The River Lid by Lidford runs under ground At Combmarton are found Mines of Lead and some Veins of Silver Ordulphus this Countrey man for he was Son of Ordarus E. of Devonshire was a Giant-like man that if William of Malmesbury say true would break open the bars of Gates and stride 10. foot 'T is probable he was one of somewhat a larger proportion then ordinary and so might give a fair occasion for the Hyperbole and that the brawniness and big-bodiedness of the Cornish men may extend to their neighbours of Devonshire The air of Devonshire is sharp and wholesom the soil hilly and woody and here they use as in Cornwall sea-sand to mend and enrich their Land which makes it very fat and battle Devonshire abounds with Wool Kersies Sea-fish and Sea-fowl Load-stones have been found upon Dartmore Rocks of good value and vertue Upon Exmore are such stones huge and placed confusedly as are upon Salisbury Plain and one of them hath Danish Letters upon it directing passengers that way At Hubblestow in this shire was a battel fought by the Danes where their Banner called Reafan in which they reposed confidencce of Victory and Success was notwithstanding taken and Hubba their Captain slain It is reported by several persons of credit that during the late War at the time that Exceter was besieged by the Parliaments sorces an infinite number of Larks came flying into the Town and settled in a void green place within the Walls where they were killed by the besieged in huge quantities and eaten DORSETSHIRE THE Air of this Shire is healthful and the Sea yeildeth the shrub called Isidis Plocamos growing without leaves like Coral When it is cut it waxeth hard and black and is brittle It groweth among that useless Sea-Weed called Algar and is most plentiful about the Isle of portland About Birtport or Burport grows the best Hemp in these parts of England The River of Sture affordeth great store of Tench and Eeles Probably 't is a muddy River Alume and Coperas is made at Canford in this Shire the reason I suppose is because the shores of the Sea not far from it may afford Copperas stones for the purpose in good quantity At Shaftsbury as say some of our Historians lived in times past one Aquila which yet some wil have to be the Bird of that name who prophesied that the Brittish Empire after the Saxons and Normans would return to the old Britans There was never any age of the World but it afforded a Prophet for a pleasing improbability and the greater or more pleasing improbability the more the Prophets At Pool in the year 1653. June 20. it is reported that it rained warm blood The particulars of which would be well worth the while to enquire after because Peireskius the noble French Philosopher contends that that blood falls not out of the air but is a superfluous matter remaining after the hatching of a Butter-flye and left in such places sometimes where no rain can come to drop It were easie to enquire the true particulars of it being so late a prodigy I once had a conceit but I had no reason to cherish it long that this Blood might be engendered of some Vapours drawn up by the Sun from that part of the Sea where the cruel Sea-fight was fought between the English and Dutch not far from this Town and not long before this time as if the crimson'd Sea had afforded a Crimson Vapour to make this rain of But this is not the first plausible error that I have had Query whether about Pool and in the Isle of Wight and other places in England where our Histories tell us it hath rained blood there be not generally greater store of Butterflies and Grashoppers then elsewhere In the Haven of this Town of rool the sea contrary to all other Ports in England ebbs and flows like another Euripus four times in 24 hours for first it flows a S. E. and N. W. Moon and then a South and by East and a North and by West Moon once more vvhich second floud is caused as Seamen conceive by the return of the fore-ebb vvhich coming from the Sussex Coast and so along between the Isle of Wight and the main Land of Hantshire strikes in here as lying in its vvay Note that Euripus in Eubaea is scituated almost like Pool At Hermitage in Dorsetshire it lyes I think in the vail of White Hart in the year 1582. 3. January the 13. being Sunday a piece of ground of three Acres removed from its old place saith Stow in his Summary and vvas carryed over another Close vvhere Alders and Willows grew the space of 40. Rods or Perches and stopt up the High-Way that led to Cerne a Market Tovvn and yet the Hedges that it vvas enclosed vvith enclose it still and the Trees stand bolt upright and the place vvhere this ground was before is left like a great pit The Portland men like the ancient Inhabitants of the Baleares Isles in the Mediteranean Sea are excellent slingers In the Isles of Purbeck are Veins of Marble running under the earth SOMERSETSHIRE IN this Shire the Air is mild and the soil generally very wet miry and moorish Of the hot Baths in this Shire at the City of Bath Johnson in his Mercurius Botanicus gives us this description Bath saith he lyes in a plain not great encompassed with Mountains almost of an equal height The Baths are four the King's Bath the Queen's Bath the Cross Bath and the Hot Bath The King's Bath lyes in the middle of the City being about 60. feet square and it hath about the middle of it many hot Springs rising whence it hath the greater heat The Queen's Bath hath no Spring in it but only receives the Water from the King's Bath from which it is onely divided by a Wall for which reason it is more temperate then the Kings In these two Baths there is a Pump to pump Water upon the diseased where strong Embrocations as Phisicians speak are required for often times the matter of the Disease is so contumacious that simple bathing wil not remove it The Cross Bath and Hot Bath are in the West part of the City The Cross Bath is Triangular and about 25. foot long and as broad at one end It hath not so many Springs as the Kings Bath and hot bath have and therefore is of a more gentle heat About 22. paces from the Cross Bath is the Hot Bath so called because formerly when it was not so large as now it is it was much hotter then the rest But now it is only as hot as the King's Bath or but little hotter It is 27. foot long 13 foot broad The Water of all these Baths in a small quantity seems clear and pellucid but if one look upon its surface in the Bath it lookssomewhat green or of a blew or sea-colour as Cambden saith and it hath a Bituminous unsavoury smell but almost no tast
