Liquors that are necessary to the nutrition and growth of Plants and by depraving those juices make the vegetables that are nourish'd by them unhealthy for the men that eat them or make drinks of them and these noxious Exhalations may be suppos'd in many places to impregnate the juices of the Earth much more copiously than they do the running or stagnant Waters lately spoken of because the difficulty of pervading the Earth in their ascent may so long check them as to make them very numerous in a small space and perhaps make them convene into Bodies so far of a Saline Nature as to be dissoluble either in common Water or some other Subterraneal Liquor by whose help as by vehicles they may insinuate themselves into the roots of Plants and be thence conveyed to other parts Divers things might be alledg'd to keep this conjecture from being improbable if I had leisure to insist on them but I I shall now only mention two things that on this occasion come into my mind the first whereof is that enquiring of a famous Chymist who liv'd in a Countrey abounding with Mines of Vitriol whether he did not observe that the Oaks growing over them were more solid or heavy than those Trees are elsewhere wont to be he answer'd me that he did and that the difference was remarkable The other is that the parts of some Minerals probably by reason of the smallness and solidity of the Corpuscles they consist of are capable of insinuating themselves very plentifully into the pores of growing Vegetables without being really subdu'd by what Philosophers are pleas'd to call the Concocting Faculty of the Plant and instead of being assimilated by the Vegetable they retain their own Mineral Nature and upon the recess or evaporation of the juice that serv'd them for a vehicle may sometimes discover their being Mineral even to an unassisted Eye For I remember I have seen a piece of a Vine that grew not far from Paris which being broken I perceiv'd a multitude of the internal Pores of the root and if I mistake not part of the Trunk also to be stuff't with Corpuscles of a Marchasitical Nature as manifestly appear'd by their Colour and their shining lustre and also by their weight There goes a Tradition among learned Men that the leaves of Vines that grow in some places of Hungary whose Mines afford Gold are as it were gilt on the lower side by ascending Exhalations of a Golden Nature whether this be true or no I shall not take upon me to determine but I remember that having made enquiry about the truth of it of a very ingenious Traveller whose Curiosity led him to visit heedfully those famous Mines he told me that he did not remember he had observ'd what is reported about the Leaves of the Vine but he knew very well that at Tockay a place that affords the famousest Wine of Hungary and indeed the best I have drunk very many of the kernels of the Grapes would appear guilt over as it were with leaf gold To what has been already discours'd may be added that since men are not wont to feed upon either Beasts or Birds of prey as carnivorous Animals usually are but upon such as live upon Grass or Seeds or other vegetable substances and drink nothing but fair water the noxious exhalations that make vegetables and water unwholsome may by their means have a very bad influence upon Sheep Cows Deer Pigeons and other Animals that seed upon such deprav'd vegetables and drink such noxious waters and consequently may be very hurtfull to those men that feed upon such Animals and may by the deprav'd aliment they afford determine them to an Endemical Disease such as that vitiated nutriment is fitted to produce Perhaps it will not seem improper to add on this occasion that 't is possible that in certain places the latent Minerals may be of such a Nature as that their Effluvia may instead of promoting hinder the Production of some particular Disease whether Epidemical or Endemical in the Bodies of them that inhabit those Places For as Physicians observe that the more manifest morbifick causes of some sicknesses are quite contrary to those of others so I think it not improbable that there may also be a mutual contrariety between those latent morbifick causes that are sent up by subterraneal Agents And therefore it need to be no wonder if some of these should either disable those to which they are Hostile or should at least work in Humane Bodies a great Indisposition to admit their hurtfull Operations which methinks those Physicians and Chymists should easily grant who with a boldness that I do not applaud prescribe Amulets wherein Arsenick or some other poysonous Drug is employ'd as preservatives from the Plague against which I doubt the chief Succours they afford proceeds from the Confidence or Fearlesness they give those that wear them But to return to our subterraneal Effluvia since there are divers whole Countries or lesser places that are either altogether or in great part free from this or that particular Disease as in several parts of Scotland from Agues especially if I mistake not Quartans