ZYMOLOGIA PHYSICA Or a brief Philosophical Discourse OF FERMENTATION From a new Hypothesis of Acidum and Sulphur WHEREBY The Phoenomena of all natural Hot-Baths the Generation of Minerals the Production of many Acidulae or Spaw-waters the Grand apparances of Heat Fire and Light throughout the triplicity of Natures Dominions in the productions of Bodies are solv'd from the intestine duellings and inward collisions of the foresaid principles Whereby also Various other subterraneal Phoenomena as Damps Earth-quakes Eruptions c. likewise the apparaâ—ce of Meteors c. and divers other no less remarkable â—…â—â—aining are from the same Doctrine of Fâ—mentation genuinely solv'd With an additional Discourse of the SVLPHVR-BATH at KNARSBROVGH By W. SIMPSON M. D. Altiora cogitando robilitatur mens humana LONDON Printed by T. R. N. T. for W. Cooper at the Pelican in Little-Britain 1675. TO THE Right Honourable THE PRESIDENT FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY The following DISCOURSE OF FERMENTATION Is most Humbly Presented BY THE AUTHOR W. SIMPSON THE PREFACE TO THE READER HE that attempts any thing that is new whether in Natural Philosophy or other Sciences ought with the fam'd Archimedes to beg a sure footing and he that builds had no less need to lay a good Foundation least in the former he be driven back and in the latter the fabrick by over-hanging indanger its fall by its own weight What care I have taken herein I am now likely to run the hazard of thy carping or candid interpretation the common fate to all Books We here present to thy view Candid Reader if such thou art a small Scheme such as it is of the principles of Nature which though few yet probably very teeming We offer here a little draught of those pregnant mechanical agents Nature we suppose useth in the Formatations and Transformations of all bodies drawn as near as we can to the life which at present we have compriz'd into this Epitomiz'd bulk least by the swelling of its Volume thou shculdst conjecture its Title before thou readest its name I have been not a little cautious in the modelling this small Plat-form though perhaps not without its Chinks and Chasmes discernable to a curious prying Eye by which if it take a larger draught probably may afterwards be drawn having endeavoured to calculate this Physiological Scheme according to the meridian of an inquisitive searching Age. When I had well nigh finish'd another piece intituled Lithologia Physica as also another which bears in its front Halologia Chymica both writ in Latin two as considerable Subjects I mean Petrification and Salification as I could then pitch upon both grounded upon a different Hypothesis then was y t extant before I say I had compleated the two foresaid Tracts it came into my mind to give a little compondious account of a new Hypothesis I had ofâ—en ruminated upon which I thought I could not better do then by undertaking thereby to solve some of the most remarkable and entertaining Phoenomena of Nature such as are natural Hot. Baths the generation of Minerals the appearances of Heat Fire and Light c. which therefore we made the subject matter of this ensuing Discourse and do therein ever and anon refer to what we write in those other mentioned pieces And when I had well nigh finished this small tract I began to look about me and to consider on which of the Philosophers side I was seeing they by their various and different Hypotheses are apt instar Audabatum to fight in the dark I could not tell of a good while till at length I considered that the great Hypocrates himself has given touches thereof Tach 84. Jord 114. De Dicta lib. 1. while in his Book de Dicta he tells us Constituuntur tum omnia animantia tum homo ipse ex duobus igne aqua And that our Doctrine doth coincide with his contenentia contenta impetum facientia The contenentia are vasa viscera The contenta are Fluids viz. Water the material principle of bodies The impetum facientia are Ferments or Acidum and Sulphur put into an intestine collision or Fermentation And as he tells us all things are made of Fire and Water and that these two are sufficient for all generations so he adds that Fire gives motion and Water nutrition which how it agrees with our Hypothesis let the ensuing Discourse speak for it self So that it appears that Fermentation in our sense is the same with his Spiritus impetum faciens with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire hid in bodies It s also the same with that Aetherial matter the Panspermion of other abstruce Philosophers that divinioris aurae particula implanted by God the Parent of Nature in Water which from seminal originals produce by a genuine expansion all concrete bodies it s likewise the same which the noble Helmont calls semina rerum Those indeed foecunda semina rerum which as the Poet goes on Vivaci nutrita solo ceu matris in alvo creverunt And by the more recent Spagirical Physiologists it s called Spirit or a combination of Spirit Salt Tach. clar p. 40. and Sulphur It s what Tachenius intends by his Acidum pinguae filius solis c. And lastly to name no more its what in a more plain dialect has been represented to us by the Poets from the ancient sage Philosophers where one of them saith Quippe ubi temperie sumpsere humorque colorque concipiunt ab his oruntur cuncta duobus When I had viewed the many high roads and broad tracks distinguished by the first tracers and bore their names at the first sight each seem'd large enough and promised a fair passage into the beautiful Garden of Nature But I found that as often as I took along them though I went on pretty merrily at first because the path was well beaten store had gone that way yet I had not gone long ere I perceiv'd still they ended and spent themselves into a wide barren Common where I was ever and anon bewildred and at a loss whither to turn so that amidst such difficulties of Rocks Precipices Hilly-places c. I was glad I got safe off at length I espyed a little narrow way that had been little beaten so that the footings of those who had tract it was scarce discernable and it lay off from all the rest of the broad paths so that after I had try'd in vain most of the rest I took into that kept in it as well as I could which was difficult to do from its foresaid narrowness and its being unbeaten and although I now and then deviated yet I found I was not stray'd so wide but that with some trouble I got in again and following this path it led me directly into the amiable Garden of Nature where what contemplation I made what prospects I took of those curiosities and rarities I met with let this ensuing discourse give some foretasts which as it
Or Secondly These Fermentations are to be considered in the further progress and closer interweavings of the principles whereby they become to be more quick and high the Sulphur gradually softening and sweetning their connate acids and thence the bodies wherein those Fermentations happen becomes more pregnant with Spirits being now more plentifully ingendred and more easily set at liberty by the power of Fermentation then before And this is evident in all things brought on to maturity and becomes sensibly apparent chiefly in all odorous Plants and Fruits Or Lastly They are to be considered in the more sensible brisk conflicts of the principles even after the bodies they work in are brought to maturity one dulcifying the other by the concurring causes of solar heat c. the principles I say being yet kept on in motion in all fermentable juices and grains do produce the greatest plenty of Spirits which being set at liberty are all those we call vinous Spirits in animals those we call animal Spirits the genuine product of vital and animal Fermentations and in minerals their Spirits in some places after heating transient waters for hot Baths appear in volatiz'd Sulphurs otherwhere in subtile acids as the causes of some aciduloe and elsewhere in apporrhea steams c. as elsewhere we have shewed Thus in all fruits brought on to maturity and all grains ripened for the harvest the principles in their mutual Collisions are so pregnant as that by being put nearer together which happens by their being juiced or malted they are thereby set a work into a sensible Fermentation as appears in all fermentable juices and malted grains the immediate result of both which are vinous Spirits Thus in all natural animal Fermentations of their juices requisite for circulation of the blood nourishment of the body and for the performing other functions peculiar thereto the animal principles are so pregnant as in their continual wrestlings and inward collisions incessantly to produce such a stock of Spirits a being rightly disposed and carryed in their proper Conduits the Nerves are sufficient to thâ— absolving the functions of sense and motion And the like in their kind may be said of minerals concerning which viz. the origin of animal Spirits from the foresaid Fermentation we may elsewhere largely discourse We shall only say at present that as the natural Fermentations in animal bodies are produced from the intestine collisions and inward struglings betwixt the native acid of the Stomack fortified perhaps by some connatural acidum in the aliment and the acquired Sulphur of nutritive concretes separating Hetrogenities and graduating themselves by successive depurations till they in their proper juices perform those circulations requisite to the peculiar funcitons of the body So likewise from the Catastrophe of the natural and superinduction of other not congenial acids may be made such mortifications precipitations and depravations of the genuine ferments and such new complications betwixt the recent acid and the Sulphur in the otherwise natural fermenting juices as to lay a foundation of new spurious Fermentations the causes of Feavers of all sorts Not to say here how most yea for ought I know all sorts of Feavers are nothing else but spurious Fermentations of the blood and other juices of the body distinguishable or if I may say specificated by variety of acids not congeneal but wholly disagreeable gradually heightening the natural and otherwise slow pac'd genuine Fermentations whose various degrees of Feavers are most what differenced or specificated from the low or high slower or quicker degrees of spurious Fermentation or to speak in a more plain dialect how Feavers are various sorts or different degrees of inflamations of the blood and other juices For an inflamation according to our Hypothesis is nothing else but a heightening of Fermentation from a more strong collision of the principles whereby from their mutual wrestlings they arrive to the height of causticks which as we shew elsewhere differ from corrosives onely from the difference of their acids such I mean as in a lower degree pleurising from an inflamatory transposition of the fiery particles of the blood upon the pleura and in a higher degree as are the plague and pestilential Feavers which are Feavers in their highest inflamatory and siery degree witness the Anthrases Carbuncles and other pestilential badges which shew perfect Eschars upon the skin as if perform'd by cauteries Lixivial or fiery which are with due caution to be cured by such ways and methods as allay that furious fiery Ebullition by Phlebotomy and gentle breathing Sweats but here we must cut short intending as this finds acceptance a fuller and more free discourse of the nature of Feavers how essentially specificated and what methods accordingly they best yield too concerning which we may Deo dante treat in another place Onely this by the by we would observe that amongst animal juices those from vegitables made by animal Ferments suppose Milk by the various actions of the innate or adventitious acids upon their inbred Sulphurs happen different products First therefore as to the coagulations and alterations to be made from the inbred acidum thereof Thus Milk while in an equal temperature of its constituent ingredients undergoes no separation of parts remaining in an uniform Liquor but being expos'd to the Air after a while the innate acidum of the Milk being acuated by that of the Air makes a spontaneous separation of a cremor from the more thin part which Cream having some acidum in it as we elsewhere prove that all Cremors Oyles Fatts Axungia's c. are but different disguises of animal Sulphurs have their implanted acids by keeping grows more sour this by concussion of the parts in that motion we call Churming undergoes a Fermentation of its kind from whence happens another sort of separation viz. into Butter which is Sulphur in another form then before and a more serous part call'd Butter-milk And as Milk after the separation of Cream by longer standing comes to a thick and almost gellyed consistence by Countrey people call'd Loppard and by a little heat splits into Curd and Whey so Butter-milk if kept long will come to the like consistence but if heated the acidum presently coagulates the Curdy part if that coagulation be made in heat after the mixture of New-Milk the acidum in the Butter-milk coagulates both the Curdy parts of its own as also Butirous and Curdy parts of the New-milk into that sort of sour coagulum call'd hatted Milk which is more or less sour according to the prevalency of the acidum or more or less affusion of New-Milk And Lastly As the foresaid alterations are made from the various coagulations of Milk from its implanted acid So likewise other sorts of coagulations thereof are produced from additional acids Thus any Fermentative potable Liquor as Wine Ale Beer Syder c. mixed with Milk the acidum in such Liquors coagulates the Sulphurous parts into a Curd separable from the serus Liquor the like will