plentifully because Herbarists say that they are a distinct sort of Pease differing from our common Garden and Field-Pease and love to grow on such desert shores near the sea side as is said before in Kent about Sandwich and Dengeness where they grow every year and never miss Ralph Coggeshall an old Author reports that near Oxford about the year 1187. a fish in all parts like a man was taken and kept 6 months in the Castle there whence he escaped again to sea Story saith he was taken in a Fisher-mans Net A story much like this we have in the life of Periskius written by the learned Gassendus which compared with this makes me give a little credit to that which Pliny reports that a Triton or Man-fish was taken on the shore of Portugal and that another was caught in the streights of Gibraltar But I give not the like credit to the fable of Nubrigensig touching two green boys of the kind of Satyres that should rise out of the ground at Wulpit coming from the Antipodes NORFOLK THis County hath a sharp air especially in in the Champian and near the Sea and the Spring and Harvest are late The soil is in many places good but it is generally Olayie or a fat Chalk And though it be healthy in some places yet by compasture of sheep the heaths are made mighty rich for Corn and when they are laid again from bearing of Corn they yeild a sweeter and more plentiful feed for sheep This County also yeilds good store of Honey and Saffron but the best Saffron is about Walsingham The inhabitants of this Countrey as Cambden relates are observed to be naturally very capable of the niceties and quirks of the Law and those of them that bend their studies that way prove generally the best Lawyers They are also he saith of a passing good complexion In the shore of this County every September is a great fishing for Herings it being the nature of that Fish in great shoals to dance out once a year about our Island and keep its duetime season upon the same shores unless its course be a little retarded by storms and foul weather coming from the Sea into our narrow Seas by the North of Scotland and going out again by the Lands end of Cornwall and taking this shore in its way in September It is reported that Herings are no where more plentiful then on the coast of England The River Bure in this shire is incredibly full of fish For the finding out the cause of this enquiry should be made what kind of soil the head springs issue from and what kind of shore it washes Generally the slowest Rivers caeteris paribus are fullest of fish And this I take to be one reason why the Thames is more pisculent or ful of fish then the Severn The River Yare by Norwich is very full of a kind of fish called Ruffes which saith Cambden have a body all over rough with sharp pricky fins It delights in sandy places like the Perch and is as big in colour brown and duskish above but of a palish yellow beneath it is marked by the chaws with a double course of half circles the eye for the upper half of it is of a dark brown for the nether part of it somewhat yellowish the ball of it black and there is a line goes along the back which is fastened to the body as it were with an overthwart thred it is all spotted over the tail and fins with black speckles when the fish is angry the finnes stand up stiff and after its anger is over they fall flat again It is a very wholesom Fish and eats tender and short and tastes like a Perch One cause of its tenderness I conceive to be its roughness without and the sharp prickliness of its finnes Even as it is probable that the tenderness of venison is caused by the seperation of so great a quantity of hard matter as the hornes of the beast consist of from the Mass of the body This Ruffe is a very rare fish to be found in other Rivers Query whether the banks of Rivers that produce peculiar fish do not produce peculiar plants because the peculiarity of the fish seems to proceed from a peculiar tincture of the Water which it cannot have but from the earth St. Bennets in the Holm hath such fenny and rotten ground about it that saith Cambden if a man cut up the Roots or Strings of Trees c. it floteth aloft on the Water and follows one whithersoever he pleases Hereabouts also are Cockles and Periwinkles sometimes digged up out of the earth which makes some think that formerly it was overflowed with the sea The ground about Winterton like that of Bricatium in Africk mentioned by Pliny is the richest fattest rottenest and easiest to plough of any in England Upon the shore of this shire Jeat and Amber are often found and sometimes Hawks are taken Cambridgeshire THis County by reason of the Fennes hath but a sickly air The soile yields very good Barly and good store of Saffron The herb called Scordium or Water-Germander groweth very plentifully in the Fenns Of this they make that well known Cordiall and Diaphoretick called Diascordium In the Country about the Fenns saith Speed water-Fowle is so plentifull and cheap that five men may be wel satisfied with that kind of fare for less then a half penny In the Fenns when they have mowen their lid as they call it that is their grass which is exceeding ranke as much as will serve their turns they set fire on the rest in November that it may come up again in abundance An Advertisement for Grasiers in other Counties Huntingtonshire THe hilly part of this County is for the plough and the valley for pasture which is reckoned as good as any in England The inhabitants burn much turfe which they have in good plenty from the adjacent moors At Ayleweston in this shire are two little Springs the one fresh the other somewhat brackish The latter they say is good for Scabs and Leprosie and the other for dim sights Wittlesmere-lake and other Meers near it in this Shire do somtimes in calme and fair weather suddenly rise tempestuously with water-quakes by reason as some think of vapours breaking violently out of the earth Which may well be for the ground near it is rotten and hollow The Natives that dwell about these Meers are heathfull and live very long but strangers are subject to much sickness Northamptonshire THis County hath a wholesome air and a very rich soile By Collyweston in this shire slate stones are digged The River Nen runs by the South side of Peterborough in the middle of which as William of Swaffham saith is a gulfe so deep and cold withall that even in Summer no swimmer is able to dive to the bottom of it yet in is never frozen in Winter for there is a Spring in it whence the water always riseth and bubbleth up
countrey and takes in another Which obliged these Birds to seeke for their peculiar food where it was to be had We read in our Chronicles that at the time when field Mice did so swarm in Denge Hundred in Essex in the yeare 1580. that they eat up all the roots of the grass c. a great number of Owles of strange and various colours assembled and devoured them all and after they had made an end of their prey they took their flight back again from whence they came The reason of which I conjecture to be the same with the former For that which produced these Mice in that great abundance was an extream dripping warm year and a mild and moist winter as countrey men assure us Keppler himself belives is the constant cause of that Vermine Now because though God can yet nature cannot extend the same extremity of weather all over the world but as is most probable when there is an extremity of warmth and moisture in one countrey there is as great an extremity of cold and drought in another even as we see that the reason why it it flows in one Port is because it ebbs in another the reason I say or at leastthe cansafine qua non hence it follows that the extremity of of warmth and moisture that we had then in England could not have been without as great an extremity of cold and drought in some other countreys which because an enemy to generation especially to that of this Vermine made them fail most certainly in those other countreys whose Nature and temper is apt to produce them more constantly and abundantly and it may be almost alwayes Whence these painted Owls strangers to us but not to those countreys where the abundance and constancy of food makes them daily