yet be one fourth less and likewise fire and ayr would in their supposed purity possess a place yet one fourth larger the reason is because the fourth part of the admisted Elements to each pure Element doth so much the more augment or diminish its quantity which being prescinded must necessarily either enlarge or lessen their places Wherefore you see that it doth not hinder but that the minima's of the earth and water may be equal in number activity to the minima's of the others Neither doth it hinder but that the earth and water being expanded by the support of the light elements as appears in the Chaos might have constituted so great a mole as the Chaos was notwithstanding it appeares so small now for every natural point of water was almost half as much diducted violently as it were by the thin levity of the ayr as such a proportion of ayr is now naturally through its absolute form expanded So likewise was the air then half as much cohibited and incrassated through its relative form by the water as the water is now incrassated The like conceive of fire and earth Through these abstractions did all the temperate qualities of the Chaos cease each element did arrive almost to its absolute nature The greatest commerce which they then exercised was with each their nearest adjacent as the fire with ayr ayr with water and fire water with earth and ayr earth with water and fire with ayr In this Scheme you may see the apparition of the second Division which was the third act of Creation The fire moves circulatly by reason of the ayr the ayr is cast equally over the water the water over the earth both pursuing a circular course The Representation of the Chaos after its second Division CHAP. XII Of the Third Division of the Chaos 1. The effects of the Third Knock. Why earth is heavier then water Why water is more weighty near the top then towards the bottom Why a man when he is drowned doth not go down to the bottom of the Ocean Why a potch'd Egge doth commonly rest it self about the middle of the water in a Skillet Why the middle parts of salt-Salt-water are more saltish then the upper parts 2. Whence the earth hapned to be thrust out into great protuberancies How the earth arrived to be disposed to germination of Plants A vast Grove pressed into the earth 3. The cause of the waters continual circular motion 4. The cause of the rise of such a variety of Plants 1. THe third Division or the fourth act of Creation was whereby the most universal Nature naturans did yet more purifie and as it were clarifie the Elements in abstracting each element from its nearer and congregating it to a proper place of its own These several acts of purification and exaltation are not unlike to the operations of an Alchymist in purifying a Mineral 1. He reduceth it to a powder and mixeth it exactly and so it was with the Chaos 2. Then it is either put into a Retort Alembick or a Sublimatory whereby the light parts are separated and abstracted from the heavy ones this hapned also in the first Division 3. He rectifieth the light parts in repeating the former operation and exalts it to a more sublime and pure nature and so separates the lightest parts from the light ones even so it was here God did yet more separate the fire from the ayr Touching the caput mortuum as the earthy parts that he dissolves in water and afterwards to purifie it he coagulates the earth and so separates it from the water in the same manner did God here coagulate the earth and parted it from the waters Further how this is effected I shall in brief explain to you The water through her gravity with crassitude doth obtain a vertue in her of squeezing which is performed by a body that is weighty and continuous for by its weight it presseth downwards to the center and through its continuity it impedes the body which it presseth from entring into its own substance and so forceth it to give way which is the manner of squeezing Now was this body weighty and contiguous only then it would be uncapable of squeezing but would rather press another substance into its own Pores Through this squeezing vertue is water rendred capable of collecting her own parts by making Groves into the earth especially being thereunto impelled by the divine Architect But possibly you may object that water cannot squeeze or press the earth because the earth is weightier then it I answer that earth is weightier then water caeter is paribus supposing that neither is obstructed or violently as it were detained for instance imagining that the mass of earth and of water were each of them placed in Scales no doubt but earth would be heavier and its parts make a greater impulse to the Center because they are single in every minimum and not continuated one to the other and therefore one part doth not hinder the force of the other but rather helpeth it As for water her impulse is lesser because her