the notion of the genesis and production of Bodies from what the same are in the right understanding of the analysis reductions and unwearings of Concretes So that nature hereby is every where uniform to her self and that â—o from the consonancy and harmony of her principles We say therefore and shall prove in the series of our following discourse that there are no concretions of Bodies as they assume their birth from the legitimate broodings of nature in all seeds and seminal offsprings without the concurring efficients and principles of Fermentation which as they are hid and close shut up in the very primordial seedlings of things and are known to us only a posteriori inasmuch as they are indiscernable a priori but by an intuitive knowledge yet ex ungue leonem we may easily take their measures from those Scantlings we can trace in their footings Now for the better rendring our Doctrine of Fermentation intelligible viz. how nature by the foresaid principles set to work in the very primordials of things goes on if not interrupted in a linear process towards the productions thereof we shall begin with the mineral Kingdom where we shall illustrate the veracity of our principles of Fermentation by thence solving the Phenomena of hot Baths the productions of minerals and other subterraneal apparances as they will in course fall in our way In order to the right understanding of hot Baths and to demonstrate they have their original from Fermentation of mineral juices our method will be to lay down two positions the first whereof is that â—â—re is no hot Bath without Sulphur The Second That an Acid is necessarily requisite in all mineral Fermentations and that all Acids so concern'd are either native or super-induc'd also to shew what we mean by Sulphur and how hot Baths differ chiefly according to the difference of their Sulphurs And which amongst them are not safely to be taken inwardly and which are Then to shew how from the foresaid principles put together into an intestine collision and Fermentation the waters that pass through them must necessarily become hot and this is then to be confirm'd by an induction of mechanical Experiments also to shew how Sulphur by Fermentation becomes comminuted volatiz'd and capable of Solution in Water as happens in all hot Baths and to signifie a paralel betwixt mineral and vegitable Fermentations c. CHAP. II. AS to the truth of the first position viz. that there is no hot Bath without Sulphur appears because as there is no heat without Fermentation of mineral juices I mean as to subterraneals as we shall make evident afterwards so no Fermentation without Sulphur For although indeed from mixtures of Acids and Alcalies whether fixt or volatile Fermentation and Heat doth necessarily result yet because they are artificially produced and next because it will be difficult to find out the sources of these heats and the true genuine causes of such Fermentations from the variety of those efficients I mean alcalies for notwithstanding there be plenty of alcalizate alcalies as I may call them to distinguish from lixivial wrapt up in the texture of Petrifick concretions yet there must be store of very Corrosive acids that can be sufficient to cause so great a Fermentation which we may never expect to find Therefore Tachenius his Hypothesis of acids and alcalies will not do our work as being too narrow in the foundation to raise so large a structure of philosophy upon as genuinely to solve the various Phoenomena of nature and particularly in this apparance of hot Baths as anon will be more evident By Sulphur I do not confine my self in my Hypothesis to that particular mineral Concrete call'd Sulphur or Brimstone which although that be a Subject in whose concretion more plenty of that matter I call Sulphur is interwoven or rather coagulated then in any other yet by that term I do not only mean what is flammable in that body but also the like anologous flagrable matter in other minerals or metals as to minerals whether in Antimony native Cinnaber Arsncck Auripigmentum Marcasites Pyrites Succinum Gaâ—ates Lythanthrax c. As to metals in Lead Tin Iron Copper and Quick-silver or in both viz. Vitriols which are metals especially Mars and Venus reduced into that form by the help of mineral acids I say I do not only mean what is flagrable in the foresaid Bodies or may be separated in a combustable matter But also I include all bitumen and unctuous matter whether reposed in Earth Stones or the like As to which Sulphurs even in all combustible Concretes we know not that ever they appear sincere but always more or less complicated with their connate acids and upon every sort of Fermentation as we shall shew more afterwards whether in the slow or quick low or high degrees thereof in vegitation animation mineralization ignition and flagration they continually wind off and do tenues evanescere in auras And also in the fore said Bodies wherein Sulphur predominates or is separable an acidum is plainly discoverable to be the inmate or companion thereof as is obvious by the burning of Brimstone the Sulphur of Antimony c. which by condencing the fumes give an acid Spirit which whether all combustible matters amongst animals vegitables and minerals will yeild peculiar sorts of acids I may elsewhere treat yet because the Sulphurous principle hath the preheminence in such concretions or unctuous Liquors we shall therefore discourse of them under the notion of Sulphur Now to prove that Sulphur either crude or volatile is found in most if not all known hot Baths let us consult what Authors say herein who have seen and made observations upon them Thus in the aqua Aponensi that fam'd hot Bath near Padua so much discours'd by Fallopius certo collegi saith he c. vaporem Sulphureum in illa aqua Aponensi contineri and saith further est aqua ferventissima dum calida est sapit Sulphur Bitumen c. The learned Dr. Ed. Browne fellow of the Royal Society in his Travels tells us his observations Sulphur saith he which is in great quantities in many hot Springs flyeth away continually and is not to be found in them if you boyle or evaparate the Bath-water and therefore to discover it I thought it more rational to look out of the water then into it for upon many places which were over the Baths and received the Steams of the hot wate I have seen Sulphur stick And to satisfie my curiosity further herein I caused once a Pipe to be opened at Baden in Austria through which the hot water continually ran and took with my hand from the upper part of the Pipe divers Boxes full of a substance scarce to be distinguished from Flower of Brimstone Thus we see how Sulphur dissolv'd in these Baths doth sometimes precipitate along the sides of the Channells through which it runs as also being volatiz'd doth pass away I mean the purer part
in vapors or steams insensibly till arrested by some particular bodies it settles and sticks thereto Thus the foresaid Author observed That walking about one day in the lower Bath at Baden and leaning over the Ballisters perceived that his Buttons and what else he wore that was Silver were all turned yellow of a fair Gold colour although he was at some distance from the Water whereupon he tryed this Experiment viz. of hanging money over the Bath at a foot distance or at a greater and found it coloured in a minutes time and that which was nearer in half a minute Next we are to consider how these Thermae or hot Baths differ amongst themselves which as we conceive chiefly proceeds from the difference and great variety of Sulphurs or Mineral Bodies wherein are wrapt up a diversity of Sulphurs through which they pass and with which they are impregnated together with some other mineral parts which they take in either at the place of Fermentation or afterwards in their passage For Sulphurs which we suppose to be chiefly concerned in all mineral Fermentations differ much amongst themselves common Brimstone being different from that of Antimony and that from the Sulphur of Vitriol Pyrites and other mineral Marcasites all which are yet different from Arsenical Sulphurs and from bituminous matters one sort or other of which are most what the predominant ingredient and mineral principle of these hot Baths Hence it is that some of these Sulphurous waters may with good success in order to the cure of some diseases be taken inwardly others not Those that may not are generally such whose Sulphurs are Antimonial Arsenical or Bituminous or at least border upon such minerals as are allyed thereto of which are the generality of hot Baths and in particular those of our own Nation of which the Sommerset-shire being the hottest are found altogether unfit for inward uses are not safely to be drunk inasmuch as they are impregnated as I conceive with antimonial or perhaps bituminous Sulphur or the Sulphur of some Pyrites or other Marcasite a kin to Antimony or Bitumen which lodgeth in the bowels of those great Mountains at the Foot or Center of which those hot Baths break forth for the acid which concurs necessarily as we shall shew afterwards to those Fermentations as an indispensible principle opens the body of those Sulphurs or detains them whilst in fieri in their crude nature and thereby renders them wholly noxious for inward use as we could further illustrate but that we hast Nor is Buxton Bath in Darby-shire from the same cause although in a remiss degree fit for taking inwardly inasmuch as that according to all probability partakes of a bituminous Sulphur and that I gather from the plenty of a bituminous or oylie substance got out of the very Clefts of the Stones in the Peake yea this bituminous or oylie matter is found in the very Pores Clefts and Cavites of the Stones themselves as was communicated to me from the judicious and my worthy Friend Mr. Jossop whose Father as he acquainted me got two Spoonfuls out of one crevice in a Stone which bituminous matter is lodg'd not only in those stones but also in a sort of light lithanthrax which rub'd being a smooth polite body is Electrical as I have found by trial which distilled yields an oyle and acid Spirit almost like that of Amber as the ingenious Mr. Fisher inform'd me he found by trial yea the same bitumen is imbib'd into a fungus matter which Dr. Lister supposeth and that very likely to be rotten wood long buried in the earth into which this oylie matter or bitumen hath sunk which keeps as I have found continually moist tho kept in a dry place I say it s very probable that the Sulphurous principle of Buxton Bath hath its determination from this sort of bitumen And as to those Sulphurous waters which may safely be taken inwardly are chiefly the Sulphur-well at Knarsbrough of which we shall further discourse in a Chapter by it self afterwards And as to the different degrees of heat in Baths may proceed either from the more remiss or intense Fermentation of mineral juices or from the different place of Fermentation as it may be deep within the bowels of the Earth or near the place of its Exit thus if the Fermentation happen to be far within the Earth and so remote from the place of Erruption that the Sulphur therice become much what precipitated or left in the colander or filter of Sand through which it passeth and the acidum thereby so dinted as to become very languid if at all perceptable in the Water and yet by reason of its closeness from the air may retain somewhat of its first conceived warmth of which sort are those Sulphur Baths near Villock in Carinthia which are gently warm as the learned Dr. Browne notes in his book of Travels as also as I suppose Buxton Bath in Darby-shire whilst in other parts of the earth the foresaid Fermentation may be strong both from the plenty of the two combating principles as also from their nearness to the place of breaking forth of which sort are those at Glass-Hitten Eisenbacke both not far from Schemnitz in Hungary where are silver mines also those of Stubn near Newsol in the same Countrey those at Baden in Austria and especially ours at the Bath in Sommerset-shire We say also that Fermentation of mineral juices is most necessarily requisite to the producing of all hot Baths and consequently all hot Baths depend thereon because hereby is made a comminution of Sulphurous or other bituminous juices which thence become communicable to and dissolvable in ordinary spring-water for hereby the Sulphur is sever'd into volatile parts easily permeating the body of water The paralel of what is produced by Fermentation in vegitables to what is performed by the same amongst mineral juices in order to the making hot Baths is not inconsiderable whether we look at the agents or at Fermentation its self or lastly at the effects as to the agents which here are requisite to perform mineral Fermentations we shall demonstrate afterwards to be no other then mineral acids and mineral Sulphurs intoris mineralibus That also Acids and Sulphurs to wit of their own kind are the true agents in the performing all vegitable Fermentations we may elsewhere ex instituto discourse as to Fermentation it self which whether in minerals or vegitables is nothing else but an intestine motion of the essential constituent principles of Acidum and Sulphur which is in a more remiss or intense degree and the heat consequently more or less according to the slower or more brisk on-sets and inward struglings of those combitant principles Lastly the paralel will hold good in the effects of Fermentation Thus as the effects of the sensible Fermentation in all vegitable Fermentative Liquors is the comminution and volatization of their Sulphurs as that what before such sensible Fermentation was separable in the form of an
