before that of all the rest so we took that course and went happily as far as the Syrtes of Lybia but there our land briezes failed us and for seven and thirty dayes we had no other but a few gentle Zephirs which came from the West whither we were steering our course We were constrained to keep at anchor all that time with a great deal of apprehensions of fear that the wind might come from the North accompanyed with a tempest for if that had happened we had been all lost because our anchors had not been able to hold among those moving sands for under water they are of the same nature as they are upon dry land and so we might be in danger to be shipwrackt upon that coast But God Almighty who hath been pleased I should have the honour to wait upon you this day did deliver me from that danger And at the end of seven and thirty dayes we observed the course of the clouds very high which came from South-east at first but slowly but by degrees faster and faster insomuch that in the compasse of two dayes the wind which was forming it self a great way off in Ethiopia came in a tempest to the place where we rid at anchor and lead us to the place whither we intended to go but the force of it was broken before coming so long a distance Out of this Discourse we may infer and conclude that every where wheresoever there is any wind there be also some small bodies or atoms which are drawn from the bodiess which lye in the bodies whence they come by the virtue of the Sun and of Light and that in effect this wind is nothing else but the said atomes agitated and thrust on by a kind of impettiosity and so the winds do partake of the qualities whence they come as if they come from the South they are hot if from the North they are cold if from the Earth alone they are dry if from the Marine or Sea-side they are humid and moist if from places which produce aromatical substances they are odcriferous wholsom and pleasing As they say who come from Arabia Faelix which produceth Spices Perfumes and Gommes of sweet savour or that which comes from Fontenay and vaugirard at Paris in the season of Roses which is all perfumed as on the contrary those winds that come from stinking places as from the sulphureous soil of Pozzuolo do smell ill as also those that come from infected places bring the contagion along with them My third Principle shall be that the Air is ful throughout with small bodies or atomes or rather that which we call our air is no other than a mixture or confusion of such atomes wherein the aereal parts do predominate It is well known that in nature there cannot be actually found any pure element without being blended with others for the outward fire and the light acting one way and the internal fire of every body pushing on another way causeth this marvailous mixture of all things in all things Within that huge extent where we place the air there is sufficient space and liberty enough to make such a mixture which Experience as well as Reason doth confirm I have seen little Vipers as soon as they came from the eggs where they were ingendred being not yet an inch long which having conserved them in a large gourd covered with paper tyed round about that they might not get out but little holes being made with pins that the air might enter they encreased in substance and bignesse so prodigiously in six eight or ten months that it is incredible and more sensibly during the season of the equinoxes then when the air is fuller of those aethereal and balsamical atomes which gave them their balsamick virtue which they drew for their nouriture Hence it came that the Cosmopelites had reason to say Est in aere occultus vitae cibus There is a hidden food of life in the air These small Vipers had but the air onely for their sustenance neverthelesse by this thin viand they came in less than a year to a foot long and proportionably big and heavy Vitriol Saltpeter and some other substances do augment in the same manner onely by attraction of air I remember that upon some occasion seventeen or eighteen years ago I had occasion to use a pound of oil of tartar it was at Paris where I had then no Operatory Then I desired Monsieur Ferrier a man universally known by all such that are curious to make me some for he had none then ready made but did it expressely for me and for the calcination of tartar twenty pound may be as easily made as two without encrease of charge therefore he took occasion hereby to make a quantity for his own use When he brought it me the oil did smell so strong of the Rose that I complained that he should mingle it with that water in regard I had desired him to do it purely by exposing it to the humid air for I verily thought that he had dissolved the salt of tartar in Rose-water he swore unto me that he had not mingled it with any liquor but that he had left the tartar calcind within his Cellar to dissove of it self It was then in the season of Roses therefore it seems that the air being then full of the atomes which come from the Roses and being changed into water by the powerful attraction of the salt of tartar their smell became very sensible in the place where they were gathered as the beams of the Sun do burn being crowded together in a burning glasse There happened also