Guests very likely were forced by hunger to seek out food which provident Nature had provided for them in other places where their stay was no longer then till they had spent their provision and then ad pristina praesepia All which these flying Pilgrims might very well do without any great notice how and whence they came and whither they went because they are birds of night and travel onely in the dark And I conceive the reason of several birds leaving us and returning again at set times of the year to be much like this either they find that food that pleaseth them here among us at some times of the year which we have not for them at others or which is probable in some birds they delight in one certain degree of heat or cold and as they find the constant temper of the season to grow hotter or colder they accordingly take their flight more Northernly or Southerly and if the winter prove very mild then the Winter birds as Fieldfares c. come not quite home to us finding their due proportion of warmth in countreys more Northerly then we and if the Winter prove extreme sharp then they flye beyond us to the southward yet taking our climate by the way at the beginning of the sharp weather they give a prefage to countrey people of a hard Winter by their early appearing Every Hill almost in Cornwall sendeth out a spring whose waters are pleasant and wholsom That the springs should be so frequent in a barren countrey I do not wonder for where the vegetables are but few and small to spend the stock of rain that falls there must needs be the more left to soak into the earth and make springs And that the waters of these springs though strained through the Tin-Mines should be all pleasant wholesom not Medicinal or purgative I conceive the cause may be for that Tin is a fast metal and not apt to dissolve and communicate its self to the water that passeth through it as appears also by its slow rusting Whereas iron which is not so fast but more apt to rust easily gives a Tincture to springs as appears by Tunbridge wells and makes them medicinal For fishes they have these kinds viz. the Shoate a fish proper to Devonshire and Cornwall it is like a Trout but lesser and nothing near so good as a Trout Peale Trout and Salmon which breed in fresh water and live in salt The Trout Peale come from the sea between March Midsummer into the rivers to shed their Spawn The Salmons chief coming is between Michaelmas and Christmas for till then the rivers are too shallow for them The Salmons are fattest when they come first from the Sea they pass up as high as any water can carry them to Spawn the more safely and to that end take advantage of the great rain floods And after Christmas they return to the Sea and as the spring comes on the young fry follow and it hath been observed that the Salmon Trout and Peale haunt the same rivers where they first were bred The nature of the Salmon is that if in the night he see any light as of a Candle or of Lightning he will come to the top of the water and play in and out The Cornish-men use to take Salmons and Trouts by tickling them under the bellies and so throwing them on the land Sharkes in the rivers Lobsters Crabbs many of the Crabbs breeding in Cockle-shells and many of the Lobsters in Wrinckle-shells as my selfe have seen saith mine Author and being grown they come forth and live in holes of rocks from whence at low water they are dragged out by a long crook of Iron Oysters of wch they hold that there are male female Oysters the female Oysters about May or June have in them a milk which they then shed and whereof the Oyster is ingendred the little ones at first cleaye in great numbers to the mothers shel waxing bigger toward Michaelmas they fall away and fall asunder one from another onely here and there some are fast knit together two three or more in a cluster that nothing but violence will severe them Some people have a conceit that in Summer they are all sick as if the males did breed their wives children and out of season as indeed the milky are But some Gentlemen saith M. Carew have found the contrary by experience eating of them at all times of the year without danger Oysters have this property that though taken out of the water they open against the flood time and close upon the ebbe Yet they will close before if they chance to be touched whence it once hapned saith the same Gentleman that an Oyster lying open did by his sudden shutting catch three young mice by the heads that were going to eat him Soale and Playce both which follow the tide into the fresh rivers Eels some whereof are bred in fresh water and are of the best tast The great rain floods after September break their beds where they breed and carry them into the Sea the other Eeles called Conger-Eeles are bred in Salt water and when they are grown a little they go
The people about this Country observe that when Hengsten top is capped with a cloud a shower followeth soon after The Country men in Cornwall are great eaters of Garlick for healths sake whence they call it there the Country mans Treacle The cement or morter of the walls of Tintogell Castle resist the fierceness of the weather better then the stones The Town of Bodmin is held a very unhealthfull place and the cause of it they say is for that it hath one street a mile in length running due East and West on the South side whereof it hath a great high hill that hides the Sun from it and their Back-houses as Kitchins Stables c. are climbed up to by steps and every great shower washeth the Sulledge of them through the houses into the streets and which is more their Conduit water runs through the Church yard It will not be a miss to add here out of our Authour an odde presage of the Cornish rebellion in the time of Edward the sixth which happened in this Town of Bodmin About a year before that rebellion the Scholars of Bodmin School grew into two factions the one as they call it for the old religion the other for the new and this quarrell was prosecuted with some eagerness sundry times till by an unhappy accident no other then the killing of a Calfe during the beardless conflict complaint was made to the Master and so the play ended Which presage is seconded with severall others of the like nature out of ancient modern history but to impercinent to our design and too tedious to be here related In Saint Cleeres parish in Cornwall there are upon a plain six or eight Stones such as are upon Salsbury plain which like them two will be mistaken in the telling so that when they are told over a gain they will be found over or under the first number A thing that happens no doubt meerIy by their confused standing There is a story that passes concerning Saint Kaines well in this County which is that whosoever drinks first of the water be it husband or vvife gets the mastery A fit fable for the vulgar to believe At Hall near Foy there is a Fagot vvhich is all one piece of vvood naturally grovvn so and it is wrapped about the middle vvith a bond and parted at ends into four sticks one of which sticks is subdivided into two others It was carefully preserved and painted over that it might keep the better for many years by the Earl of Devon being reckoned a fore-token of his progeny For his Estate saith Mr. C. is now come into the hands of four Cornish Gentlemen one of whose Estates is likewise divided between two