Oyle by bare infusions and distillations in ordinary water is now by the comminution of previous Fermentation so divided sub-divided and volatiz'd as that these vegitable Sulphurs will not only arise by the gentlest heat but will also easily dissolve in any water or common vehicle As we plainly see that any vinous Spirit made from vegitables by Fermentation will easily mix with ordinary water which the oyles of those vegitables separated before Fermentation would not do So likewise the effects of those sensible at least by their heat Fermentations in mineral Fermentative juices is no other then the comminution and volatization of their otherwise crude Sulphurs For what is it would I ask that can render Sulphur and bituminous juices capable of incorporating with Spring-water Seeing that neither fire which what that is in a true Physiological sense according to our Hypothesis we may elsewhere declare in the vulgar notion thereof nor Salts I mean fixed or volatile can alone perform that work For by fire if in open Vessels Brimstone being burnt it ariseth with a fume condensible into an acid Sulphurous Liquor witness the oyle of Sulphur per Campanam made by flag ration and in close Vessels it makes no alteration arising only in Flowers which are nothing else but the entire body of Brimston unaltered or opened and as to fixt vegitable Salts those indeed open the body of Common Sulphur or Sulphur of any of the minerals so as to make them more capable of dissolving in those congenial menstrua's of Oyle or vinous Spirits but do not at all procure their solution in common water for water being poured to any of the foresaid solutions of Sulphur made either with Oyles or vinous Spirits by fixt Salts do forthwith lactescere causing a precipitation of the very body of Sulphur in a milkie form call'd lac Sulphuris So that it remains that nothing else short of acid juices can perform this great work of dissolving mineral Sulphurs so as to make them mingable with water which is performed one of these three ways viz. either by bare solution distillation or Fermentation in all which the acidum must have the preheminence before such sort of alteration upon Sulphur can be made thus as it is ex intuitu Sulphuris that all metals are dissolvable in the Stiâ—ian or other proper menstrua which being taken in pieces by acids together with their congenial Sulphurs the mercurial and other parts complicated in the texture of that body doth colliquescere So likewise it is ex intuitu acidorum that all mineral Sulphurs or Sulphurous Concretes do either dissolve in water or are capable of distillation into Liquors or lastly do undergo Fermentation and the products thereof First As to solution in water thus vitriol or vitriolin marcasites which contain plenty of Sulphur do either per se or expos'd to the air become capable of dissolving most what in water and that from the prevalency of their acids above their Sulphurous principle whereby the Sulphur lurks under the mask of the acid Secondly As to their distillation I mean of Sulphurs in the form of Liquors that happens also from the powerfulness of their acids assisted by the acidum of fire us'd in such distillations whereby the Acidum and Sulphur do colliquescere into a corrosive Liquor as appears in Oyle of Vitriol And Lastly This Acido-Sulphurous-Liquor and others of the like nature prepared as aforesaid by distillation if diluted by the addition of a little water or of any oylie Liquor or vinous Spirit be mixed therewith the Sulphur is presently set upon by the acid from whose mutual assaults ariseth a strong Fermentation making the Glass intensely hot and thereby sometimes comes near to an actual flagration So that it is the acidum variously treating the Sulphur whence all these varieties of operations proceed And by this last work of Fermentation the Sulphur is more comminuted volatiz'd and altered then by either of the two former It s true indeed that fixt alcalies or Calx vive being analogous to the former doth so work upon the body of common Sulphur or Sulphur of some minerals and thereby opens it so as meeting with an acid juice may make a resemblance of some Sulphur waters as we have elsewhere largely discourst in our Hydrologia Chymica concerning the Sulphur-well at Knarsbrough which is without doubt I mean the precipitation by the supervening acid the cause of the strong smell of this and some other the like waters Amongst the causes assigned by divers Authors of the heat in natural Baths those of subterraneal fires are not the least which because we have by sufficient arguments at large exploded in our Hydrologia Chymica shall now therefore wave But the great and most authentick opinion is that of Dr. Jordens in his book of natural Baths which by many learned persons hath and that not unworthily the kind acceptance and the most general applause which is grounded upon a Fermentation from a seminary Spirit of minerals in the bowels of the earth meeting with convenient matter from which Spirit acting upon the matter in generation of minerals is caused that heat which perpetuates hot Baths It would be too tedious a task for this intended short tract now to wade into a deep examination of the Hypothesis of this learned man I shall only say leaving the rest of that doctrine in its own worth that had that judicious person been better acquainted with the understanding of the true and genuine sense of Fermentation would no doubt have polish'd his notions much better then we find them and would have told us wherever Fermentation was found in whichsoever of the triplicity of natures Kingdoms that there necessarily must concur the principles of Fermentation and that Sulphur or Bituminous matter being a kin to Sulphur must be one of those principles as to the mineral Kingdom and consequently be an indispensible ingredient in all hot Baths For Fermentation can no more exist without its own principles then fire can without combustible matter or the principles of firing nor then animal bodies can be sustained without their peculiar Ferments which what analogy these viz. vegitable and animal juices in their Fermentations as to their constituent principles bear to those of minerals we may elsewhere give an account Onely here we shall take occasion to answer that grand objection the foresaid ingenuous Author makes against Sulphur being the cause of heat in Baths For though we do not assert that Sulphur singly considered is the cause of Fermentation or Heat but that it is one of the principles of Fermentation yet we judge that objection toucheth upon the Verge of our Hypothesis and therefore worthy our solution The Objection is That if Sulphur can give actual heat to our Baths it must burn the like he saith of bitumen that unless it be kindled it can yeild no heat to our Baths I answer That hereby it is obvious that the foresaid Author did not throughly understand the
Snow Hail Meteors and other apparances common to and peculiarly obvious in the Atmosphere So here I would take an occasion from the nature of the foresaid Fermentation to insist a little upon the two grand Phoenomena's of heat and light found in concrete bodies from the same principles CHAP. VI. I Shall not here by climing so high insist upon the causes of heat and light in that great and inexhaustible Fountain thereof the Sun whether its perpetual Spring and incessant emanation may not consist in a peculiar Fermentation of its own set a work by the divine Fiat and kept a foot by a continual circulation of aethereal matter concerning which we may elsewhere modestly propound our thoughts nor shall I descend so low as to treat any further of the causes of heat in those known subterraneal Vulcano's But shall at present make it my task in short to shew First That Fermentation is made from the mutual struglings and intestine combatings of Acid and Sulphur in all juices and concrete bodies where it is evident And how heat is produced from Fermentation in all such bodies where it is found Secondly To shew how from the same principles and after what manner light is made That Fermentation and Ebullition in mineral juices whether naturally or artificially prepared proceed not from the contrariety of Salts as many worthy persons urge is evident because there is no such Ebullition amongst Salts but what are from the contrariety and struglings of Acids and Alcalies whereas no man ever yet could make it appear that those minerals either in succo or in actual concretion contain'd any sort of Alcalies either fixed or volatile But on the contrary its most certain from irresragrable experiments that Sulphurs and Acids are separable from them all And as before we have shewed the Fermentation of minerals to consist in the collision and intestine wrestlings of their Acid and Sulphur as the causes of hot Baths c. So the Fermentation in animals is no less observable to proceed from the like inward struglings of their imbred Acid and Sulphur continually till they dye kept on foot in the body of animals and that will appear if we consider their implanted acid juices the very foundation of all Ferments and the daily occurrence of such sort of Food in whose texture both Acid and Sulphur chiefly Sulphur doth reside in order to the keeping those Ferments at work for the nourishing and upholding the fabrick of those bodies The first wheel as I may say of these Ferments or the primordial Stamina of acids in animal bodies after their formation are placed in the Stomack where the Fermentation begins from the native acidum acting upon the acquired Sulphur of nutritive food and is carryed on into the second digestion into the intestines where a fresh gentle acidum from the pancreatick juice and a Sulphur from the Gaule sent thither by the ductus biliaris promote and assist a further Fermentation and thence carryed into the blood where the same principles of Fermentation together with a volatile Salt complicated with the Sulphur and Acidum are still at work and undergo new separations and depurations as also acquire new helps of volatization from the continually inspired Air into the Lungs through which the blood passeth which still promotes the begun Fermentation in order to the circulation thereof and nourishment of the whole So that the native acid juice of the Stomack is not in a strict sense a Ferment till such times as it finds some Sulphurous food upon which as its proper subject it begins to work and then upon its action collision and mutual strugling with the Sulphur in the assum'd aliment begins the Fermentation which being vital we suppose to be the very first spring of heat in the animal body after it hath passed its Embrio-state Yea all the rest of the Fermentations in the body are but the continuations of this Fermentation begun in the Stomack for the blood is made up of that Chyle which by Fermentation is wrought in the Stomack retaining so much of its first principles of Acid and Sulphur mixed in a just temperature assisted with the pancreatick and bilous juices as may be sufficient to keep that Liquor still in a Fermentative motion such as may help to supply with a new off-spring of animal Spirits the very product of that Fermentation as also to fill up the interstices of that matter or those parts which are continually upon the wheel winding off through the perspirable Portals of the body as we may