another marvailous thing touching this oyl of tartar which may serve to prove a proposition which we have not yet touched but not to interrupt the course of the story I will tell it you by way of advance It was that as the season of Roses was passed the smell of the Rose did vanish away from the said oil of tartar so that in three or four moneths it was quite gone But we were much surprized when the next year the said odor of Roses returned as strong as ever it did and so went away again towards winter which course it still observes Which made Monsieur Ferrier to keep it as a singular rarity and the last Summer I found the effect in his house We have in London an unlucky and troublesome confirmation of this doctrine for the air useth to be full of such atomes The material then whereof they make fire in that great City is commonly of pit coal which is brought from Newcastle or Scotland This cole hath in it a great quantity of volatil salt very sharp which being carried on by the smoak useth to dissipate it self and fill the air wherewith it doth so incorporate that although we do not see it yet we find the effects for it spoiles beds Tapistries and other houshold stuffs that are of any beautiful fair colour for the fuliginous air
tartar which Monsieur Ferrier made me whereof I spake before But me thinks that all this is but little compared to the attraction of air which was made by the body of a certain Nunne at Rome whereof Petrus Servius Urban the Eighth's Physitian makes mention in a book which he hath published touching the marvailous accidents which he observed in his time Had I not such a vouchy I durst not produce this History although the Nunne her self did cnnfirm it unto me and that a good number of Doctors of the faculty of Physick at Rome did assure me of the truth thereof There was a Nunne that by excesse of fasting of watchings and mental orisons was so heated in her body that she seemed to be all on fire and her bones dryed up and calcind This heat then this internal fire drawing the air so powerfully this air did incorporate within her body as it useth to do in salt of Tartar and the passages being all open it got to those parts where there is most serosity which is the bladder and thence she rendred it in water among her urine and that in an incredible quantity for she voided during some weeks more than two hundred pounds of water every four and twenty hours With this notable example I will put an end to the experiments I have urged to prove and explicate the attraction which is made of air by hot and ignited bodies which are of the nature of fire My sixth Principle shall be that when fire or some hot body attracts the air and that which is within the air if it happens that within that air there be found some dispersed atoms of the same nature with the body which draws them the attraction of such atoms is made more powerfully then if they were bodies of a different nature and these atoms do stay stick and mingle with more willingesse with the body which draws them The reason hereof is the resemblance and Sympathy they have one with the other If I should not explicate wherein this resemblance consisted I should expose my self to the same censure and blame as that which I taxed at the beginning of my Discourse touching those who speak but lightly and vulgarly of the Powder of Sympathy and such marvails of nature But when I shal have cleared that which I contend for by such a resemblance and conveniency I hope then you will rest satisfied I could make you see that there are many sorts of resemblances which cause an union between bodies but I will content my self to speak here onely three signall ones The first resemblance shall be touching weight whereby bodies of the same degree of heavinesse do assemble together the reason whereof is evident for if one body were more light it would ocupy a higher situation than the heavier body as on the contrary if a body were more weighty it would descend lower than that which is lesse heavy but both having the same degree of heavinesse they keep company together in equilibrio as one may see by experience in this gentile example which some curious spirits use to produce for to make us understand how the four elements are situated one above the other according to their weight and heavinesse They use to put in a viall the spirit of wine tincturd with red to represent the fire the spirit of turpentine tinctured with blew for the air the spirit of water tinctured with green to represent the element of water And to represent the earth the Powder of some solid mettal enamelld you see them one upon the other without mixing and if you shake them together by a violent agitation you shall see a Chaos such a confusion that it will seem ther 's no particular atomes that belong to any of those bodies they are so huddled pell mell altogether But cease this agitation and you shall see presently every one of these four substances go to its naturall place calling again and labouring to unite all their atoms in one distinct masse that you shall see no mixture at all The second resemblance of bodies which draw one another and unite is among them which are of the same degree of rarity and density The nature and effect of Quantity is to