Heirs An Earthen Pot was found many years ago near Foy gilded and graved with Letters in a great Stone Chest and full of a black Earth the Ashes 't is like of some ancient Roman In Lanhadron Park there grows an Oake that bears Leaves speckled with white and so doth another called Painters Oak in the Hundred of East It is certain saith our Author that divers ancient Families in England are pre-admonished of their end by Oaks bearing of strange leaves There are two Lakes not far asunder nor far from St. Agnes Hil in this shire whereof the one wil live and Fish thrive in but not in the other By Helford is a great Rock lying upon the ground and the top of it is hollow like the long half of an Egg. This they say holdeth water which ebbeth and floweth with the Sea And indeed saith Mr. C. when I came hither to see this curiosity the Tide was half gone and the Pit or hollowness half empty There is a Rock in this shire called Mainamber which is a very great one and yet so laid upon lesser Rocks that the push of a finger will sensibly move it to and fro but not all the strength which men can make can remove it from the place The Cliffs to the Westward of St. Jes in Cornwall have streaks of a glittering colour like Copper which shew as if there were a likelihood of finding Copper there An exceeding big Carcass of a man was found by Tinners digging at a Village near the Lands end called Trebegean Hitherto I have borrowed all I have written save onely my conjectures at the causes out of Mr. Carew's ingenious Book called The Survey of Cornwall published in the year 1602. What Cambden and others say over and above is as followeth The chief time of the swarming as one would say of Pilchards about the shores of Cornwall is from July to November at which time they are taken garbaged salted and hanged in the smoak laid up and pressed and so carryed away and sold in France and other Countreys In the Rocks at the Lands end at a low Water are found Veins of white Lead and brass At St. Michael's Mount at low ebbs one may see Roots of mighty Trees in the Sands which shews that there hath been overflowing of the sea upon this coast hereabout as it appeareth also to have been about Plymouth Haven and other places adjoyning And it is manifest that the sea hath devoured much Land upon the coast of Cornwall towards Silley Islands For between the Lands end and Silley the sea is all of an equal depth of about 40. or 60. fathom Water being about 30 Miles in length onely in the mid way there lyes a Rock called the Gulf. The cause of the devouring of this Land by the sea I conceive to be its being a Promontory lying open to the merciless stormes and weather and withall lying in a place where two currents meet and part I mean the Tide as it comes in and returns out of the Sleeve or narrow Seas and the Irish Seas and Seavern the rolling and force of the Sea being apt to carry before it all that stands in its vvay according to the proportion that its own strength bears to the yeeldingness of the object But the cause why the Gulf rock was not washed away with the rest is because it was of too stubborn a matter and too fast founded in the Earth Nor can I think but that the Silley Islands were once all parts of the main Land of England and the like I conceive of Heysant in France an Isle lying before the Promontory of Britain but severed by degrees each from other and all from the Continent by the means above-mentioned At Stratton in Cornwall grows the best Garlick in all the Countrey It may be old Mr. Chamond before spoken of owed part of the cause of his great age to his living so near the best Garlick the Countrey man's Treacle On the shore of this shire about 30. or 40. years ago was a huge Mass of Ambergrise found by a poor Fisherman a story very famous and frequent in the mouths of several persons of credit and quality DEVONSHIRE THE west of this Shire being that which borders upon Cornwall is stored with Tin Mines
that severall springs and rivulets were quite dryed up by reason of the precedent drought which raged most in 1651 52 and 53. As the head of the stoure that riseth near Elham in Kent and runs through Canterbury was dry for some miles space and the like happened to the stream that crosseth the Road way between Sittingborn and Cantsrbury at Ospring near Feversham which at other times ran with a plentifull current but then wholly failed like the Brooks in Israel in the days of Ahab The Stonehenge upon Salisbury plain in this shire is counted the most admirable rarity that our Island affords It is in this manner There are in a pit great stones standing upright Some being 28 foot high and 7 foot broad in three ranks round like a Crown and overthwart them are laid others with tenants and Mortises Now the great wonder and question among the learned is how these stones came hither For say they it is not likely that they were ab initio placed here by the God of nature because the whole Country round for some miles affords not a stone hardly either great or smal And they seem too vast to be brought hither by waggon or the like carriages The learned Cambden therefore thinks that they were made there by art of pure sand and some unctuous cement even as those also in Yorkshire because anciently there was such an art of making stone And Pliny saith that the dust of Puteoli Puzzele being laid in water becometh stone presently and that there were Cesterns at Rome made of digged sand and lime which were so firm and hard that they seemed stone But notwithstanding the authority of this great Scholar Iam clearly of opinion that they are naturall stones and placed there ab initio Then which I think nothing is plainer For upon the Downs between Marleborough and Aubury not above 20 miles from Stonehenge which Downs are but a continuation or rather a part of Salisbury plain differing nothing from it but in the un-evenness are to be found abundance of great stones commonly called by the Country thereabout the Gray Weathers and at Aubury in an Orchard there are halfe a dozen or halfe a score stones little inferiour to the Stonehenge for hugeness some standing upright like the Sonehenge others lying flat on the ground And the Country here like that about the Stonehenge affords not a stone beside So that unless we wil have all these stones to be artificiall wee must grant the Stonehenge to be natural Now whereas this unstoniness of the Country about which we speak of seems to some a strong objection against the naturalness of the stones it is on the contrary if duly considered a great argument for it For what can be more probable then that Nature could not provide her selfe otherwise of Lapidifick matter enough to make these huge stones of but by robbing the circumjacent parts The more of that matter here the less hereabouts because nature wanting timber would fetch it nearest hand I have no more to add touching the Stonehenge but that near it mens bones are digged up many times The reason of which is because it was the ancient burying place for the Kings of the Britans About Sapworth near Sharstan are found abundance of stones somewhat like Cockles yet so apparently differing from their shape that by the very sight of them one may plainly see that they never were true Cockles as some do believe But of these I shall speak more in Gloncestershire In the Parish of Luckingten in the edge