elsewhere God willing take an occasion further to discourse How powerful a menstruum this Stomachial acid the first efficient of heat is doth appear both by the great force of working upon and dissolving all alimentary things which are all of them such as wherein Sulphur whether vegitable or animal is more or less complicated and cujus intuitu viz. for the sake of which all the rest wrapt up in the same concrete are also dissolved as likewise doth appear from those strong vellications of the Nerves and Tunicles of the Stomack upon hunger being a nothing else but that aforesaid acid menstruum preying upon the next adjacent parts through the want of some Sulphurous subject to work upon That Sulphurous concretes whether animal or vegital are the proper Subjects for the native acidum of the Stomack to work upon in order to Fermentation is clear because neither Stone Clay Earth Marle Wood nor such like wherein are no Sulphurous parts or at least such as are not congenial to the foresaid acidum can become capable of being food inasmuch as no genuine Fermentation essentially necessary to the upholding the fabrick of an animal body can thence be made Not now further to shew how Fermentation begun in the Stomack and carryed on in the blood and other humours is not onely the efficient cause and effectual source of heat but also of all animal Spirits carryed thence by the conduit-pipes of the Nerves into the habit of the body in order to the performing those peculiar functions of sense and motion both viz. heat and animal Spirits being the immediate products of animal Fermentations We say that in the circle of natures operations throughout her triplicity of bodies there is no such thing as Spirits separable but what are the immediate results of Fermentation For however among some Physiologists they are reputed inter principia corporum yet according to our Hypothesis they are no principles but the posterior products of Fermentation and appear in bodies according to the slow or quick low or high degrees of Fermentation from whence proceed their threefold order in the productions of concretes For either these Fermentations are to be considered in their primordials or first workings in bodies in order to the fabrick thereof and so the Spirits which thence result are in a low depressed state deeply immers'd in corporeal bulk as appears in vegitables c. in their state of Infancy and Crudity
a few drops of any acid juice do whether vegitable or mineral as of Vinegar Vitriol Sulphur Salt c. yea the runnet which is made up of Milk coagulated by the Stomichal acid of an animal which by keeping sours yet more and is made up with Salt to preserve it from decaying by the addition I say of the foresaid acid ferment or animal Runnet to Milk especially in heat is made that coagulation of the Sulphurous and Curdy parts out of which our Cheese is usually made So that from the different actions of the acid whether native or additional upon the Sulphur are produc'd those usual coneretions or rather coagulations of Butter and Curds separable from the more liquid serum which Butter has also its connate acid which is the cause of its liquidity in heat and coagulation in cold as we could sufficiently demonstrate the liquidity and coagulation of such the succulency and concretion the softness and hardness of other sort of bodies chiefly to depend upon the various modes of acids either considered in Fermentation or Concretion and as assisted by other concurring causes chiefly of the Air which we now with difficulty and chiefly for brevity sake refer to another place We might if willing to inlarge take an occasion here amongst animal Ferments to insist upon the causes and reasons of those strangely surprizing effects resulting from the invigorated Ferments of some venemous animals and shew that all their poysonous properties consist chiefly and solely in the Ferments of their juices which may be invigorated to that height as to become poysonous Fires which by a bite or the like getting admission into the blood of a humane body will according to the degrees of their exasperation make their transits in the bearing down and mortifying our animal Spirits Hence those fiery Serpents we read of were probably such whose Fermental principles was by exasperation wrought to that height as to become a venemous Fire by whose least entrance into the blood by their sting or the like did presently mortifie the Spirits of those who were bitten whereby they were suddenly killed And to shew that as the strength of our bodies depends upon the energie of the animal Spirits the product of vital Fermentation according to whose remiss or intense degrees of depuration sublimation and eradiation in their proper Channels the Nerves the weakness or vigour yea the whole crasis of the body subsists Diseases generally prevailing upon us from their various assaults which are made upon these in their original source of production I mean in the fermentable juices of the body so likewise the Spirits of venemous animals the product also of the Fermentation peculiar to their juices being by exasperation so subtiliz'd as that they are highly in vigorated and beyond imagination Spiritualiz'd do by their sudden fiery vibrating motion if admitted make their transits quasi ictu oculi through our Fermenting juices presently arrest our Spirits and by coagulations and other manner of mortifications suspends their generation and motion which being precipitated and born down and the future vibrations of the vital Acidum and Sulphur mortified must needs bring on death which is nothing else but a period put to the mutual collisions of the vital principles Where we might shew that the deleterious properties of venemous Animals as Vipers Adders Snakes Scorpions c. reside not at all in their flesh because they may and are frequently eaten not onely without harm but also in some cases with good success but in their peculiar Ferments consisting according to our supposition of Acidum and Sulphur of their kinds which being capable of exasperations and heightenings are also as lyable to have their Spirits invigorated insomuch as the more those animals are angred as I may say the stronger the Fermentation and the more subtile the Spirits are yea the more mortal their fire which bearing the character of their material principles have the foresaid sudden mortifying influence upon our vital juices and the Spirits thereof We might also shew how those sorts of Ferments in their strong inveterating motions do sometimes fix themselves upon some peculiar matter or coagulated juice in their bodies where the Ferments lurk as in a seminary and this is the reason why that matter vomited by some sort of venemous Scorpions If I mistake not called Gecco upon their being whipt and hung up thereby having their Ferments exasperated is used by the Indians as a speedy death to their malefactors by pricking the skin under one Nayle of the hand and applying a little quantity thereof to it which immediately thereby getting entrance into the blood presently suspends the Fermentation thereof mortifies the Spirits killing them presently yea at Macassar a Town in the Island Celebes belonging to the Molucco Islands there is a sort of poyson whether made by the foresaid artifice from inraged venemous animals I know not which the King of that place uses for expeditious killing those he would dispatch out of the way by applying it to any breach of the skin it immediately from its Fermental corrosive poyson not only kills but burns the whole body into a corruptive putrilage concerning which and many other things of the like nature we now for brevity sake willingly desist to inlarge CHAP. VII HAving in brief thus signified the causes of the Fermentations in animals to consist in a brief but suitable intestine dwellings betwixt the two principles Acid and Sulphur which coincide in puncto vitalo according to our Hypothesis and that their heat is immediately thence produced In the next place let us consider whether the same Hypothesis may not hold good in the due explicating the Phoenomena in that other kingdom of nature I mean the vegitable where besides what we have already said vegitation in our account is no other then a gentle vibration and slender collision of the Vegitable Acid Sulphur from which two principles put into a wrestling motion in every seed after the loosening its body or husk in the lessas terrae is begun the vegitable Fermentation which ceaseth not till the body shap'd according to the form of those minute Types wrapt up in the seedlings and in some obvious to the eye assisted by good microscopes is brought in all its pourtrayings upon the visible Stage of the World And from this Fermentation set afoot in the very primordials seedlings and first hewings of vegitable forms are deducable all the observable Phoenomena of vegitables for not onely vegitation it self consists in a slow-pac'd motion of the foresaid principles set into a slender easie Fermentation but also their colours sapours odours also other medicinal qualifications and their propagation by Seeds and their future Fermentations as of Corn Grapes and Fruits c. in order to our Bread and Drink are referrable to the various intestine wrestlings of the inbred Acid and Sulphur First As to Vegitation it self we have already hinted how it s performed by a secret Fermentation from
Bread or other such Food CHAP. VIII NOw that there is some gentle warmth in all vegetable Fermentations undiscernable to our senses is apparent because the same principles of Fermentation being invigorated in their brisk intestine duellings may become sensibly hot witness the heat of steep'd Barley laid on a heap in order to Maltin which if neglected for want of turning and ventilation by Air will become so hot as one cannot induce his hand long in it Yea and from the same principles yet heightned in their inward Collisions may an actual burning Fire be produced Witness Corn wet laid in heaps in Chambers if neglected will take Fire Also Mows of Corn laid up too moist and close have been Fired So likewise a Rick of Hay is sometimes burnt to Ashes from the violent and furious Fermentations of its principles and that from its moistness and closeness setting its principles of Acids and Sulphur into a violent motion so as to break forth into aciual Flame Not to say here how Acids are sweetened by Sulphurs and sometimes coagulate into a neutral body For although all Fermentation is certainly at least according to our Hypothesis caus d from the Collisions and inward combatings of Acids and Sulphurs in the production of things yet as Acids amongst bodies as I have before and may more largely hereafter shew differ amongst themselves so they make different assaults and are variously reacted by Sulphurs whence both by their mutual actions undergo various changes and different modifications amongst bodies in their transformations And as some Acids ferment with their Sulphurs in an inward wrestling the Sulphurs afterwards as they predominate upon the wheel of operation softening sweetening and ripening their Acids making gentle coagulations in their naturations both amongst animals vegitables yea and Minerals too although more obvious in the two former so likewise some Sulphurs ferment with some Acids while with others they combine in a natural texture to confirm which we shall onely because in hast give this single mechanical example which shall be in Mercury or Quick-silver to which if a Spirit of Nitre or Aqua fortis be added the mixture presently ferments from the collision of the Sulphur in the Mercury and the Acids in the Menstruum whereby the compage there is broken from the intimate commixture of the Sulphur with its Mercurial parts whence a solution of the whole But if in lieu of that corrosive Menstruum the dry Salts of which that Menstruum by a colliquating fluor with their inbred Sulphurs by Fire is made be mixed and sublimed together there happens no Fermentation but arise in a corrosive sublimate to which if such a due proportion of fresh Mercury be added and re-sublim'd they coagulate and sweeten each other into a solid concretion of a neutral texture which is that trite preparation we call Mercurius dulcis in which the acid Salts of Vitriol and common Salt is so dulcified by their interweavings with the Sulphur of the Quick-silver as that it will not coagulate Milk and so becomes being well prepared a very harmless and innocent Medicine whilst the same sublimate thus sweetened by the Sulphur of its Mercury freshly added if therewith Antimony in lieu of Quick-silver be mixed the same acid Salts meeting with a different Sulphur in Antimony then in Mercury falls into a colliquation and fretting Fermentation causing a great heat and becomes a strong corrosive And as from the difference of Acids amongst themselves and their various assaults upon their Sulphurs cause