are very unfrequent insomuch that a learned Physician answer'd me that in divers years practice he met not with above three or four and in several large Regions of the East-Indies notwithstanding the excessive heat of the Climate the Plague is very rare since I say these things are so it seems not altogether improbable that the subterraneal steaws may contribute to this advantage by impregnating both the Air the Earth and the Water with Corpuscles endow'd with Qualities unfriendly to these Diseases which seems to be somewhat the more credible because it has been observ'd that some vast Tracts of Land will neither breed nor maintain venemous Creatures as is undoubtedly believ'd of the whole Kingdom of Ireland where I confess I neither did see any alive nor met with any other that did for as to Spiders though they breed in that Countrey where I have seen many of them and sometimes even upon Irish Wood yet they are unanimously believ'd not to be poysonous there And some Writers tell us how truly I know not of some other Countries to which they affirm the like Privilege to belong But there is one instance afforded us by Begninus who travel'd much to visit Mines which if it be strictly true is very notable for my present purpose Dignum admiratione est says he quod quamvis in vicinia Hydriae Comitatus Gloriciensis ubi reperitur copiosè ☿ singulis ferè annis Lues pestifera grassatur illa tamen semper immunis ab hac manere soleat idque viri provectae aetatis se observasse à majoribus suis accepisse mihi sanctè confirmârunt To which I should add the Testimony of the Learned Michael Mayerus who pronounces Mercury to be an Alexipharmacum against divers Diseases and particularly the Plague if I did not suspect by his way
of a wounded Frenchman at Copenhagen I leave you to consider I know not whether it will be very proper to take notice on this occasion of an odd Phaenomenon recited by the experienced Agricola in these words Si animal dejicitur in antrum Viburgense quod est in Carelia Regione Scandiae erumpit ut perhibent sonus intolerabilis magno cum flatu Si leve pondus in specum Dalmatiae quamvis inquit Plinius tranquillo die turbini similis emicat procella 3. As those of whom I took notice at the beginning of this Chapter are backward to allow that Motion may be considerably propagated through solid bodies so on the contrary there are others that are indisposed to think that 't is near so propagable as indeed it is through fluid bodies because they presume that the easy cession of the parts of fluids will dead the impulse received by those of them that are first acted on by the impelling body And 4. There is yet another sort of Naturalists who though they may be brought to grant that Motion may by propagated even through a soft and yielding Medium cannot believe that it should through such a Medium be propagated to any considerable distance being perhaps induced to this opinion by observing that though a body somewhat broad as well as solid as the Palm of one's hand or a battledore be moved through the Air swiftly enough to make a wind yet that wind will not be strong enough to be felt any more than a very little way off Wherefore because the Instances to which I assign the remaining part of this Chapter may be for the most part applicable to the removal of both these prejudices It may for brevity sake be expedient to consider them both together If Luminous bodies act on our Eyes not by a substantial diffusion of extreamly minute particles as the Atomists would have it but by a propagated Pulsion of some Subtile matter contiguous to the shining body as the Cartesians and many other Philosophers maintain 't will be manifest that a body less than a small pin's head may give a brisk motion to a portion of fluid matter many millions of times greater than it self since in a dark night a single spark of fire may be seen in differing places whose distance from it exceeds many thousand times the spark's Diameter Not to mention the great remove at which the flame of a small taper may not onely be seen but appear greater than near at hand And if we compare the Diameter of that bright Planet Venus which yet shines but with a borrowed and reflected Light with its distance from the Earth we may easily conclude that the fixed Stars which probably are so many Suns that shine by their own native Light must impell a stupendious proportion of Etherial matter to be able at that immense distance to make such vivid Impressions as they do upon our Eyes But to descend to Instances less remote and disputable I shall in order to the removal of the two lately mentioned prejudices proceed to consider that though it be true that Fluid bodies do easily yield to Solid ones that impell them and thereby oftentimes quickly dead the motion of those Solids yet the motion being lost onely in regard of the solid body is not lost but transmitted and diffused in reference to the fluid As when a log of wood or any such body specifically lighter than water is let fall in the