parts are continuated one to the other and so are a mutual hinderance to one another This I prove take an hour-glass and fill it with water never a drop shall pass through the center-hole the reason is evident because although its parts are weighty yet their continuity hinders them from stilling through and so one part naturally cleaving to the other doth preclude the way but sand you see easily passeth because it being weighty and contiguous only the one part giveth way to the other and impels the same through Wherefore I conclude that all conditions being equal earth is heavier then water But the one being violently detained may prove weightier then the other and so water is detained by earth for water is impeded from concentrating through the protuberance of the mass of earth which therefore causeth a more forcible innixe in water upon the superficial parts of the earth I prove it water weigheth heavier upon the top of high mountains then in the lowermost Region of the Ayr because there it is remoter from its center 2. Water presseth more atop then underneath because it is more remote from the center this is apparent by mens experience in the water for if they suffer themselves to sink down they feel the greatest force to press them from the supream parts of the water but the lower they descend to the bottom the less force they perceive Also there are many things as an Egge dropt out of the shell into the water in a Skillet and others go no deeper then half way to the bottom the reason is because the superficial parts being most remote from the center press more forcible then the parts under them Men when they are drowned in the Sea do not descend so low as to reach the ground but so far only as the superficial parts of the Sea thrusteth them besides there is reason
of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got the Center and how the waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. ib. 6. The qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration ib. 59 CHAP. XI Of the second Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of Effects befalling the Elements through the second knock The proportion of each of the Elements in their purity to the Peregrine Elements p. 60. 2. The ground of the forementioned proportion of the Elements 61 62. 3. That fire and ayr constitute the Firmament p. 63. 4. A grand Objection answered ib. 64. CHAP. XII Of the Third Division of the Chaos 1. The effects of the third knock Why earth is heavier than water Why water is more weighty near the top than towards the bottom Why a man when he is drowned doth not go down to the bottom of the Ocean Why a potch'd Egge doth commonly rest it self about the middle of the water in a Skillet Why the middle parts of salt-Salt-water are more saltish than the upper parts p. 66 67. 2. Whence the earth hapned to be thrust out into great protuberancies How the earth arrived to be disposed to germination of Plants A vast Grove pressed into the earth p. 68. 3. The cause of the waters continual circular motion ib. 69. 4. The cause of the rise of such a variety of Plants p. 71. CHAP. XIII Of the Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of the Effects of the fourth Division That Nature created the first bodies of every Species the greatest is instanced in Bees Fishes and Fowl That all Species are derived from one individuum That Adam was the greatest man that ever was since the Creation What those Glants were which the Poets faigned p. 72 73 74. 2. How the Sun and Moon were created That a Lioness is not more vigorous than a Lion p. 75. 3. How the Stars of the Firmament were created p. 76. 4. How the durable Clouds of the Ayr were created ib. 5. The Effects of the fifth Division ib. 6. The Effects of the sixth Division ib. 7. The Effects of the last Division ib. CHAP. XIV Of the Second and Third Absolute Qualities of the Elements 1. What is understood by Second Qualities p 78. 2. What the Second Quality of Earth is p. 79. 3. Aristotle's Definition of Density rejected ib. 4. The Opinions of Philosophers touching the Nature of Density p. 80. 5. The forementioned Opinions confuted p. 81. 6. The Description of Indivisibles according to Democritus disproved That all Figures are divisible excepting a Circular Minimum That Strength united proveth strongest in around Figure and why ib. 82 83. 7. What the Second Quality of Fire is Cardan Averrhoes Zimara Aristotle Tolet and Zabarel their Opinions touching the Nature of Rarity confuted p. 84 85 86 87. 8. The Second Quality of Water Aristotle Joh. Grammat Tolet Zabarel and Barthol their sence of Thickness and Thinness disproved p. 88. 9. What the Second Quality of Ayr is p. 89. 