various changes in the geuesis and transformations of Bodies both in the texture of Liquors and the concretions of Bodies So from various modes of aggression of our principles justleing differently according to various applications are produc'd varieties of effects which are discoverable from the difference of Spirits thence separable which in some at least upon rectification smite our Organs of sense with great variety as will appear these following ways Thus First If the principles are set awork in the seminals of things in a generative way as suppose in Vegetation here the principles by an evolution expand themselves in a slow but genuine Fermentation whose effects I mean their Spirits most what guise themselves in the minute effiuvia of odours especially in odorous Plants and that chiefly in the opening of the Flower though in many through the whole plant when the Sulphur is by circulation as I may say so subliliz'd by its connate acid as to pass off in a subtile Steam for hereby the acid not onely strikes the colour according to the varieties of Acids acting upon their proper Sulphur but also causeth an expansion and emanation of subtile parts Secondly If this Fermentative Vegetation be carryed on to the maturation of Fruits and in their Juices the foresaid principles be again set awork they then make different assaults combining in other manner of collisions then before as is evident from the vinous Spirits thence easily separable which partake much of the volatiz'd Sulphur Thirdly Thus if during Fermentation any quantity of a plant suppose Wormwood Mugwort Tansey c. should be gathered and laid together in heaps Here the principles make new and different collisions then before making retrograde motions which tend to a putredness of the Plants the product of which Fermentation is a volatile Vrinous Spirit as appears by Distillation thereof which is so strong in some Plants as that it doth very discernable ferire nares as I have felt in the Glastum or Wood prepared by that artifice of putrefactive Fermentation yea the workers thereof told me that when after a previous preparation by Grinding and exposing to the Air in Cakes they are laid in heaps the Fermentation is so very strong as the Vrinous Spirits thence issuing are searce tolerable to those that are near it which last named Spirits are as much a product of that sort of Fermentation as the two former are of theirs and therefore as we are not to guess at the quantity of vinous Spirts separable by that Fermentation peculiar to those Fermental juices as if pre-existent nor of Odours in Plants as aforehand in their minute seedlings before the openings of those powers by their own vegitative Fermentation so neither indeed ought we to esteem those vinous Spirits pre-existent in the Plants before putrefaction And as the different modes of the principles aggressions and collisions cause various sorts of Fermentations and different kinds of Spirits thence separable in the Vegital so likewise with some variation they do the like in the animal Family I mean that according to the viâ—ious methods of the principles mutual 〈◊〉 different sorts of Spirits thence result thus from the intestine struglings betwixt the native Acidum of the Stomack and the Sulphur in the Food begun in the Stomack carried on by the intermediate Ferments and compieated in the blood are produced those sorts of Spirits we call animal Thus from the same principles acting upon each other in a
wrought up into those bodies in their natural generation are continually by a constant wheeling off after a little rotation in the Air in the great capitellum of the Amosphere turn'd into water again or into watery vapours which are but water rarified and how that watery vapour is as one spring in the Air for the setting all other Fermentations awork not onely useful towards the actual flagration of combustable matter maintaining thereby the great round and circulation of generations and reductions of all bodies But also from the same moisture in the Air carried thither in the great circulation and fed by incessant subterraneal steams arising especially from Springy and other watery places which whether in the form of Dews helps to feed Corn and Grass kept back by long droughts or whether wrapt up more invisibly in the Air doth yet reach some of the tender veins of other vegetables or uniteth with the slender fibers of their roots plac'd in Sandy Gritty or other barren Ground and thereby either way by a sort of filtration is communicated to their Juices whence such Plants which otherwise could scarce be thought to receive any sufficient supply from such barren Soils admit of a competent stock of moisture able to carry on their vegetative Fermentation whereby they grow and thrive well And hence it is that Câ—pin and several other Plants onely set in Sand and sometimes sprinkled with water doth from the foresaid moisture in the Air vegetate and like well Nor here to shew how Air after a double manner contributes towards the Fermentation both of animals and vegetables yea towards the producing the highest of Fermentation Fire nor shall we take time here to insist upon water as the true material principle indispensibly necessary for the production of all bodies the want of which in the grand circulation of nature bring on a consuming drought in all bodies whereby those concretes whose natives the principles are wither and dye because their principles of Acidum and Sulphur having not whereon to work and model bodies with desert them taking wing into their own aether leaving their former receptacles to pine away in a continual marasme and unavoidable tabers Nor to shew how water is indeed as essentially requisite materiae gratia for natural as Stone and Wood are for artificial fabricks whilst the active principles of of Acidum and Sulphur are the inward artificers the implanted fabers yea the hidden limners who by the manuduction of Seeds hews out forms shapes and draws forth the lineaments and portraitures of all things answering ad vivum from the unerring rules of nature their beautiful antitypes invisibly coucht in the initials of all bodies But now studying brevity shall leave them to a further discourse From what is premised concerning this our Doctrine of Fermentation how it is performed in all vegetation as being the lowest orb in the whole round world of nature it moves in and yet is the true beginings of all fire in bodies and that the most violent of fires is no other then this Fermentation in the most rapid manner the principles furiously driving upon each other will be evident and very obvious from this following mechanical experiment Take the subtile aethereal Spirit of Venice Turpentine four Ounces which is nothing else but the Sulphur of that vegetable resinous gumm comminuted and subtiliz'd by gentle distillation and intimately marryed to a defaecate implanted acid as also Aqua fortis six Ounces both recently drawn mix them together in a Glass-Viol and they will presently fall into a furious Fermentation which will arise to that height as actually amongst the thick clouds of fumes to burn and blaze out of and above the Orifice of the Glass in a visible flame Now what is observable in this Fire thus by the foresaid mechanick produced and whence the causes the same may truly we think be said of all other fires in combustable concretes for here the Acidum in the Aqua fortis lately made is very strong closeth with the Acid in the Spirit of Turpentine immediately sets upon the Sulphur in the same vegetable Oylie Liquor which Sulphur being congenial as Sulphurs usually are to each other to that in the Aqua fortis increaseth in its vigour whereby both the Acid and the Sulphur even in both Liquors become fortified and forthwith fall into an intestine Collision whence the Fermentation begins which being by the purity and sincerity of the principles more and more heightened and invigorated having no heterogeneous matter to interrupt their inward duellings at length arise to that degree as to colliquate into an actual fluid flame which is the very same cause we elsewhere assign to to the production of all usual Fire in combustable concretes only with this difference that in such stagrations conceived from the immediate conflicts of the principles there are not as I said those heterogenities interwoven as in other combustable concretes set into that rapid motion by kindling or firing Thus I say these actual flagrations whether from the furious assaults of fiery acido-Sulphurous Liquors as is apparent from the foresaid mechanical experiment or from Acids and Sulphurs set into intestine conflicts in combustable concretes as is evident in all usual Fire is no other then our foresaid Fermentation in a most violent hurry the principles acting furiously upon each other while other slower Fires are maintain'd by sleighter and more gentle touches of the same principles Hence methinks when I behold the varieties of Vegetables I cannot but esteem them as so many igniculi little Fires shewing their various lustre in their peculiar colours Yea to me the whole appearance of nature in the concretions of most bodies throughout the triplicity of her dominions some Petrificks and such like anomolous productions excepted is nothing else but so many Lamps burning in water each of them distinguishing a parcel thereof into this or the other visible figuration which we commonly call bodies or concretes so that the Philosophers ignis aqua I mean both their Mercury and the grand Solvent the Alchahest in which the ignis Sophorum is artificially implanted in the mercurial or watery juices is but an Epitome of what nature in the great volume of the World sets down in Folio yea is no otherwise preparable by art then what to a Philosophick eye nature is constantly performing in its great orb of productions And as each Body carries its central Fire shut up in its Bosom expanded or blown up by the evolution of its seminals depending upon the implanted active principles of Fermentation so likewise that adventitious heat which helps to foster Fermentation in such juices or concretions where the active principles seem to be immur'd in the weighty bulk of terrestrial strial parts ought in its degree to be gentle soft and symbolical to the Fermentative principles which if it exceed in lieu of chenishing dissipates the nimble agents and spoils the act of Fermentation and this is evident not onely
fixed as in Stony concretions and are made so in lixivial alcalies So that although Acids may touch upon them and cause a little fretting effervescence yet cannot volatize them therefore upon their collision and Ebullition we find no different hogo to smite our Nostrils the usual products of other Fermentations And then as to volatile Alcalies which put to Acids cause a fretting heat they do consist of an Acid and an urinous Spirit as in our Halologia we further demonstrate which being complicated together retains so much of the Acidum as is sufficient to its concretion into a saline form and yet is so much subjugated by the Vrinous Spirit as to be overpowered thereby and from the neutrality of their nature to cause the foresaid effervescence being mixed with Acids In the next place as to the reasons of Fermentation contracted in quick-lime from the affusion of water in short thus we suppose and think to demonstrate that heat to proceed from a Fermentation betwixt Salts of a different nature which upon the affusion of water are dissolv'd and thereby set into an actual strugling These different Salts are an Alcali and an Acidum Now that fixt alcalizate Alcalies not lixivial of Plants are disseminated in the bowels of the Earth to which petrisick concretions chiefly owe their original we at large shew in our Lithologia Physica and that such a sort of Alcali is implanted in calx vive which in the calcination required to the making thereof becomes yet heightened is evident First by its mortifying and sweetening Acids witness its being put to water acidulated with Spirit of Salt Nitre c. the acidity will presently be altered and mortified next by its closing Acids wrapt up in the texture of another body as appears by its mixture with Sal armoniack where its Alcali for it can be no other catcheth hold of the Acidum of Sal marine and so breaks the compage of the Armoniack Salt setting the volatile Vrinous Spirit at liberty Thirdly by the heat it makes after extinction by affusion of water with an acid Spirit as when Spirit of Vitriol is poured upon extinguish'd Lime a heat is thence caused Lastly By the observing that the water of its extinction will serve to open the body of mineral Sulphur by boiling them together which it will do almost as well as if the water had been acuated with fixt lixivial Salts both which work upon mineral Sulphurs by their Acids as we shall demonstrate more clearly afterwards And as to the Acidum in quick-lime we