of this Shire formerly mentioned is a well called Hancacks-well the waten whereof is said to be very cold in Summer and Warm in Winter and is commended as a fingalar water for the eyes HANTSHIRE AT Portsmouth in this shire they boile Salt out of Salt-water which is our Bay-Salt being of a pale or greenish colour and by boiling it again with an art the have they make it exceeding white This shire is very plentifull for all sorts of commodities especially for Kerfies and Iron Out of the walls of Silcester in this shire a decayed Town grow huge Oaks of ten loadsapiece saith Stow that seem to grow to the very stones spreading both their tops and their roots exceedingly Also Near this Town of Silcester though the land be fruitful enough generally yet in some places as it were by Beds the Soil is nothing near so fruitful as elsewhere which makes men think that along these Beds the streets of the old town formerly went And which is observable these unfertile beds do intersect each other like streets The conjecture is not unlikely because the like is reported of the streets of old Richborough by Sandwich in Kent The Isle of Wight is a wholesom air ' and the dwellers very aged It affords plenty of Corn and the best Wool next to that of Lemster and Cotswald As also plenty of Conies Hares Pheasants Partridges c. Our Chroniclers tel us that in the year 1176. in the Ifle of Wight it rained a shower of blood for two hours together At Wickham in this Shire are Medicinal Waters It is reported that about Portsmouth is a race of small Dogs like Beagles that they use there to hunt Moles with which they hunt as their proper natural Game BERKSHIRE AT Finchamstead in this Shire in the yeare 1100 as Writers say a Well boiled up with streams of blood and continued so 15. dayes together whose Waters madered all others where they came A story not incredible though very strange because we read of several the like stories touching Fountains in other Countreys in Authors of good credit In this Shire is one of the fruitful Vales of England for Corn called the Vale of White Horse About the year 1348. saith Cambden being presently after the Conjunction of Saturn Mars in Capricorn was a very great Plague over all Europe and then was Wallingford being a bigger and more confiderable Town then now it is almost dis-peopled with it The Conjunction of Saturn and Mars that Cambden means was 1342. 43. in February and it happened in 25. degrees of Capricorn but in my opinion it ushered its pretended effect at too large a distance to entitle it self the cause of it Nor can I believe so small a cause could produce so great an effect conjunctions of Saturn and Mars happening constantly every two years and sometimes though very rarely three of them happening in one year as in the year 1640. in the last face of Libra and if Pitatus have calculated right in the yeare 1542. in the first face of the pestilent sign Virgo without any such extraordinary effects succeeding them And which is as observable as any thing in the yeare 1578. was a Conjunction of Saturn and Mars in 23. deg of Capricorn but two degrees short of the Conjunction 1342. and yet the following years were not guilty of any extravagant Mortalities Therefore I conceive it will not be amiss to ascribe rather
eight Gallons doth decrease by the same degrees that befote it encreased by to seven Gallons and so to six five four and so less and less til at length it quite give over running There is no man I think but wil say that this Cistern wil be fuller of Water when it hath decreased from eight Gallons in a space to seven Gallons and yet fuller when it is decreased to six Gallons and a half then when it was at seven and fullest of all just before it is decreased to six Gallons in a space because til that time there comes more Water into the Cistern at the one Cock then there goes out at the other Even so though the heat of the Sun simply considered in its self be not so great about the middle of July as at the solstice in June because he is descended lower yet because the heat that the Sun pours in the air every day is greater then the cold which his absence causeth by night nothing can follow thereupon but an encrease of the heat And the like may be said of afternoon heats January after-Winters morning colds and spring-tides coming behind the Fulls and Changes In the next place the Thames overflowing its banks proceeds from several causes as from great rains whereby the fresh Waters encrease up the River and going down to sea-ward are encountred by the Flood whence they must needs swel above their usual height of which there was a notable example in the year 1555. when by reason of excessive rains that had fallen all St. Georges Fields in Southwark and Westminster-Hall were overflown Again inundations of the Thames may be caused by boistrous North-west Winds which cause generally very great Tides not onely in the River of Thames and at the mouth of it but on the coast of Holland Flanders Picardy and the shores of England opposite to them And this is because that wind doth with equal force blow in the Tide of flood at both the ends of this Island Westward and Northward as is partly touched before But thirdly there may be peradventure another cause of great Tides and inundations in the Thames which is not yet commonly taken notice of and that is the Moons being in the Perigaeon of her Eccentrick or in that part of her Orb which is nearest to the earth For if as we said before the Moons coming nearer the earth at her Ful and Change make the Spring-Tides and her withdrawing her self farther from the Earth at her Quarters make the neap-tides methinks it should follow but I would have it observed further that if to the proximiority which the Moon hath to the earth by moving in her Ellepsis there be added that proxiomiority which she hath in her Eccentrick the Astronomers call it sometimes her Opposite Auge she should operate so much the more extraordinarily upon the Sea and make the higher Spring-Tides at such Ful or Change and on the contrary that when she is estranged from us by a double elongation to wit of the Quarter in her Ellepsis and of her Auge in her Eccentrick she should operate so much the more weakly then ordinary and at that quarter make a slack Neap. I have observed it somewhat my self and found it hit so far as I was able to judge but I dare not trust my own single observation especially because I observed it not long and never could so constantly as I should There rests onely one doubt in this matter which I profess I know not what to say to it and that is that the Moon comes down lower to the earth in herEccentrick then in her Ellepsis pardon the oddness of the expression for I confess her Ellipsis is her Eccentrick and yet her less approximations at the Ful and Change make the great Tides whereas her great Eccentrick approximations make less alterations in them without doubt and it may be no alterations at all Lastly in the Thames there happens at some times strange shifting of the Tides which is vulgarly reckoned a great Prodigy because it happens but seldom and yet I believe it hath a natural cause as wel as other common effects and would be as common as they if its cause were as common Now for the finding out the cause wee speak of we shal give you a Catalogue and History of several of these shiftings that have happened according to the relation of our Chronicles Octob. 