10. What is intended by third fourth or fifth Qualities An Enumeration of the said Qualities What Obtuseness Acuteness Asperity Levor Hardness Rigidity Softness Solidity Liquidity and Lentor are and their kinds ib. 90 91 92. CHAP. XV. Of the Respective Qualities of the Eements particularly of Fire Earth and Water 1. What is meant by the Respective Qualities of the Elements Why they are termed Second Qualities p. 93. 2. That heat is the second respective or accidental quality of fire That fire is not burning hot within its own Region That fire doth not burn unless it flames is proved by an Experiment through Aq. fort ib. 3. That heat in fire is violently produced The manner of the production of a Flame What it is which we call hot warm or burning How fire dissolves and consumes a body into ashes p. 94. 4. That Heat is nothing else but a Multiplication Condensation and Retention of the parts of fire The degrees of Heat in fire and how it cometh to be warm hot scorching hot blistering hot burning hot and consuming hot p. 95. 5. A way how to try the force of fire by Scales Why fire doth not alwayes feel hot in the Ayr. ib. 96. 6. Plato and Scaliger their Opinion touching heat p. 97. 7. The Parepatetick Description of Heat rejected How fire separateth Silver from Gold and Lead from Silver p. 98. 8. What the second respective quality of Earth is What Cold is The manner of operation of Cold upon our Tââct p. 100. 9. The second respective quality of Water That Water cooles differently from Earth ib. 10. Aristotle and Zabarel their wavering Opinions touching Cold. That Earth is the primum frigidum ib. 101. CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualilities of the Elements 1. The second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The state of the Controversie 102 103. 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilest he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning than a man The great errour committed in trying of witches by casting them into the water p. 104 105 106. 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth p. 107. 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy p. 108. 5. The third Respective Quality of Fire What Driness is The definition of Moysture The third Respective Qualities of water and Ayr. Aristotles description of Moysture That Water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst p. 109. CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three conditions required in a Mixtion p 110. 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really p. 111. 3. Aristotles definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt bodies 112. 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention p. 113. 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion p. 114. CHAP. XVIII Of Temperament 1. That Temperament is the form of Mixtion That Temperament is a real and positive quality p. 115. 2. The definition of a Temperament Whether a Temperament is a single or manifold quality Whether a complexion of qualities may be called one compounded quality p. 116. 3. VVhether a Temperament be a fift quality A Contradiction among Physitians touching Temperament Whether the congress of the four qualities effects be one Temperament or more ib. 117. 4. That there is no such thing as a Distemper What a substantial Change is p. 118. 5.
VVhat an alteration or accidental change is That the differences of Temperament are as many as there are Minima's of the Elements excepting four p. 119. CHAP. XIX Of the Division of Temperaments 1. VVhat an equal and unequal Temperament is That there never was but one temperament ad pondus That Adams Body was not tempered ad pondus That neither Gold nor any Celestial bodies are tempered ad pondus p. 120. 2. That all temperaments ad Justiriam are constantly in changing That there are no two bodies in the world exactly agreeing to one another in temperature p. 121. 3. The Latitude of temperaments How the corruption of one body ever proves the generation of another p. 122. 4. That there is no such unequal temperament as is vulgarly imagined That there is an equal temperament is proved against the vulgar opinion That where Forms are equal their matters must also be equal p. 123 124. 5. VVhat a Distemper is That Galen intended by an unequal temperature p. 125. 6. VVhen a man may be termed temperate That bodies are said to be intemperate ib. 126 127. 7. The combination of the second Qualities of the Elements in a temperature Their Effects p. 128. CHAP. XX. Of Alteration Coction Decoction Generation Putrefaction and Corruption 1. VVhat Coction and Putrefaction is The Difference between Putrefaction and Corruption p. 130. 2. The Authors Definition of Alteration The effects of Alteration ib. 3. The Division of Alteration p. 131. 4. That the first Qualities of the Peripateticks are not intended by the acquisition of new Qualities without Matter Wherein Alteration differs from Mixtion or Temperament ib. 5. The Definition of Coction Why a man was changed much more in his youth than when come to maturity p. 132 133. 