reduce to unity all things which it finds if there interpose not some other stronger power as the differing substantiall forme which doth multiply it do not hinder And the reason of that is evident for the essence of Quantity is a divisibility or capacity to be divided which is as much to say as to make it Many whence it may be inferred that Quantity it self is not many therefore she is of her self and in her own nature a continued extension seeing then that the nature of Quantity in general tends to unity and continuity the first differences of Quantity which are rarity and density must produce the same effect of unity and continuity in those bodies which convene in the same degree with them For proof whereof we find that water doth unite and incorporate it self strongly and easily with water oil with oil the spirit of wine with spirit of wine but water and oil can hardly unite nor mercury with the spirit of wine and other bodies of differing density and tenuity The third resemblance of bodies which unites and keeps them strongly together is that of Figure I will not serve my self here with the ingenious conceit of a great personage who holds that the continuity of bodies results from some small hookings or claspings which keeps them together and are differing in bodies of a differing nature But not to extend my self two diffusively in every particularity I will say in grosse as an apparent thing that every kind of body affects a particular figure We see it plainly in the several sorts of salt peele and stamp them separately dissolve coagulate and change them as long as you please they come again alwayes to their own natural figure after every dissolution and coagulation The ordinary salt doth form it self alwayes in cubes of foursquare faces salt-peter in formes of six faces Armoniac salt in Hexagons of six points as the snow doth which is sexangulary Whereunto Mr. Davison attributes the pentagonary figure of every one of those stones which were found in the bladder of Monsieur Peletier to the number of fourscore for the same immediate efficient cause which is the bladder had imprinted its action both within the stones and the salt of the urine The Distillators observe that if they powre upon the dead head of some distillation the water which was distilled it imbibes it and re-unites incontinently whereas if one would powre any other water of an heterogeneous body it swims on the top and incorporates with much difficulty The reason is that the distill'd water which seems to be an homogeneous body yet t is composed of small bodies of discrepant figures as the Chymists do plainly demonstrate and these atomes being chaced by the action of fire out of their own
it would call back that which was gone out before and was ready to fall and would make it thrust on and return to its former pace and enter again into the pot to mingle again with the water which lyes therein You see then this mystery which at first was surprizing displayed and made as familiar and natural as to see a stone fall down from the air T is true that to make a demonstration thereof by an exact and compleat rigor we must adde other circumstances which we have done in another Discourse wherein I expressely treated of this subject But that which I now say is sufficient to give a tincture how this so notable an attraction is made The other attraction which comes by fire which draws unto it the ambient air with the smal bodies therein is made thus The Fire acting according to its own nature which to push on a continual river or exhalation of its parts from the center to the circumference and out of its source carrieth away with it the air which adjoyned and sticking to it on all sides as the water of a river trains along with it the earth of thae channel or bed through which it glides For the air being humid and the fire drye they cannot do lesse than embrace and hug one another But there must a new air come from the places circumjacent to fill the room of that which is carried away by the fire otherwise there would a vacuity happen which nature abhors This new air remains not long in the place which it comes to fill but the fire who is in a continual carreer and emanation of his parts carries it presently with him and draws the new air and so there is a perpetual and constant current of the air as long as the action of fire continues We dayly see the experience hereof for if one makes a good fire in ones Chamber it draws the air from the door and windows which chough one would shut yet there be crevices and holes for the air to enter and coming near them one shall hear a kind of whisling noise which the air makes in pressing to enter and t is the same cause that produceth the sound of the Organ and flute and he who would stand between the crevices and the fire he should find such an impetuosity of that artificial wind that he would be ready to freeze while he is ready to burn the tother side next the fire And a candle of wax being held in this current of the wind would melt by her flame blown against the wax and waste away in a very short time whereas if that candle stood in a calm place that her flame might burn upward it would last much longer But if there be no passage whereby the air may enter into