say it owes its original to no other then to that of Fire contracted in the calcination of the Stone and that it was not pre-existent before calcination Now that Fire in the actual flagration of combustable bodies doth in that violent Fermentation of its principles fix its acidum while the Sulphurous principle wheels off into the Air upon some bodies it meets withall suitable for the reception thereof and how that from the difference of Acids in several combustable concretes by flagration intangling themselves with and fixing upon other bodies different effects are produced I might confirm by many instances The former is evident amongst the rest in the reverberatory calcination of Lead in its preparation into minium where the Acidum in the flame of Wood centers and fixeth it self upon the Lead and gives considerable increase of weight thereto So in like manner to come nearer to our purpose the Acidum of Cole in the calcination of Lime-stone doth by a continued reverberation fix it self in the cranies and inward recesses thereof Thus in the calcination of Vitriol by the rayes of the Sun in the preparation of the Sympathetick powder the pondus thereby becomes increased And then as to the latter viz. the different effect upon bodies from the variety of Acids in actual ignition or flagration either fixing themselves thereon or at least by some sleighter intrusions shewing a different operation we could demonstrate from our observations upon burning of Bricks hardening of Iron or Steel calcinations of minerals and metals various reverberations and many other mechanical operations solely owing their original to the difference of the foresaid Acid nor to say here how amongst other Phoenomena the difference of colours amongst minerals and metals contracted by calcinations and reverberations owe their original to this source of varieties of Acids in different sorts of Fires which for brevity sake we now omit referring to a further discourse thereof in another place By the power of the foresaid Acidum in quick-lime communicated thereto by Fire in the calcination thereof it is that the water of Lime will perform what other more usual Acids cannot for instance That Lime-water mixed with any volatile Vrinous Salt and distilled therefrom fixeth yea turns the Salt into an insipid powder or indissolvable calx concerning which the ingenuous Zuelfer well notes quin etiam saith he speaking of this very thing huic aquae recenti salia volatilia jungerem moxque vidi effectum sc salium dictorum totalem destructionem eorum in calcem vel pulverem insipidum indissolubilem omni odore sapore privatum ignisque violentiam in posterum strenue sustinentem conversionum The like probably would minium do to the same volatile Salts if mixed therewith and that from the same cause viz. the Acidum contracted by the Fire and from the same Acidum it is also that water of Lime cast plentifully upon boiling Milk will curdle it And from these two viz. the Alcali and Acidum which we have demonstrated to be in quick-Lime put into a strugling fretting motion by their solution in water is according to our Hypothesis the very cause of heat obvious in quick-Lime For unless these two be dissolved no Fermentation happens and consequently no heat Hence it is that although rectified Spirit of Wine Spirit of Turpentine or other such like Sulphurous Liquors be added yet cause no heat because they are not competent menstrua nor suitable Liquors for the dissolving the foresaid Alcali and Acidum from whose solution and combating motion proceeds the heat But we have at large discourst upon that subject in our Lithologia Physica to which I refer the Reader therefore shall now forbear further to insist thereon CHAP. X. LAstly as to heat and sometimes ignition which is caused from the collisions and attritions of hard solid bodies we may without any difficulty solve from our formerly deposited principles As for instance that heat and ignition which proceed from the attritions and percussions of Flint and Steel the attritions of Steele and Wood of Steel and Pyrites or any other Gritt or Free-stone The attritions of either sappy or dry wood as happens in the violent motion of the Axis or Wheels of Coaches Chariots Wagons or Mills all which Phoenomena we can well and we think rationally charge to the account of our former Hypothesis viz. That they are performed no other way then by a quick and sudden excitation of
are seen to cleave to the tops of Maine Masts and at the Sterns of Ships by the Ancients call'd Castor and Pollux by our English-men corpus-Ants and very probably is the same with that meteor we call ignis fatuus of which as also concerning the Light seen upon the impressions of footings in the Sand upon Sea-shores we shall shortly speak more All which give Light in the Dark viz. in the Air not illuminated by any Light from the Sun so that we may say of things that occur to our sight that they carry Fire and Light in their Bellies and that by an excitation of their intrinsick Ferments their inside tapores are set above board It remains therefore that we try these Lights and examine whether all or most of them may not according to our Hypothesis be solv'd from various degrees of Fermentation grounded upon our principles of Acidum and Sulphur from various causes differently excited We shall begin with that which is most obvious viz. culinary Fire and examine how Light is produced therefrom no sooner are the inbred Acidum and Sulphur of any combustable concrete set into a violent Fermentation kindled by the Fire or symbolical Fermentation already in actual motion put to it but forthwith by the help of the Air the principles are set into a rapid intestine motion which yet more and more being sharpened by the Air ariseth by degrees to that pitch as to fall into an actual ignition and from thence being yet more thin'd by the interweavings of the Air breaks forth into flagration or ignition with Flame Fire and Flame seem to differ only in this that in the struglings of the principles and thereby in the rejecting the heterogenites the Air is more complicated in making Flame then in bare ignition Flame being but Fire rarified by the intertexture of Air which by such rarifaction of a dark cloudy smoke or fume makes a diaphanous Flame Air is necessary for ignition and flagration upon a double account First from its moisture brought into it from the grand Fermentation and Circulation of other Bodies whereby the principles of Firing become more liquid and thence fall into a more intensly furious and colliquating Fermentation according to that of Silenus the Epicurean brought in by Virgil semina terrarum c. Et liquidi simul ignis next by its own peculiarly plyable penetrative and circulating nature whereby it insinuates into every of the principles actings keeping them in a constant agitation thereby maintaining their wheel of motion as long as any combustable matter remains and is well put together So that by the first qualification Air by its spongy nature imbibes moisture wheeling off from other bodies in their incessant Fermentation and thereby becomes qualified for keeping other Fermentations afoot and then by its other qualification of penetration and being as a Fan to blow off the loose Corns as I may say or heterogenious matter ingendred by the foresaid rapid Fermentation And by both it becomes truly capable of assisting the principles of Acidum and Sulphur in their furious combating as thereby to turn vast bulkie bodies of combustable matter first into Fire and Flame and at last by winding off into water leaving some few Ashes wherein remain some Salt and in some vegetable concretes the seedling of the former body For all combustable bodies are by this agitation of the innate Acidum and Sulphur with the co-operation of the Air in that double foresaid respect reduced after a little rotation into the Air to water again And although Fire moistens no bodies put thereto yet doth it really go off not onely in a liquid but humid form witness the condenc'd steams of mineral Sulphur or Brimstone burning under a Glass campane is sav'd in an acid Liquor also Spirit of Wine fired and condensed by such an artifice appears in an infipid water yea for ought I know the like might happen with some small variation to most combustable bodies if their fumes were condenced by such a contrivance however the Air at the long run condenceth all those steams Fire wheeleth off in into water This being premis'd we say that the highest degree of Fermentation whereby the principles are put into a rapid motion maketh Fire and that is done by the help of Air as aforesaid which Fire of ignition gives Light by a continual winding off in luminous rayes springing from the foresaid Fermentation and that by the further complications of Air interwoven in the texture of Fire whereby the otherwise gross fumes gains a more Aethereal liquidity is that we call Flame which is yet more luminous then bare ignition Not here to insist whether Light either of the Sun or other luminous bodies be made any other way then by refraction for although the rayes of the Sun make their exit in right lines from the source of their Fermentative motion yet being to wade through a fluid medium I mean our Atmosphere where ever and anon hitting upon liquid particles of rarified water born up by a Columne of the same extended perhaps as far as the surface of the Earth and may be further must needs have their Lines broke their Files disordered and their Rayes much altered being put into oblique motions amongst such a Sea of watery atoms Notwithstanding which refraction a luminous body may not undergo any sensible variation as to locality and that because our Eye is plac'd in the same medium with the luminous body if such as represented to us here below And as to the Sun perhaps that may be the very reason of the difference betwixt the apparent and real place thereof whereas an object so scituate as to have the reflecting luminous rayes to pass through two mediums of different textures must need sustain a greater difference as to the locality thereof witness an oar part immerst in water part out or a piece of Silver in a Bason of water But a luminous body becoming such by having its principles of Acid and Sulphur heightened by a furious Fermentation and being plac'd in the same medium with our Eye the luminous rayes continually winding off in that rapid motion of the combating principles although I say they make their Exit in right Lines from the Source of their motion viz. the body they issue from yet must they be continually hitting upon watery Atoms they meet with in the Air which are many times back'd with strong Cylinders of the same whence they are distorted from their right Lines and become refracted from each of the adjacent watery bulla's whereby for ought we know the rayes of such bodies in their illuminating motion may become the more intended then if they should have reach'd the Eye in right Lines directly from the object For hereby those watery particles may become as so many minute apake Specula's by which each of these luminous rayes being once broke from its direct line becomes by various reflections and refractions multiplyed first hitting upon one then slanting off another