middle of a pond though its progress downwards be checkt and it be brought to rest quietly on the surface of the water yet its motion is not lost but communicated to the parts of the water it first strikes against and by those to others 'till at length the curls or waves produced on the surface of the water spread themselves till they arrive at the brinks and would perhaps be farther expanded if these did not hinder their progress From which instance we may learn that though the nature of fluid bodies as such requires that their parts be actually distinct and separately moved yet the particular Corpuscles that compose them being at least here below touched by divers others the new motion that is produced in some of them by an impellent Solid must needs make them impell the contiguous Corpuscles and these those that chance to lie next to them and so the impulse may be propagated to a distance which you will the more easily believe may be great if you consider with me both that in a fluid body the Corpuscles being already in the various motion requisite to fluidity yield more easily to the impellent and also that being fully or very near it counterpoised by others of the same fluid a scarce imaginably little force may suffice to impell them insomuch that though the brass Scale of a balance of divers inches in Diameter may well be supposed to outweigh many myriads of such particles as compose water wine c. yet as I elsewhere more fully relate when such a scale was duly counterpoised with another like it I could easily put it into various motions onely with the invisible Effluvia of no great piece of Amber And if we consider that obvious Instance of the swelling Circles made by casting a stone into a Pond or other stagnant water we shall be the more easily perswaded that even in a heavy fluid a motion may reach a far greater way than men are usually aware of beyond the parts on which it was first imprest On this occasion I must not omit a strange Observation given me by a very experienced Navigator that much frequents the Coast of Groenland and other Arctick Regions to fish for whales For this person being discoursed with by me about the effects of the breaking of those vast piles of Ice that are to be met with in those parts assured me that not onely he had often heard the Ice make in breaking terribler noise than the loudest claps of thunder with us but that sometimes when the Sea-water had as it were undermined the foundation of the mountainous piece of Ice he has known it at length suddenly fall into the subjacent Sea with so much violence as to make a storm at a great distance off insomuch that once when he lay two Leagues off of the place where this stupendious mass of Ice fell it made the waves goe so high as to wash clear over the stern of the ship with danger enough to some of his men and to sink several of his shallops that were riding by though scarce any small vessels in the world use to be so fitted for rough Seas as those about Groenland And whereas though the Air be a much thinner fluid we are apt to think it indisposed to propagate motion far give me leave to tell you that we may take wrong measures if we think that for instance the undulating motion into which the Air is put by the action of sonorous bodies reaches but a little way as
Vegetables enables a little sour dough to extend it self through the whole Mass or such as when an Apple or Pear is bruis'd in one part makes the putrify'd part by degrees to transmute the sound into it's own likeness or else some maturative power whereby an inanimate Body may gradually admit of such a change or acquire such Qualities as may be in Mens estimate perfective of it and perhaps give it a new denomination as Anana's in the Indies and Medlars and some other fruits here in Europe do after they are gathered acquire as it were spontaneously in process of time a consistence and sweetness and sometimes Colour and Odour and in short such a state as by one word we call maturity or ripeness and so some Metalline Ores and some Mineral Earths themselves have been observ'd by Mineralogists to acquire in tract of time such a change as to afford some Metal or other Body which either it did not afford before or at least did not afford so copiously or so well qualify'd This I have purposely made out in another Paper and the Observation particularly holds as to Niter which is thought to be the most Catholick Fossile we have and to be at least one of those Fossiles that do the most plentifully emit Effluvia into the Air. 2. When I consider that even in those Mines that are accounted deep ones the Spades of Men are not wont to reach to the ten thousandth part of the thickness of the Earth between its Surface and its Centre which yet is but its Semi-diametre I cannot but confess that we know very little of the Nature or Constitution of the lower part of the Terrestrial Globe since we know little or nothing experimentally of what lyes beneath that Comparatively very thin Crust or Scurf if I may so call