6. The Constitution of women Which are the best and worst Constitutions in men That heat is not the sole cause of Coction p. 134 135. 7. The kinds of Coction What Maturation Elixation and Assation are p. 136. 8. VVhat Decoction is and the manner of it p. 137. 9. The definition of Putrefaction 139 10. VVhat Generation imports in a large and strict acception Whether the Seed of a Plant or Animal is essentially distinguisht from a young Plant or new born Animal That heat is not the sole efficient in Generation p. 139. 11. VVhether the innate heat is not indued with a power of converting adventitious heat into its own nature Whether the innate heat be Celestial or Elementary p. 140 141 142. 12. The Definition of Corruption Why the innate heat becomes oft more vigorous after violent Feavers Whether Life may be prolonged to an eval duration What the Catochization of a Flame is By what means many pretend to prolong life That the production of life to an eval duration is impossible Whether our Dayes be determined The ambiguity of Corruption Whether Corruption be possible in the Elements p. 143 to 149. CHAP. XXI Of Light 1. VVhat Light is The manner of the production of a Flame p. 150. 2. The properties and effects of Light p. 151. 3. That Light is an effect or consequent of a Flame Whence it happens that our Eyes strike fire when we hit our Foreheads against any hard Body That Light is not a quality of fire alone That Light is not fire rarefied That where there is Light there is not alwayes heat near to it How Virginals and Organs are made to play by themselves p. 152 153. 4. That Light is a continuous obduction of the Ayr. That Light is diffused to a far extent in an instant and how Why the whole tract of Air is not enlightned at once p. 154 155. 5. The manner of the Lights working upon the Eye-sight That sight is actuated by reception and not by emission p. 156. 6. The reason of the difference between the extent of illumination and calefaction That Light cannot be precipitated ib. 7. That Light is not the mediate cause of all the Effects produced by the Stars That Light hath only a power of acting immediately and per se upon the optick spirits How the Air happens to burst through a sudden great light That a sudden great Light may blind kill or cast a man into an Apoplexy p. 157. 8. How Light renders all Objects visible Why a peice of Money cast into a Basin filled with water appears bigger than it is The causes of apparent Colours Why a great Object appears but small to one afar off The difference between lux and lumen What a Beam is What a Splendour is That the Lights begot by the Stars and other flames are not distinguished specie How the Coelum Empyreum is said to be Lucid p. 158 159. CHAP. XXII Of Colours 1. The Authors Definition of a Colour That Light is a Colour Aristotles Definition of colour examined p. 160 161 162. 2. Scaligers Absurdities touching Colours and Light p. 163. 3. What colour Light is of and why termed a single Colour That Light doth not efficienter render an Object visible How a mixt Colour worketh upon the sight and how it is conveyed to it ib. 164. 4. The Causes of the variations of Mercury in its colour through each several preparation p. 165. 5. That Colours are formally relations only to our sight That a mixt colour is not an intentional quality That besides the relation of colours there is an absolute foundation in their original Subjects How the same fundamental colours act p. 166. 6. That there are no apparent colours but all are true p. 167. 7. The Differences of colours What colour focal fire is of The fundamental colours of mixt bodies p. 168 169 170 171. 8. What reflection of light is What refraction of colours is Aristotles Definition of colour rejected The Effects of a double reflection The Reasons of the variations of Colour in Apples held over the water and Looking-glasses The variation of Illumination by various Glasses p. 172. 9. The Division of Glasses The cause of the variation of colour in a Prism ib. 173 174. 10. The Nature of Refraction Why colours are not refracted in the Eye p. 175 176. CHAP. XXIII Of Sounds 1. The Definition of a Sound That the Collision of two solid Bodies is not alwayes necessary for to raise a Sound p. 177. 2. Whether a Sound be inherent in the Air or in the body sounding The manner of Production of a Sound p. 178. 3. Whether a Sound is propagated through the water intentionally only That a Sound may be made and heard under water p. 179. 4. That a Sound is a real pluffing up of the Air. How a Sound is propagated through the Air and how far Why a small Sound raised at one end of a Mast or Beam may be easily heard at the other end Why the Noise of the treading of a Troop of Horse may be heard at a far distance p. 180 181 182. 5. The difference between a Sound and a Light or Colour That it is possible for a man to hear with his eyes