the Chamber the one part then of the vapor of the wood which should have converted to flame and so mounted up the funnel of the chimney descends downward against its nature for to supply the defect of air within the said Chamber and fills it with smoak but at last the fire choaks and extinguisheth for want of air Whence it come to passe that the Chymists have reason to say that the air is the life of the fire as well as other animals But if one puts a bason or vessel of water before the fire upon the hearth there will be no smoke in the Chamber although it be so close shut that the air cannot enter for the fire attracts parts of the water which is a liquid substance and easie to move out of its place which aquatic parts rarifie themselves into air and thereby perform the functions of the air This is more evidently seen if the Chamber be little for then the air which is there penned in is sooner raised up and carried away And by reason of this attraction they use to make great fires where there are hushould-stuff of men that died of the Pestilence to disinfect them For by this inondation of air which is drawn the fire doth as it were sweep the walls the planks with other places of the Chamber and takes away those little putrified sharp corrosive and venemous bodies which were the infections that adhered unto it drawing them into the fire where they are partly burnt and partly sent up into the chimney accompanied with the atoms of the fire and the smoke It is for this reason that the great Hippocrates which groped so far into the secrets of Nature disinfected and freed from the plague a whole Province or entire Region by causing them to make great fires every where Now this manner of attraction is made not onely by a simple fire but by that which partakes of it viz. by the heated substances and that which is the reason and cause of the one is also the cause of the other For the spirits or ignited parts evaporating from such a substance or hot body carry away with them the adjacent air which ought necessarily to be nourished by some other air or by some matter which keeps the place of the air as we have spoken of the bason and tub of water put before the fire to hinder smoke It is upon this foundation that Physitians do ordain the hot application of Pigeons or young dogs or some other hot animals to the soles of the feet or the handwrists or the stomacks or navills of their patients to extract out of their bodies the wind or ill vapors which infect them and in time of contagion or universal infection of the air pigeons cats dogs with other hot animals use to be killed which make continually a great transpiration of evaporation of spirits because the air by those attractions it makes taking the room of the spirits which issue forth of evaporation the pestiferous atoms which are scattered in the air and accompany it use to stick to their feathers skins or furres And for the same reason we see that bread coming hot from the Oven draws unto it the must of the cask which spoiles the wine if they put it hot upon the bung And that onions such hot bodies which perpetually exhale unto them the fiery parts which appears by the strength of their smell are quickly taken with infectious airs if they be exposed unto them which is one of the signes to know whether the whole masse of the air be universally infected And one might reduce to this head the great attraction of air which is made by calcind bodies and particularly by tartar all ignited by the violent action of the fire upon it which is heaped together and bodified among his salt for I have observed that it attracts unto it nine times more air than it weighs it self For if one should expose to the air a pound of salt of tartar well calcind and burnt it will afford you ten pound of good oyl of tartar drawing unto it and so bodifying the circumjacent air and that wherewith t is mingled as it befell that oyl of
scaldings use to happen as also in the best plaisters to stanch the bloud and incarnate the hurt But they who well know how to draw the sweet oyl of vitrioll which is the pure volatil part thereof know also that in the whole closet of nature there is no balm like this oyl For this balm or sweet oyl doth heale in a very short time all kind of hurts which are not mortall it cures and consolidates the broken veines of the breast as far as the ulcers of the lungs which is an incurable malady without this balm Now 't is the volatill part of the Vitriol which is transported by the Sun the great Distiller of nature and which by that meanes doth dilate it self in the air and that the wound or part which received the laesion drawes and incorporates with the bloud together with its humours and spirits And that being true we cannot expect a greater effect of the volatil vitriol but that it should shut the veines stanch the bloud and so in a short compasse of time heal the wound The method nd primitive manner how to make use of this sympatheticall remedy was to take onely some vitrioll and that of the common sort as it came from the Druggists without any preparation or addition at all and to make it dissolve in fountain water or rather in raine water in such a proportion that putting therein a knife or some polished iron it should