ambient air or condensation through the cold minims of earth within the said ambient air compressing the water more or less through its increase of quantity Touching the Magdenburg Invention the air is attracted outwards in the same manner as we have explained the attraction of water by a water-spout namely by a continuation cohesion and adhesion to the Sucker The air attracted out of the capacity of the Receiver doth also through the same means attract air and fire inhering in the rarefied and attenuated water without in the koop that again in the koop attracts air from without for to fill up its spaces which is as ready to press in because that air which was pumped out of the capacity wants room without This succession of air is continuated by pumping untill the air within is quite filled up with the incrassated air attracted from without whose thickness will not suffer it self to be pumped out any longer so that as the air within begins to be incrassated so the pumping without falls harder and harder Towards the latter end there seems to be a forcible retraction of the Sucker making a great noise through its return because the capacity of the Receiver being replenisht to the very pores of the glass which being rendred somewhat flexible through the passing and tumefying of the incrassated and rarefied air afterwards beginning to condense through greater access of fire is violently through the great external force of the pumping somewhat forced to bend or yield inwards whose renitency and force to return retracts the Sucker through continuation and cohesion of the incrassated air Next we are to pursue the manner of acceleration of weighty bodies downwards It is certain that a natural mixt weighty body falling directly down from atop without interruption to the bottom doth acquire a greater celerity the further it recedes from the beginning of its descent because the lower or farther it descends through propulsion of the superiour air the more and the greater body viz. of air under it it compresses which for to prevent the penetration of its own body is the more and violenter irritated to run round about the descending weighty body for to recover the place left by the said body where arriving doth as it were rebound against the superiour parts of the air which doth very much intend the celerity of the said bodies motion and the same gradually increasing doth also gradually accelerate the descending body the further it falls Some are of opinion that the acceleration of descending bodies is caused by Atoms falling down from the Celestial Orbs which as they do more and more encrease by being retained by the descending body do likewise more and more accelerate its descent This can scarce be because those Atoms reflecting and returning from the Surface of the Terrestrial Globe are in greater number underneath the body than above ergo according to that manner of reasoning a body falling from on high should rather be gradually retarded 3. A body should also fall swifter in the Winter than in the Summer in cold Countries than in hot because those Atoms are most numerous there but the contrary is true Ergo no true consequence In like manner do light bodies acquire a greater swiftness in ascending the higher they are propelled whence it is that Fowl flying high move much swifter than below Retardation is caused through causes opposite to these now mentioned X. Projection is whereby a body is moved swifter by the forcible impulse of the Projector than it would do otherwise Thus an Arrow is swiftly moved out of a Bow or a stone being cast out of the hand because of the force of the impulse of the Projector The cause of the intention of this impulse is the great swiftness of the said impulse at the beginning whereby the air is swiftly propelled before whose most swift return about the sides of the body projected causes the continuation of the swiftness of the first impulse but gradually diminishing by how much the further it recedes from the beginning A ball projected out of a Canon is propelled with that swiftness because of the swiftness of
extended bodies wherein many knobs seem to be unequally coagulated through the unequal proportion of the mixture of the vapours even so are these evaporations coagulated into long large bodies within which again other coagulations are effected of unequal proportions rising like so many knobs of various magnitudes which constitute the fixed Stars well deserving the Epithete of being fixed or fastned in those vast igneous clouds We diduct hence 1. That the fixed Stars are smaller than the Planets because their matter is the overplus of the Planets 2. That they were formed after the Planets because their matter must be arrived to the first Region before the subtiler parts could appel to the second Region for the matter of others 3. That the difference between the loose and fixed Stars is no other than that these latter consist of a more compact flame than the others and thence we may also collect them to be more durable V. But to make pursuit of the manner of ventilation of the Stars The fiery minims striking down vehemently upon them because they are screwed up more and more by the continual access of new coagulations impelled into the said Stars must necessarily be intended in their force upon them for to recover their place and continuation These then striking from all sides through those Celestial mixt bodies do expell shake down and effuse continually great showers of those torrid minims consisting of condensed fire which are accelerated likewise in their descent through the depression of the air These as they pass do heat the air especially in the