and Castor a Flying Drake a burning Candle a perpendicular fire a skipping Goat flying sparks and a burning flame p. 375 376. 2. Of the generation of Thunder Fulguration and Fulmination and of their effects Of a thunder stone p. 377 378. 3. Of Comets Of their production p. 379 380 381. CHAP. XVIII Of the term Antiperistasis and a Vacuum 1. Whether there be such a thing as an Antiperistasis p. 382. 2. Whether a Vacuum be impossible and why p. 383. 3. Experiments inferring a Vacuum answered p. 384 385. 4. Whether a Vacuum can be effected by an Angelical or by the Divine Power p. 386. 5 Whether Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum A threefold sense of the doubt proposed In what sense Local Motion is possible in a Vacuum in what not ib. 387. CHAP. XIX Of Physical Motion 1. What a Physical Motion is The kinds of it The definition of Alteration Local Motion and quantitative motions The subdivision of Local Motion p. 388 389. 2. That all alterative and quantitative motions are direct p. 390. 3. That all externall motions are violent ib. 4. That all weighty mixt bodies being removed from their Element are disposed to be detruded downwards from without but do not move from any internal inclination or appetite they have to their universal Center p. 391 392. 5. The causes of swiftness and slowness of external Local Motion 393 6. That light bodies are disposed to be moved upwards ib. 7. That airy bodies being seated in the fiery Region are disposed to be moved downwards p. 394. CHAP. XX. Of Attraction Expulsion Projection Disruption Undulation and Recurrent Motion 1. How Air is attracted by a water-spout or Siphon p. 395. 2. The manner of another kind of Attraction by a sucking Leather 396. 3. How two slat Marble stones clapt close together draw one another up ib. 4. How a Wine-Coopers Pipe attracts Wine out of a Cask ib. 5. How sucking with ones mouth attracts water p. 397. 6. How a Sucker attracts the water ib. 7. The manner of Attraction by Filtration p. 398. 8. The manner of Electrical Attraction ib. 9. How fire and fiery bodies are said to attract p. 399. 400. 10. What Projection is and the manner of it p. 401. 11. What Disruption Undulation and Recurrent motion are ib 402. CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions p. 402. 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated ib. 3. How the other Planets are generated ib. 4. How the fixed Stars were generated p. 404. 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way p. 405. 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated p. 406. CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of Fire 1. VVhere the Poles of the Heavens are p. 408. 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected p. 409. 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly ib. 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it ib. 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out p. 410 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation p. 411. 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Medeity and slower through the Boreal How the Sun happens to measure a larger fiery Tract at some seasons in the same time than at others p. 412. 8. VVhence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens p. 414. 9. An undoubted and exact way of Calculating the natural end of the World The manner of the Worlds dissolution The same proved also by the holy Scriptures The prevention of a Calumny ib. 415 416. CHAP. XXIII Of the Magnitude and distance of the Sun and Moon and the motion of the other Planets 1. That the Magnitude of the Sun hath not been probably much less certainly stated by any The Arguments vulgarly proffered for the proof of the Suns Magnitude rejected p. 417 418. 2. That the Sun might be capable enough of illuminating the World were he much lesser than the terraqueous Globe than I suppose him to be p 419. 3. That the shadow of the Earth is to some extent Cylindrical ib. 4. That the Sun existing in the AEquator doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the Earth ib. 5. Concerning the diminution or increase of the shadow of the Earth within the Polars together with the cause of the Prolongation and Abbreviation of the dayes That the Sun is much bigger than he appears to be p 420. 6. What the spots of the Sun and Moon are and their causes ib. 7. That the Arguments proposed by Astronomers for rendring the Moon lesser than the Earth and proving the distance of the Sun are invalid p. 421. 8. That the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth ib. 9. Several Phaenomena's of the Moon demonstrated p. 422. 10. Concerning the motion of Venus and Mercury p 423. 11. Of the motion of the fixed Stars and their Scintillation p. 424. CHAP. I. Problems relating to the Earth 1. Why two weighty bodies are not moved downwards in parallel Lines p. 426. 