come out changed into the colour of copper And within this water they used to put in a clowt or rag of cloth embrued with the bloud of the party hurt the rag being dry but if it was yet fresh and moist with the reaking bloud there was no need but to powder it with the small powder of the same vitrioll in such sort that the powder might incorporate it self imbibe the bloud remaining yet humid keep both the one the other in a temperate heat place viz. the powder in ones pocket the water which admits not of this comodity within a chamber where the heat should be temperate everytime that one should put new water of vitriol with fresh powder new cloth or other bloudied stuff the patient should feel new easement as if the wound had bin then dreft with some soveraign medicament And for this reason they use to reiterate this manner of dressing both evening and morning But now the most part of those who serve themselves with the Powder of Sympathy do endeavour to have Vitriol of Rome or of Cypres then they calcine it at the whitenesse of the Sun And besides some use to adde the Gomme of Tragagantha it being easy to adde unto things already invented Touching my self I have seen such great and admirable effects of Vitriol it self of eighteen pence the pound as of that Powder which is used to be prepared now at a greater price yet notwithstanding I do not blame the present practise on the contrary I commend it for it is founded upon reason First it seems that the purest and best sort of Vitriol doth produce the best operation Secondly it seems also that the moderate calcining thereof at the rayes of the Sun doth take away the superfluous humidity of the Vitriol and this calcination doth not touch any part but that which is good as if one should boyle broth so cleer that it would come to be gelly which certainly would render it more nourishing Thirdly it seems that the exposing which is made of the Vitriol to the Sun to receive calcination renders its spirits more fitly disposed to be transported through the air by the Sun when need requires For it ought not to doubted be but that some part of the aetherean fire of the Solar rayes doth incorporate with the Vitriol as t is plainly discovered by calcining Antimony by a burning glasse for it much augments the weight of it almost half in half now some particles of the Solar beams mingling with the Vitriol in this case the luminous part of that substance is also calcind together and so is made apt and disposed to be carryed in the air by a semblable light and Solar rayes As we see that to make the toung of a pump to draw the water the easier from the bottom of a well one doth use to cast a little water from above upon it Now the light carrying with it so easily the substance that is so connatural to it it carries also with it the same time with the same facility that which goes incorporated with it Fourthly these Solar rayes being embodied with the Vitriol are in a posture to communicate unto it a more excellent vertue than it hath of it self as we find that Antimony calcind in the Sun becomes whereas it was ranck poison before a most soverain and balsamical medicament and a most excellent corroborative of nature Fifthly the Gomme of Tragagantha having a glutinous faculty and being for the rest very innocent may contribute something towards the consolidation of the wound My Lords I could adde unto what is spoken many most important considerations touching the form and essence of Vitriol whereof the substance is so noble and the origen so admirable that one may avouch with good reason that it is one of the most excellent bodies which nature hath produced The Chymists do assure us that it is no other then a corporification of the universal spirit which animates and perfects all that hath existence in this sublunary World which is drawn in that abundance by a Lover so appropriated by means whereof I my self have in a short time by exposing it only unto the open air made an attraction of a celestial Vitriol ten times more in weight which was of a marvailous purenesse and vertue a priviledge which hath not been given but to it and to pure virgin salt-peter But to anatomise as we ought the nature of this transcendent undividual which neverthelesse in some fashion may be said to be universal and fundamental to all bodies it would require a Discourse far more ample then I have yet made But as I perceive I have allready entertained you so long a time it would prove a very great indiscretion to trench further upon your goodnesse who have hitherto listned unto me with so much attention and patience if I should go about to enter into any new matter and embark my self for a further voyage Wherefore remitting divers matters to some other time when you shall please to morder me coming now again to the generall consideration of this Sympatheticall cure I will put a Period to this Discourse after that I shall have told you two or three words which will not be of small importance for the confirmation of all which hath been alleadged by me hitherunto I have deduced unto you the admirable causes of the operations and strange effects of the Powder of Sympathy from their first root These fundamentall causes are so enchained one within the other that it