12. 1411. the Thames flowed thrice in one day Anno 1550. Decemb. 17. being Thursday the Thames flowed and ebbed three times in nine hours below the Bridge It should have been either Wednesday the 17th or Thursday the 18th The Historian was onely out in the day Anno 1564. January the 26. being Friday at night were two Tides in two hours at London-Bridge The next day were likewise two in the morning and two at night On Sunday January the 28. were two Tides in the morning and at night but one as it used to be and so continued Anno 1574. November the 6. in the morning there happened two great Tides at London in the Thames the first by course the other within an hour after which overflowed the Marshes with many Vaults and Sellers near adjoining Anno 1608 and 609. February the 19. being Sunday it should have been dead low Water at London-Bridge but then it was high Water and presently it ebbed almost half an hour to a foot depth and then suddenly it flowed again almost two foot higher then it did before and then ebbed again til it came near the right course so that the next flood began in a manner as it should and so continued All his saith the Chronicler happened before 12. of the clock at noon the Weather being in different calm Anno 1609 10. February the 6. was strange shifting of the Tides in the Thames again Anno 1622. 23. January the 3d. being Friday in the morning the Thames shifted four Tides within five hours viz. Two Floods and two Ebbs and then kept its right course Thus farout of our Chronicles to which I shal add two other instances that happened of late years Viz. Anno 1653. 4. on Candlemas day the Thames ebbed and flowed thrice in six hours and the like shifting of the Tides was observed in the Maritine places of Kent at the same time as I was assured by many Sea-men Lastly Anno 1656. Octob. 3. the River of Thames ebbed and flowed twice in three hours For this we are beholding to C. Wharton's Gesta Britannorum in his Almanack Which instances if we particularly examine we shall find that in all of them the tides were very slack and in a manner at the very neapest and which is not inconsiderable that in all of them except two viz. 1574 and 1656. the Moon was in Apogaeo about three or four days before the shifting to make them if possible the more neap and slack And in my Diary of observations for 1654. in whichyear I was an exact observer of
this shire as well as in Anglesey Towards Dee an arm of the Sea the fields bear in some places Barley in others Wheat but generally throughout Rye with twenty fold increase and better especially every first year that they be new broken up and sowen and afterwardsfour or five crops together of Oats At the mouth of the River Cluid the valley on the land seemeth to be lower and to lye under the Sea and yet the water to the admiration of the beholders never overfloweth into the valley There are many things in the world that are not as they seem besides Hypocrites Near Holy-well in times past was a rich Mine of Silver Hard by Kilken is a little well that at certain times ebbs and flows In this shire is that excellent Well called Saint Winifrids Well or Holy-Well so famous for the strange cures of aches and lameness that it hath done The water ofit is extream cold and the brook that flowes from it hath so plentifull and violent a stream that it is presently able to drive a mill The stones about it are as it were spotted with bloody spots and there are many red stones in the bottome of it The moss that grows on the sides of it is of an exceeding sweet smell and they say though some of it be given to every stranger that comes yet it never wasteth Yorkshire YOrkshire being a shire of a very large extent the biggest in England hath variety of air and as great variety of soil some barren and some fertile In some parts of the Shire viz. near Shirburn are quarries of Stone the stones whereof being newly hewen and taken forth of the quarry are very foft but seasoned with wind and weather of themselves become very hard and durable And in other parts is a kind of Limestone which being burnt serves to manure and enrich those lands that are cold and hilly About Pomfret and Knaresborough grows great quantity of Liquorice About Knaresb also is great store of yellow Marle which it may be isa kindly earth for production of Liquorice because of the same colour with it But whether the like Marle be as plentifull about Pomfret I cannot tell So much indeed Speed saith that great plenty of Skirriwort or Skirrets grow about Pomfret but he saith nothing of the quality of the soile It is reported that at the suppression of the Abbies by Henry the eight in a certain Chappell in York a Lamp was found burning in a Vault or Sepulchre under ground wherein Constantius the Emperour was supposed to have been buried Which kind of Lamps Lazius means when he saith that in old time they had a way to preserve light in Sepulchers by an artificiall resolving of gold into a liquid and fatty substance which would continue burning for many ages together There are many iron Mines about Sheffield About the year of Christ 759. the Town of Doncaster was burnt by fire from heaven Some of the inhabitants about Dichmarsh and Marshland are of opinion that the land there is hollow and hanging and that as the waters rise the land is also heaved up And the like saith mine Author Pomponius Mela hath written of Antrum an Isle some where in France About Brotherton is a yellow kind of Marle found which being cast upon fields makes them bear good Corn for many years together Querie Whether the ground here as about Knaresborough would not be proper for the planting of Liquorice The River Wherfe is a mighty swift River roaring and sometimes driving the stones in it before it Though this River have many waters fall into it yet at Tadcaster Bridge it is in a manner dry at Midsummer but in the Winter it is so deep that the bridge is scarce able to receive so much water It seems by the story that this River hath many great shoots into it and that it is fed chiefly by land Springs which run highest in Winter Of the swiftness of Rivers we have spoken before At Tadcaster Limestone is digged which is counted a very good and strong Lime The Abby of Fountains hath Lead Mines near it Near Burrow Briggs are certain Pyramids standing which are supposed by some to have been made of a factitious stone compounded of pure sand Lime Vitriol and some unctuous matter See before what we have said touching the Stonehenge upon Salisbury plain Under Knaresborough is a Well called Dropping-well in which the waters Spring not out of the veins of the earth but diftill from the Rocks that hang over it This water turns wood into stone for wood put into it will shortly after be covered over with a stony bark and at length become stone as hath been often tryed saith Speed Alevinus in an Epistle of his to Egelred King of Northumberland speaks of the raining of blood on St. Peters Church at York even in a fair day which descended in a very violent manner from the top of the roof of the Church And thereupon breaks forth into these words May it not be thought that blood is coming upon the land from the North parts And not long after to fulfil his prediction the Danes invaded England and among other their outrages burnt the City of