lower Region because of the density of the clouds and air staying their beams And 2. Because of their reflection from the earth These fiery showers do scarce reach any farther than the temperate Zones Where they rain down perpendicularly there they leave marks of their heat where obliquely there of warmth only but the air within the Polars is not sensible of so much as their warmth These showers do fall down sometimes in a greater confluence than others whence they cast a greater heat which happens through their meeting and being united with more aerial matter or igneous clouds or else through want of shelter under dense clouds in the air or thirdly by uniting their showers with those of other Planets Hence we may observe That the Sun is the hottest body in the Heavens and therefore the loosest and the softest 2. That the Moon and the other Stars consist of a less soft consistency 3. That the fixed Stars as they do heat but little so they dissolve but little and therefore must be of a yet less soft consistency 4. That the fiery clouds being supposed globous and therefore profound do harbour many invisible lights whereof some do happen sometimes to be detruded out of their seat downwards that is towards the earth through the continuated and exuperant force of the superiour parts of the Element of fire This is seldom observed but in the lower Region of the fire because that Element doth use its greatest force there as being near to the place of strife for its Center and most pincht there by the obtruded igneous clouds These new appearing Lights do sometimes keep within sight for eight or ten Months some longer others shorter and afterwards disappear again whence they come under the notion of Comets agreeing in nothing with them except in their disappearing after a certain times lustre The cause of their disappearance I impute to the bearing up of the air upwards by the inferiour fiery rayes and carrying those dislocated Stars out of sight again where they are included within a dense igneous cloud 5. New Stars are oft generated within the bulk of the foresaid clouds whose smalness and close inclusion doth render them invisible Others again are dissolved through being over-powered by the force of the fiery Element 6. The Galaxia or milky-way is nothing but a great number of small dusky lights or inequalities coagulated out of the grosser part of the peregrin Elements of the lower igneous Region VI. Lastly Like as you see that the Element of water which naturally consisteth of the greatest thickness is reduced to that tenuity through such a great proportion of air and that the air is from the greatest tenuity incrassated through such a quantity of water and earth into clouds throughout its whole body even the same we must imagine of fire viz. that it is reduced from the greatest rarity to a condensation and attenuation into large igneous clouds throughout its body through the vast admixture of air somewhat incrassated and condensed These clouds in the lower Region are diducted and separated into many thick and profound ones in the second Region into those of a great tenuity but more cohering Thus we have briefly exposed to your view the commerce of fire with the other Elements and for your better understanding have caused this Scheme to be inserted where you have the universal flames striking downwards for a Center whereas after the first knock it flamed upwards in the Chaos because it moved from its own Center The proportions of fire and air to both the other Elements although not very exactly cut according to my Copy yet comes near to it The Stars are there represented according to their several Regions wherein they are seated The motion of the heavens is likewise there exhibited as we have demonstrated it in the preceding Paragraphs All which with many others insisted upon in this and the subsequent Chapter you have here plainly proposed CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of fire 1. Where the Poles of the Heavens are 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Mediety 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 8. Whence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens 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 I. I have formerly discoursed upon the motion of the Heavens from East to West assigning the violent detention from their Center for the cause of it I shall repeat nothing more of it than put you in mind that nothing can move circularly except upon two immoveable points which are therefore named the Poles from sustaining their body The immobility which we observe in this our Hemisphere near the Bear Stars perswades us to take it for the North or Arctick Pole to which the South
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
her light or shadow that is a lesser light in comparison to that of the Sun doth according to our rule of light extend to a far greater bigness than her self is Whence it appears that for all their Mathematical Demonstrations the Moon may be bigger or lesser than the Earth VIII However the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth because of its small light which it casteth and other reasons produced from the minorating of the Sun which do likewise conclude the Moon to be lesser than the Sun but bigger than any of the other Stars The Moon is the lowest of all the Stars because she is the least lucid of any and consequently must be most terrestrial and aqueous through which principles she must doubtless yield to be lowest depressed by the fiery Region in that manner as I have formerly setdown 2. Because she moves the quickest or in another sense the slowest as you may read before