and so ad infinitum yet retaining their first impulse from the Fermentation or transmission from the luminous bodies whereby those rayes of Light are infinitely increased in their illuminating property easily communicating a diaphaneity to the adjacent and ambient Air to confirm which we may observe how notably a stream of watery particles cast from a Spring through a Cylinder of Sun-beams the eye being placed in the shade cutting it at Angles intends the Light thereof make by reflections and refractions new appearances of Light CHAP. XII THus much concerning Light as proceeding from culinary Fire or from ordinary combustable concretes put into that rapid furious Fermentation we call Fire The same we may say of the causes of Light in all Sulphurous matters whether in the dry form of mineral Sulphurs resinous Gumms Turpentine c. or in Liquids as Bitumen Oyles Vinous Spirits c. All of them in their flagration or flammability requiring Air and that in the double acceptation thereof as aforesaid We shall therefore in short take leave to say that these have their intrinsick principles of Acid and Sulphur set awork into an actual flagration by being kindled by some congenial fiery Fermentation and that by the assistance of the Air both as a Sponge and as a Fan especially the last which thereby not onely promotes the incipient Fermentation but also is necessarily required for the perpetuation thereof as long as any of the principles remain yet unwound off by flagration That there is an acid principle in all these we may elsewhere prove by demonstrable and undenyable arguments c. That there is also a Sulphurous principle no eye will doubt it upon beholding their flagration inasmuch as according to the vulgar acceptation Sulphur must be in all combustable matters onely we may observe this difference there is betwixt common culinary combustable matters and those last named viz. That the first are complicated with more heterogenious matter wrapt up in the texture of those concretes the latter are more simple come nearer to the nature of the principles themselves and therefore are the more readily and easily flagrable and consequently sooner give their exuberant Light to which the Air hath more easie admission towards the keeping the principles at work and to the facile boying them up in a constant luminous aereal flame burning without glowing or any considerable residence of a Caput mort ' especially in some Oyles and in all rectified vinous Spirits The same may be said of Light arising from attrition of Wood green or dry which having its inward principles of Acid and Sulphur rouz'd up by so quick a motion as attrition produceth gives the same appearances of Fire and Light and that from the same causes as that which is done by actual flagration from other external Fire added thereto So likewise the same may be urg'd in the solving the Phoenomenon of Light arising from attrition or percussion of Steel and Flints or any Grit-stone or Pyrites for as by that sudden motion of attrition or percussion the acidum of the Steel and the Sulphur in the Flints or Pyrites are set into a rapid Fermentation whence as we have shewed before ariseth Fire So Light being the immediate product and result of Fire must needs appear Wherefore the causes of Fire and Light arising hence are the same with those produc'd from others more obvious onely are differently put into action yea the Air is as much interested in the excitation of the one as the other And that according to the qualifications and manner aforesaid Nor need we go much further for solving the reasons of Light which appeareth from frication or pectation of some animals such as are Light from the Combing of a Womans head as hath been known that struck in the currying some Horses and that from a sudden frication of a Cats back if we consider the two first as depending upon the peculiar texture and singular disposition of the Fermentative juiees For it is not all individuals of either of the species from which that appearance of Light is obvious but onely those in whose constitution the principles arise or are graduated to a peculiar efflorescence in the very formation or genuine production of animal Spirits carryed by the nervous juices as their proper vehicle into the habit of the body which being excited by that sudden motion of pectation c. readily by the help of the Air give those quick flashes of Light And as to the last viz. the striking Flame or Light from a Cats back by frication in the dark as I have sometime taken pleasure to see done that I cannot otherwise impute then also to proceed from the peculiar graduation of the principles Acid and Sulphur in the texture of that animal and what is done by that sleight artifice in exciting the efflorescence of the principles in a luminous flame may for ought we know be done naturally by a brisk but slender woven Fermentation perform'd either in the texture of their eyes or rather in the very fabrick of their animal Spirits being a brisk floridues of those juices proceeding from a most depurate and heightly volatiz'd Sulphur carryed away to the Eyes by the optick Nerves from whence we suppose it is that their Eyes shine and give Light in the dark Which last I am induc'd to believe viz. That this luminous efflorescence peculiarly resides in the animal Spirits even in all the foresaid instances carryed by the nervous juices into the habit of the body because in the last instance the frication being made along the Spina running down the vertebre of the back excites that volatile and highly depurated Sulphur into a luminous flame whence its very probable that many other animals especially those which are highly fed and whose animal Spirits are of a fine spun texture having their Sulphur highly volatiz'd would I say upon trial be found from the foresaid causes excited by attrition pectation or the like to give the same luminous flame In the next place we come to give the reasons of Light in rotten Wood and dry'd Fish c. where we are to observe that as in the causes of Light aforesaid from the principles of Acid and Sulphur variously put into motion being excited into a Fermentation divers ways So amongst the rest this by putrefaction is not the least for Wood shines not tift its principles of Acid and Sulphur by a retrograde motion fall into a new sort of Fermentation whereby it winds off what the principles in their generative Fermentation wound on viz. unravels its own Clew taking in pieces what the other built up in which putrifick analysis the foresaid principles make different assaults upon each other by the intermission of moisture in the Air fortified perhaps with an acidity repugnant to that of the concrete And as moisture in the Air is necessary towards the promoting Fermentation in a generative way so likewise as necessary to the helping forward the destructive
Spirit of Nitre with Oyle Olive whereby the vegetable Oyle is coagulated and made consistent being congealed thereby into a white Fat or Butter as Dr. Grew observeth And as nature produceth Rosins and Gums in Plants and Trees congealing the juices of wounded Stems Boles Stalks Heads c. by the acidum of the Air according to the disposition and genius of the Plants whence Rosins as of Turpentine Scamony c. Gums as Camphire Opium c. so in like manner Art in imitation of Nature and from the same principles can produce somewhat equivalent thereto Thus if the acid Oyle of Vitriol be mixed with the Oyle of Anise-seeds the vegetable Oyle is immediately by the acidum in the mineral distill'd Liquor congeal'd into a perfect Rosin Yea and by the addition of Acids to some vegetable Oyles may be resembled the production of Turpentines Thus Oyle of Vitriol added to the distill'd Oyles of Turpentine Nutmegs Juniper c. after Fermentation become of a consistence altogether emulating usual Turpentine without the least appearance of Oyle swiming on them nay although Spirit of Wine be afterwards added yet will it cause no separation of any of the Oyle But the contrary happens if you add Spirit of Wine to an essential Oyle before mixture with the Oyle of Vitriol for then the Spirit of Wine and Oyle of Vitriol unite and reject the essential Oyle to the superficies So that the reason why distill'd Oyles by the foresaid artifice subside in the form of a liquid Turpentine is because that upon Fermentation from the foresaid mixture the Oyles receive such an alteration by suffering their volatile parts to go off as that what remains combining with the Acidum of the Vitriol becomes thence more a Turpentine then an Oyle and consequently as heavier must subside although Spirit of Wine be put thereto which otherwise would swim above it So that from the premisses it will naturally follow that Turpentines are indeed but liquid Rosins and Rosins no other then concrete Turpentines and further that Turpentines are Oyles incrassated or condenced by addition of Acids yea all but several disguises of Sulphur altered according to different degrees of Acids and their various assaults upon Sulphurs It s worth by the by our observation that even from the mixture of some Acids and Sulphurs sanguification I mean as to its tincture may as well be imitated and shadowed forth unto us as from those of volatile Alcalies and Sulphurs Thus the acid Oyle of Vitriol mixed with the essential Oyles either of Turpentine Juniper Nutmegs or Amber Strikes besides the Fermentation and intense heat they cause a deep blood red colour as I have tryed And I do not know yet but that even Alcalies whether fixt or volatile may from the same reason of their hidden and shut up Acids intend the colours of Sulphurous vegetables concerning which Acids we elsewhere touch yea and from the same operation of the genuine Acids upon their proper Sulphurs in the great work of vegetative Fermentation are struck those various and no less admirable colours in the great field of vegetables as we have hinted before And to conclude as we have shewed water to be the material principle of all concretions so the distinction and specification thereof depends upon Fires or Ferments lodg'd and hid in the inwards of Seeds which Fires or Ferments are differenced from the great variety chiefly of Acids not onely in Fermentation but Concretion in Fluidity but Solidity and consistency of bodies For what 's the tapestrey of vegetables in their peculiar verdure spangled with an amicable lustre but so many central Fires or Ferments at first hid in their seminals and afterwards by the co-operation of other conspiring causes displayed into almost infinitely variety of Plants branching themselves in their different delicate and beautiful colours And what are animals but vital Lamps burning in bodies and yet those bodies no otherwise consum'd but by the glowing dwindling and at last extinguishing of those vital tapers whereby not onely animals but also vegetables are apt besides their common putrilage from plenty of moisture to spend themselves by the declining of the foresaid Ferments in hecticks and wearing marasmes which vital Ferments are more noble then the vegetable because working in greater varieties of Vessels and therefore the more highly by circulation sublim'd and graduated into animal Spirits the ultimate product of vital Ferments yea in humane bodies is the very vinculum of the rational Soul that Heaven born Creature to the body being its vehicle here a large Field is open where I could freely let my thoughts and pen run but shall at present set up my staft and content my self although unwilling in drawing the Curtaine over the rest and indeed at length after many conclusions make an End FINIS This following Paragraph is to be inserted instead of that in page 11. line 29. HEnce it is that some of those Sulphuroushot-waters may with good success in order to the Cure of some Diseases be taken inwardly others not Those that may are generally such whose Sulphurs are either from Common Brimstone Vitriol or Antimony or from Marcasites and Pyrites bordering thereon of which sort among the rest are those of the Bath in Somerset-shire which take their original from such kind of Minerals or Mineral juices lodg'd in the bowels of those great Mountains at the foot or centre whereof those Baths break forth which although of late are found to be successful in the Cure of ome Diseases yet it s very suspicious they injure other persons who without good advice drink those waters so that as to a universally medicinal water they come far short of the Sulphur-water at Knarsbrough in York-shire And indeed these hot-Sulphur-Bath-waters ought to be drunk with a great deal of caution and but by some persons and that too in extraordinary cases yea in no wise to be drunk as a general healing water Those Sulphurous hot-waters which are altogether improper for inward use are such as are impregnate with the Sulphurs of Bitumen Arsneck Risogalla c. or with the Minera's thereof or at least with such Marcasites as participate therewith they are such as we elsewhere name Now the acidum which necessarily concurs to those Fermentations as an indispensible Sulphur opens the bodies of those Sulphurs and thereby either detains them while in fieri in succis solutis or from concretions reduce them to such by either way renders some wholsome and healing others noxious for inward use according to the difference of the foresaid Sulphurs An Advertisement to the Reader THere is now published a Second Part of the Catalogue of Chymical Books in English to be added to the First Part formerly Printed with the Philosophical Epitaph together with a Third Part of the Chymical Catalogue or a Collection of such things published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society as belong any way to Chymistry or the study of Nature by Art in the Animal