it that Humane Industry has been hitherto confin'd to And upon this account I do not think it absurd to suspect that from the lower Subterraneal Regions there may be either continually or periodically emitted into the Region of Mines if I may so call it great store and variety of Mineral Exhalations which may continually repair the loss of those that from time to time ascend out of the Fossile Region as I may also call that of Mines into the Atmosphere But the things I could alledge to Countenance this Conjecture must not be insisted on in this place Therefore I proceed to consider 3. That Bodies so heavy and consequently so abundant in parts of solid matter crouded together as Minerals and other Fossiles are wont to be may well be suppos'd capable without destructively wasting themselves to emit store of such minute Particles as Effluvia for an exceeding long time This will be easily granted by him that shall consider the particulars laid together in a small Tract that I purposely writ about the admirable Subtilty of Effluvia And 't will be the more easily believ'd if it be consider'd how long some Load-stones sever'd from their Mine have been kept in the Air without any notable or perhaps so much as sensible diminution of their Virtue And this brings into my mind what an eminent Physician who was skill'd in Perfumes affirm'd to me about the durableness of an Effluviating power that was not natural to a Metal but adventitious and introduc'd by Art for he assur'd me that he had a Silver Watch-case that had been so well perfum'd that though he usually wore the Watch in his Pocket it continued to be well scented sixteen years The same Person had a way of perfuming factitious Marble quite thorough whose grateful Scent he affirm'd would last exceedingly and of this perfum'd Marble he presented me a Ball which having been some months after gotten from me by a great Lady I was disabled from observing the durableness of the fragrancy I might perhaps be thought wanting to my Cause if before I dismiss the Proposition I have been all this while discoursing of I should not observe that Subterraneal Effluvia may contribute to Endemical Diseases not only as they vitiate the Air that Men breathe in or are immediately touch'd by but as they may impregnate or deprave the Aliments that men feed upon For first they do mingle themselves with the water which either men drink it self alone as is the Custome with many Nations and of some men in most Nations or make of it their Bear Ale or other factitious drinks prepar'd of Water and Barley Oats Rice c. That divers Springs and other Waters are imbued with Mineral Corpuscles may be judg'd by some of the Medicinal Springs for though divers Acidulae and Thermae afford good store of palpable Sulphur or Salt yet all do not and having purposely examin'd a famous one I could with a pair of nice Scales scarce discover any sensible difference at all between the Medicinal Water and the common Water that was to be met with thereabouts And that which impregnated this and which I found by tryal on my self and some other Bodies enabl'd it to work very manifestly like a Mineral Water was a sort of Corpuscles so minute and subtile that if the Bottles were not kept well stopt they would in a short time vanish and leave the Liquor dispirited Experience has assur'd me that there are ways of making common water violently and hurtfully operative upon Humane Bodies though its sensible qualities would not make one suspect any change in it but the ill use that bad men may make of such Liquors makes me forbear to express my self more clearly nor is it necessary that I should add anything to confirm the propos'd conjecture save what may be inferr'd from these two Particulars the first whereof is the scarce at all sensible change that may be made in water and some other Liquors that are made strongly Emetick by Crocus Metallorum and by Antimony vitrify'd without addition and the second may be taken from those Averni whence there continually ascend such pernicious Exhalations as in some places intoxicate or kill even the Birds that fly over those poysonous vents for if such Exhalations or even far less deadly ones should as they may be reasonably suppos'd sometimes to do meet with either running or stagnant Waters in their ascent there is little doubt to be made but they will impregnate them and make them noxious And on this occasion we may pertinently recall to mind what I have formerly deliver'd about a place upon the Borders of Lancashire where the Water and Mud of a Ditch is so copiously impregnated with Subterraneal Exhalations whether they be bituminous sulphureous or of some unknown kind that they may easily be fir'd at the surface of the Water or Earth and made to burn like a Candle as an ingenious man did at my Request successfully try But there is another account upon which the Effluvia of the lower parts of the Earth may have a greater stroke in producing of Endemical Diseases namely as they mingle with the Water and other