York At Giggleswick a mile from Settle and a way-bit are small Springs not distant from one another a quoits cast the middlemost of which at every quarter of an hour ebbs and flows about the height of a quarter of a yard when it is highest and at the ebbe falls so low that it is not an inch deep with water The little River Derwent increased by rain doth often overflow its banks It seems there are great shoots into it and great windings in it The Rivers Humber and Ouse have a very forcible current and flow with a great noise being dangerous for those that sail therein Great store of Goats about Sureby And upon the hills of this Shire toward Lancashire is the like for Goats and Deer Near Flamborough Head saith Cambden it is reported that there are certain waters called Vipseys which flow every other year out of blind Springs and run with a very violent stream through the low Land into the Sea They rise they say from many Springs meeting together within the ground which makes their stream so forcible on a sudden When they are dry it is a good sign but when they break out they say it is a certain sign of dearth to follow Yet when I travelled here saith he I could hear nothing of these Springs although I enquired very earnestly after them Scarborough Castle hath a little Well of fresh ater springing out of a Rock Scarborough is the chief place for catching of Herrings at time of the year In our great grandfathers days saith Cambden the Herrings kept altogether about the coast of Norway but now in our times they swim every year round about Britain by shoale in huge numbers About Midsummer they shoale out of the deepand vast Northern Seas to the coasts of Scotland
at which time they are at the fattest From thence they com to the East coast of England and from the middle of August to November is the best taking them between Scarborough and the Thames mouth Afterwards by some great storme they are carried into the British Sea and there till Christmas are caught by Fishermen in their nets From hence dividing themselves and swimming along both sides of Ireland after they have coasted round about Britain they take their course into the North Seas again as their home and there they rest till June where after they have cast their spawn and gotten a young fry they return again as before To this doth that of St. Ambrose agree where he saith that Fishes in infinite numbers swim together and make towards the blasts of the North wind and by a certain instinct of nature hasten into the Sea of the North parts And thus saith he they swim through Propontis into Pontus Euxinus At Whitbay are Serpents or snakes of stone found Query whether the soile be such thereabout as I have described it about Alderley in Glocestershire as also whether there be any difference in the shape colour or bigness of the one or the other Wild Geese flying over cettain fields near Whitbay in the Winter time to pools and Rivers that are not frozen in the South parts suddenly fall to the ground from a secret antipathy as is thought Upon the shore by Moulgrave Castle is found Feat It grows among the Cliffs and Rocks where they gape asunder Before it be polished it is of a reddish rusty colour but after it is of an excellent black as every one knows It is said by some of the Ancients that jeat put into water will take fire and burn and that oyl quencheth it but experience tells usit is not so At Skengrave a little Village in Cleaveland in the Northriding of the shire about the year 1535. a Triton or Manfish was taken as it is reported that for certain days together fed upon raw fish but espying his opportunity he got away to Sea again ans was seen no more Upon this shore by Skengrave whensoever it is calme and the Sea as it were levell there is heard many times on a sudden an horrible and fearfull groaning as it were a great way off at which time the fishermen dare not lanch out into the deep Near unto Hunt-cliffe upon the same shore and not far from the shore there appear certain Rocks about which the Seal-fishes meet together to sleep and Sun themselves And upon that Rock that is next the shore one of the Seals lyes to keep Centinell and as any man approacheth he either throws down a big stone or tumble himselfe into the water with a great noise as a signall to the rest to awake and get into the water They are not afraid of women but onely of men and therefore they that will catch them put on womens apparell When they are chased by men if they be destitute of water they will with their hinder feet fling backward a cloud of sand and gravell in the faces and eyes of their pursuers Yea and many times drive them away making them weary of their design by this means Upon the same shore are found stones some yellow some reddish some with a rough cast crust over them of a Salt matter which by their smell and tast make shew of Copperas Nitre and Brimstone Here are also great store of Marcasites in colour resembling brass At Huntly Nab at the roots of the craggy Rocks that are there upon the shore there lye stonesskattering here and there of diverse bignesses so artificially and yet naturally round that one would think they had been turned for shot for great Ordnance In which if you break them you shall find stony Serpents wrapped round that is just in the forme of the Aderley and Keynsham snakes but most of them are headless The way to break them is by heating them red hot in the fire and then quenching them in cold water for by that means they will fall asunder of themselves These stones if that which I have be of this sort and he that gave it me assured me it was are within of a pellucid whitish matter like Alabaster though not so white and are on the out side covered over with a coat so absolutely like brass that I think they cannot be distinguished The outward form of them is just like the Glocestershire stones with a spine and ribbs The stone that I have is about an inch in Diameter but I have seen two or three more that were near two inches in Diameter I have another stone somewhat like this I speak of but it is not above a Barley corn in Diameter It hath a brassy coat and is wreathed snake-like as the other But it is not pellucid within nor so light coloured and withall it hath no Spine but instead of it four rows of prickles very curiously wrought and it is much bigger toward the head and lesser at the taile then the other Whether it were found at the same place with the other I know not neither did the giver tell me There is a place in Provence in France near the mouth of the Rhosne called the Stone field where several acres are covered with such stones exactly round the like is in the Island Cuba in America but whether there be Serpents in them or no I never heard nor read Gisburgh is much commended for a healthfull place far exceeding Puteoli in Italy The land about it is very fertile and beareth flowers a great part of the year and is withall extraordinary full of veins of metall and Alume earth of sundry colours but especially of Ochre and Murray As also ofIron out of which saith my Author Cambden they have begun to try very good Alume and Coperas These veins of earth Sir Thomas Chaloner Prince Henry his Tutor first discovered by observing that the leaves of the trees were of a more weak green colour here then elswhere that the Oaks had their roots spreading broad but very ebbe or shallow within the earth which had much strength but small store of sap and that the earth standing upon clay and being of diverse colours whitish yellowish and blew was never frozen and in a clear night glittered in the paths like glass Almost at the top of Roseberry-topping a very high hill hard by Gilsburgh there is a Spring of water coming out of a huge Rock medicinable for fore eyes It is likely to be an oily water When Roseberry-topping hath a cloudy cap on there commonly follows rain Whence this rimeing Proverb is very frequent with the people When Roseberry-topping wears a Cap Let Cleaveland then beware a clap The River Recall hides it self under ground near Elmesly in this Riding Abundance of Springs rise together at Hinderskell a little Castle near Sherry-Hutton Castle The hills in Richmondshire are well stored with Lead Copper and Pit-Coals And on the