through the Zodiack which must needs suppose the Circumference of her Circuit to be the least 3. Because she cannot be seen unless at a nearer distance than the others may IX The Moon through her diurnal course from East to West absolves no more than 346 deg 49 min. 24 sec. 58 third 52 four 38 fif that is is so much retarded or is moved so much slower than the fiery Region So that in 27 daies 7 hours 43 min. 5 sec. 8 th she is retarded 360 deg or the extent of a whole Circle She is in the same manner as we have proposed concerning the Sun shoved from North to South and from South back to North a degree and some minutes every day her greatest declination being 28. deg 30 min. and her greatest Latitude 5 degrees But you must not apprehend although I say that the Moon is removed from the Ecliptick 5 deg that therefore she is seated 5 degrees beyond the Sun notwithstanding her greatest digression from the Ecliptick yet she is and appears nearer to the Equinoctial bbbb than he Suppose one standing upon the surface of the Earth any where between m and p I say that the Moon existing in the Merid. eq and in her greatest Latitude near e viz. from the Ecliptick is and appears nearer to the Equinoctial bbbb than the Sun doth in o because the Line from o to b is longer than from the Center of the Moon near e o b. Whence you may conceive that the Moon is nearer to the Lquinoctial although seated beyond the Ecliptick 2. That the degrees of the Orb of the Moon are so much less proportionally as the Orb of the Moon is less than the Orb of the Sun But to pursue the Moons Motion into Latitude Star-Gazers do observe her to appear sometimes higher and lowe in her Perigao and Apogaeo Not because of her Epicycle but because of the Aspect of the Sun which doth sometimes reflect its light stronger upon her and so makes her to seem higher besides the medium of the air being by means of that Aspect so attenuated it must needs produce a prolongation of the object like to a thin Glass representing the object to be much farther distant than it is As the said attenuation renders an object more distant so it renders it also less whence it is that the Moon appears lesser in her pro longation That the moveth swifter sometimes than other times is likewise a meer appearance hapning through the extension and prolongation of the object and Medium So on the contrary the incrassation of the air through the remoteness of the Sun causeth the Moon to seem to move slower and to be bigger and nearer as when she is in her Perigaeo The same hapneth when we see through a thick Glass or in looking upon an object through the water seeming nearer and bigger and to move slower I am not to describe you here the meaning of Solar and Lunar Eclipses alone the cause of their variation viz. depending upon the difference of declination in the Sun and of declination and latitude in the Moon for he being constantly in making his progress cannot be ever met or overtaken by the Moon at the same place and time I shall spend no more time in discoursing upon the motion of the three superiour Planets since their motion and manner of it may easily be apprehended by what hath been proposed XI What concerns the constant equal and ranked motion of the fixed Stars it is to be attributed to the cohesion or linking of those equal large clouds of the second Region of fire wherein the said Lights are fixed moving them equally and constantly in that fixation Their Scintillation is nothing else but their flames quavering upon the obtended air hapning through their recurrent motion or quavering accurss to one another AN APPENDIX Of Problems resolved by our Principles CHAP. I. Problems relating to the Earth 1. Why two weighty bodies are not moved downwards in parallel Lines 2. Why a great Stone is more difficultly moved on the top of a high hill than below 3. VVhy a pair of Scales is easier moved empty than ballanced 4. VVhence it is that a man may carry a greater weight upon a VVheel-barrow than upon his back 5. VVhy a weighty body is easier thrust forward with a Pole than immediately by ones arms besides 5 other Probl. more 6. VVhy a stick thrust into a hole if bended is apt to be broke near the hole VVhat the cause of the relaxation of a bowed stick is 7. VVhether Gold doth attract Mercury 8. VVhy the herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysanthemum Peruvianum obverteth its leaves and flowers to the Sun wheresoever he be 9. VVhy the Laurel is seldom or never struoken by Lightning I. WHy are not two or more weights depressed down to the Earth in parallel lines but in flead thereof come nearer and nearer to one another the lower they descend II. It is confirmed by many trials that a great stone is more difficultly moved on the plain of the top of a high hill than on the plain of a low level ground And that a great mass of any Mineral may be easier rouled out of its place deep in the Mines by one than by three or four on the Surface of the earth You demand the reason I answer That the air being more forcible as we have shewed before on the tops of hills doth more potently depresse the stone against the plain of the hill and so detains it there no wonder then if it prove so slow in motion Likewise is the air of a greater energy on the Surface than deep under the earth where it is discontinuated by weighty minims forced out of the earths bowels in expelling the perigrin air whose contiguous depression to wit of the air being discontinuated by the said weighty minims doth also contribute much to the rouling of a Mineral because we roul a weighty body by depressing it against the ground in which action our force is not only strengthned but