length it passeth through an Alom-bed whose acidity precipitates in great part the body of the dissolv'd Sulphur in which very precipitation happens its fatid smell and Sulphurous hogo which onely passing through a slender Colander of Sand retains its lately contracted odour where it filters off from the more gross precipitated body and so makes its exit Which gives great probability of heat in the source of its original mixture and that if the Spring did immediately after that Solution and Fermentation break forth it would be hot at least warm after the manner of other Hot-Baths but being carryed on in a longer line in its subterraneal current before it breaks forth looseth that heat contracted upon the Fermentation of the aforesaid mineral juices And this is likewise remarkable concerning Alom interested in the fabrick of this water viz. that I have as often as I pleas'd to make the experiment taken some of the succulent Alom slate or stone found close by the Well which has had the Salt discernably extraverted which when I scrap'd into simple water would with Galls forthwith strike a deep Purple after the manner which the succulent Alom-stone doth which is got upon the Scarbrough Bank near that Spaw about which our great controversie concerning that waters being aluminous and not vitriolin did chiefly depend which experiment I have several times shewed to persons no less ingenious then inquisitive I also order'd an infusion to be made of some of the same Alom-stones in above a Gallon of fresh water then to be evaporated to about half a Pint which filtred I evaporated further in Balnco M. to try if it would shoot per se but it would not onely came to a soft sort of matter or mellago 3. As to the third thing propounded viz. the difference betwixt this and other natural Hot-Baths in their original principles and primary causes We think that from what has already been said and especially what yet remains to be discours'd of in the next and other succeeding proposals that the difference of these from other Sulphurous waters both as to their origin and virtues will sufficiently be declared And that Sulphur of one sort or other is chiefly concern'd in the fabrick of all Hot-Baths and other Sulphurous waters compleating with other concurring juices the essence of them both 4. As to the fourth proposal viz. how and by what means the Sulphur as the chief mineral ingredient in this water is so opened as to become not onely so subtile as thence to be solvable odore tenus but also so volatile as to pass off in a continual steam and insensible effluvium For the great query is how Sulphur may be so opened as to make the Sulphur-well and other Sulphurous waters of the like nature While I was therefore seriously ruminating upon this matter viz. what it was that might truly be said to open the body of crude Sulphur whether it was an Acid or an Alcali I began to consider how many ways and by what means it was usually so opened as to make a solution in any Liquor First I considered it was solvable for the most part in all Oyles by the help of Fire and that I imagin'd happened from the analogy of parts betwixt Oyles and Sulphurs both of them being chiefly Sulphurs under a disguise the one in a concrete the other in a liquid form both of them also in their bellies hiding their intrinsick Acids the Oylie or Sulphurous parts of both by Fire melting together in the fluid form of a Balsome while the acidum chiefly of the Sulphur being thereby in part separated doth concrescere into a saline form under the appearance of crystals as is obvious in the preparing the Balsome of mineral Sulphur or Brimstone And as vinous Spirits are vegetable Sulphurs comminuted and subtiliz'd by Fermentation so these are also succedaneous to Oyles in the solutions of Brimstone yet need previous preparations by fixt Alcalies as they are called for being so spiritualiz'd are not such apt menstrua for solutions of crude Minerals as Oyles are although either of them are powerful enough for making very strong and furious Fermentations with the aforesaid mineral Sulphurs once by their congenial Acids brought by help of Fire into a fluor in the form of corrosive menstrua witness the high ebullitions betwixt vinous Spirits or Oyles and Spirit of Nitre Aqua-fortis Oyle of Vitriol c. some of them so very furious in their Fermentation as to arise to an actual flagration as we elsewhere demonstrate So that crude Sulphurs unopened by the acuations of the acidum of Fire which also sharpen the implanted Acids of such Minerals do dissolve quietly without any tumult if done leasurely and melt together into one Balsamick Liquor though if hastily done with a pretty smart Fire they make a crackling noise whereas the foresaid mineral Sulphurs being subtiliz'd by their own Acidâ— fortified by the acidum of Fire in their distillation are brought thereby into a fluor of both principles and if then mixed with the foresaid vegetable Sulphurs contract a furious Fermentation from the fresh collisions betwixt Acids and Sulphurs and if close shut up would break in pieces the strongest Vessels art could contrive And as the foresaid solutions of mineral Sulphurs are perform'd by Oyles and vinous Spirits from analogy of parts I considered whether other sorts of solutions of crude Brimstone or the like Sulphurous Minerals might not also be done by the like analogy and then I pondered upon the alterations made upon Brimstone c. by fixt alcalies which how properly call'd we shew in our Halologia and quick-lime and by well weighing the matter found that as Brimstone was dissolvable in Oyle and Spirit of Wine as aforesaid so fixt alcalies work upon Sulphurs no otherwise then as they are acido-sulphurous Salts For I considered that volatile Alcalies such as are all urinous Spirits work not at all upon not cause any alteration in Sulphurs therefore it must needs follow that wherein fixt and volatile alcalies do agree or in that property which is common to them both I mean their precipitating faculty neither of them is concern'd in the solutions of Brimstone and that is common both to fixt and volatile Alcalies to precipitate what Acids have dissolv'd Now the reason why urinous Spirits I mean volatile Alcalies as they are call d do not at all work upon Brimstone is because they contain so very slender a texture of Acids and no Sulphurs if highly rectified and therefore are incapable by analogy of working upon the aforesaid bodies how fixt Alcalies are a new compage of their own native Acids and Sulphurs together with the intertexture of urinous Spirits from whence proceeds its precipitating faculty all bound up by the acidum of the Fire which is their vinculum and not a simple Salt we elsewhere in our History of Tartar declare more at large While I was pondering upon this matter at length methought I espyed a great harmony in
Alcali or volatile Salt taking in some Sulphurous parts but espcially as I say bound up or knit together by the vinculum of an Acid Of which further in our Lithologia Physica Amongst Minerals What are all fossil and other mineral Salts but concretions chiefly perform'd by the power of Acids in the bowels of the Earth In particular what are Sal marine Vitriol Alom and Nitre but concretions of acid juices And indeed what are the generality of artificial Salts or such as are made by mixture but such in whose texture Acids are chiefly and primarily concern'd and without which scarce any saline concretion at all doth appear What are Stones made in the bowels of the Earth but liquid subterraneal juices of alcalizate or other proper matter arrested by acid steams arising from some Fermentation of mineral juices which together pass into those petrifick concretions as we sufficiently and that de industria demonstrate in our Lithologia Physica and Halologia Chymica What are Minerals themselves being immature Metals having the principles of Metals but after a crude volatile imperfect manner such as Brimstone Antimony Pyrites Auripigmentum c. but Sulphurous concretions bound up by their intrinsick acids taking into their compage other Heterogenities as we have in short above declared and may more at large God willing in another place Yea to go higher what are the Metals but a metallick Sulphur bound up by a peculiar implanted Acidum in the mercurial juices whose mixture being not perfect through a complication of some heterogenities makes the imperfect but those being removed by a closer bond of the metallick principles gives the perfect Metals unseparable and unalterable by the power of the strongest culinary Fire We might go yet further and ask what is the Philosophers Elixir if such there be in rerum natura but such a close weaving of metallick principles whose Acidum is intimately and inseparably united all so highly graduated as to become a fixt coagulated tincture of so extensive a nature as to be able to make quick transits through and thereby to hinge into its own fixity and purity other imperfect metallick bodies So that upon a serious inquiry with our Eye directly levelled into the works of nature we cannot but conclude First That all manner of coagulations congelations condensations salifications petrifications yea all sorts of concretions of bodies or of juices into bodies are primarily ascribable to Acids as their grand faber of which we discourse largely and demonstrate we think clearly in our two foresaid Tracts Secondly That by these foresaid coagulations salifications petrifications and other concretions the connate Acidum doth so combine with the Sulphurous parts it closeth with as that both pass into a quid tertium or neutral result partaking of both and yet distinguishable by neither insomuch as the Acidum by such sort of coagulations and concretions looseth its Sting and becomes thereby altogether unperceptable And hence is the reason why although Acids be the very foundation of all coagulations other concretions of bodies yet are themselves as to our gust in many things the least discoverable which because we cannot easily get to the insides of bodies in their natural productions shall therefore endeavour to demonstrate and ellustrate by artificial mixtures resembling the natural Thus in mixing the Runnet or usual Ferment to New-Milk upon heat or while warm after Milking the acidity of the Runnet not only makes the Milk split into Curds and Whey but is it self so coagulated with the Curds as not to become perceptable at all so that Cheese is nothing else but a neutrum or neutral result from an Acid and curdling parts of Milk coagulated together while Cream is the Sulphurous parts of Milk and Butter is the coagulum of that Cream separated by a slender Fermentation procured by the motion of Churming which very coagulation of Butter is from a combination of some small quantity of Acidum with the Sulphurous parts Thus also from the Acidum in Wines of all sorts in Ale Beer Syder c. being poured upon warm or boiled Milk from the Acidum I say in any of the foresaid Liquors it is that the Milk separateth into Curds and Whey or posset-drink the former of which are made lighter or stiffer according to the difference of the Acids and various manner of application of the ingredients in which Curds the acidum of the Fermentable Liquor is wholly coagulated which is a good way of mortifying or correcting all sorts of fretting Acids whether in bad Wines or other Liquors which all fix if there be Milk enough in the Curd and yet that Curd is a neutral and the Acid not at all perceptable therein yea in case of bad Wines or other Drinks where the Acedum is too eager and fretting to those who do not care for Posset-drink and yet would not loose their Wines or other Liquors I would being prompted from the foresaid cause propound as an expedient to put a spoonful or two of boyling Milk upon a Pint or Quart of such sort of Liquors stir it about if the Curd rise to the top to skim it off if not to run it through a filter whereby it will become clear and so you have corrected your Wines c. and made them fit for drinking or in lieu of that to put a tost of old Wheat bread therein which will imbibe much of the superfluous Acidum and make the Drink thereby more wholsome From the foresaid cause of Acids it is also that Fat congeals in animals which is but the Sulphur of the blood congealed by its own or at least acquired Acidum of the Air which after melting by heat whereby the Acid becomes fluid congeals again in cold into that consistence called Saem or Tallow and from the facile congelation of the Sulphurous parts of the blood in some animals from the acidum under either or both considerations viz. of native or acquired from the Air it is that for instance Conies and Field-fare become Fatter in Frosty weather and from the like cause the Fat of Land-animals is hard as the ingenuous Dr. Grew notes in his discourse of mixture while that of Fish is very soft and in great part runs to Oyle viz. because the first sort are expos'd to the acidum floating in the Air and thereby continually to proper ends inspired and the latter being always immers'd in water is much what depriv'd of that congealing acreal acidum And as Acids are remarkable in the various concretions of animals viz. in the coagulations into Flesh consolidations into Bones congelations into Fat c. whereby they shew their different operations upon various juices of animal bodies and thereby also combine into neutral results as aforesaid so likewise the same is evident amongst vegetables Thus express'd Oyles especially when the innate acidum so prevails by some acquirements from the aereal do by keeping grow rancid and thick as also is further apparent in the mixture of acid