tops of these hills stones have been found like Sea-winkles Cockles and other fish Which saith Cambden are either naturall or else are the reliques of Noahs flood petrified Orosius speaks as much of Oysters of stone found upon hills far from the Sea which have been eaten in hollow with the water In all likelyhood these stone-fishes are of the same kind with ours in Glocestershire Plenty of Lead-stones in Wentsedale The River Ure is full of Creafishes but the breed was brought thither out of the South parts of England by Sir Christopher Medcalfe It may be from Newbury in Barkeshire where there are the like plenty The River Swale is a very swift River Mask in this shire is full of Lead Ore There is a place in this shire called St. Wilfrids Needle being a passage so narrow that one of a mean bulk can but just creep through it The story goes of it that it easily lets chast women through but holds fast those that have plaid false However the thing may seem a Fable at first sight yet if the women that have plaid false be with child it may be true without wonder The Bishoprick of Durham THe air of this County is sharp and piercing and would be more but that the vapours of the Sea do help to dissolve the ice and snow The Eastern part of it is the richest the South is moorish and the West all Rocky without grass or grain onely it feeds Cattle and is well stored with Coal as indeed the whole County is being the greatest in England for great Coals And the Coals grow so near the surface of the earth that the Cart wheels turn them up in the trod-ways In the West part of this County are Iron Mines Query whether all Mines be not in a hilly Country The East part of the County yields a great plenty of Coale and yet where it hath plenty of it it is likewise fruitfull and good land At Egleston is a Marble quarry Near Darlington whose waters are warm hot saith Cambden and by an Antiperistasis or reverberation of the cold air are three pits wonderfull deep called Hell kettles These are thought to come of an earthquake that happened Anno 1179. For on Christmas day say our Chronicles at Oxenhall which is this place the ground heaved up alost like a Tower and so continued all that day as it were immovable till evening and then fell in with a very horrible noise and the earth swallowed it up and made in the same place three deep pits It is reported that Bishop Tunstall put a Goose into one of those pits having first given her a mark and the same Goose was found in the River Tees so that it seems these Kettles have passages under ground Within the River Weere at Butterby near Durham in Summer time there issues a salt reddish water from the sides of certain stones at the ebbe low water which with the Sun waxes white growing thick beeoms a salt which the people thereabouts alwayes use Cambden saith further that if you pour water upon these stones and temper it a little with them it will suck in a saltish quality Lancashire THe air of this County is thin and piercing not troubled with gross mists or fogs And the people are very comly healthfull and long lived and not subject to strange diseases The soile is not very fruitfull yet it breeds great number of Cattle that are of huge proportion and have goodly heads and large spread horns Here is also fish and fowle on the Sea coasts in good plenty and in other places of the shire the like store of Coals and a competent increase of flax Where the ground is plain it is good for wheat and barley that which lyes at the bottome of hils is better for oats Along the Sea side in many places lye heaps of Sand upon which the people pour water till it contract a saltish humour from the sand and thus they boile with turfs till it become white salt This shire in divers places suffereth much by the flowing fury of the Sea as in Fourness much of which the Sea hath eaten away by little and little The cause is plain For who can expect less where a shore full of quicksands as this is is washed and beaten upon by a Sea hardly ever quiet such as every one knows the Irish Sea is unless it be sometimes in Summer Not far from Fourness Felles lyes the greatest standing Water of England called Winander Meere which is wonderfull deep and ten miles over and all paved as it were in the bottome There are many such places in England that are naturally paved When I went to Keynsham by Bristol to search for the snake-stones there I found the Lane where they are as it were all paved with broad hard stones and the fnakes lying upon the middle of the surface of the stones We have also in some places of Kent such naturall pavements And such I take stone-streets by Hithe to be if it were not a work of the Romans This Winander Meere breeds a kind of fish called a Chare which is no where else to be found The Mosses in this shire are very unwholesome places to live in If the upper coat of this mossie earth be pared away it yields fat turfes for fewel and sometimes trees that have lien long under ground as it is thought unless they grew there which is unlikely In diverse places also these mosses underneath afford abundance of Marle to enrich land with On the banks of the River Irwell is a kind of reddish stone About Manchester are quarries of very good stone By Chatmoss in this shire is a low mossey ground very large a great part of which saith Cambden not long ago the Brooks swelling high carried quite away with them whereby the Rivers were corrupted and a number of fresh fish perished In which place now lyes a low vale watered with a little Brook where trees have been digged up lying along which are supposed by some to have come thus The channels of the Brooks being not scoured the Brooks have risen and made all the land moorish that lay lower then others Whereby the roots of the trees being loosened by reason of the bogginess of the ground or by the water finding a passage under ground the trees have either by their own weight or by some storm being blown down and so sunk into that soft earth and been swallowed up For it is observable that trees are no where digged out of the earth but where the earth is boggy And even upon hils such moorish and moist grounds are commonly found The wood of these trees burns very bright and clear like torchwood which perhaps is by reason of the Bitumenous earth in which they have been so long so that some think them to be Firre Trees but it is not so saith Cambden Such mighty trees are often found in Holland which are thought to be undermined by the waves working into