2. Why a great Stone is more difficultly moved on the top of a high hill than below p. 427. 3. Why a pair of Scales is easier moved empty than ballanced ib. 4. Whence it is that a man may carry a greater weight upon a Wheelbarrow than upon his back ib. 5. Why a weighty body is easier thrust forward with a Pole than immediately by ones arms besides 5. other Probl. more p. 428 429 430 6. Why a stick thrust into a hole if bended is apt to be broke near the hole What the cause of the relaxation of a bowed stick is p. 431. 7. Whether Gold doth attract Mercury ib. 8. Why the herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysanthemum Peruvianum obverteth its leaves and flowers to the Sun wheresoever he be p. 432. Why the Laurel is seldom or never struoken by Lightning b. CHAP. II. Containing Problems relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water p. 432. 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region p. 433. 3. How Glass is made ib 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yeelds to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder p. 434. 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is p 335. 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire ib. CHAP. III. Comprizing Problems touching the Air. 1. Whether Air âe weighty p 436. 2. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind âe heavier than when empty ib. 3. Why water contained in a beer glass being
if he hath set down any of the Elements as of Fire Ayr Water or Earth plainer then Aristotle hath explained them His Demonstrations are altogether remote from sense Besides the confusedness of his method In fine I cannot imagine what practick use may be made of them As for these Particulars which I have here cited against him I shal prove their falsities in the progress of my following Discourse CHAP. VI. Of the Material Principle of Natural Beings 1. The Causes of the Elements 2. That the Elements are really compounded natural beings 3. That Matter and Quantity are really identificated 4. What Quantity is What its Ratio formalis is 5. That in rebus quantis there is a maximum and a minimum Definitum 6. Experimental Instances proving that there are actual Minima's and that all natural beings do consist out of them 7. The pursuit of the preceding Instances inferring a Continuum to be constituted out of actual Indivisibles Some Geometrical Objections Answered SOmewhat hath been heretofore stated touching the matter and form of Natural bodies which being remote we must descend lower and adde a few notes respecting the matter and form of the Elements Wherefore remember I. That the elements are natural beings and therefore consist of natural matter and form and are constituted from an Efficient II. The Elements arising from the conjunction of matter and form are not to be counted single bodies in that respect nor in any other but as much compounded as any other body derived from them that is in this Phrase Elementa sunt majora composita ac caetera ab ipsis orta entia quanquam haec illis censenda sunt magis composita So that it was an errour in Aristotle to define an element by a single body or being They could not be thought to be single in any other respect but in their real separate existences but such they never had any their relative form contradicting it III. It is a property in matter to be an internal cause which through its quantity is capable of receiving a form So the elements were affected with a quantity through which they received their forms I do here strive as much as may be to reserve that old custom of termes and phrases in Physicks which Aristotle hath assigned to us but again reflecting upon the abuse and improperness of them I am compelled to call to mind a Rule of my Metaphysicks to wit that the essence of all things are but modes united and for that reason counting quantity a mode I cannot make any thing else of matter but a mode I mean matter in a concrete sense for what is matter really but quantity it self they differing only ratione and how that Thus Quantity is only notional or a term assinged by the understanding to a res quanta for to explain that a thing is made out of it and yet that whereout the thing is made is quantity still So form is nothing else but a notion whereby we express the activity and quality of a thing and beyond that activity and quality it is nothing Wherefore observe Quantity and Quality being the two essential principal and eminent modes of a natural being and fit terms and notions they are usually treated of distinctly in this part of Philos. under the name of matter and form Now do not take either of them separately for a Substance unless they be both joyned together You may also remember that Quantity is the only Accident allowed to matter by the Peripateticks but this quantity not being possible to exist through it self others did confer a forma quantitativa upon matter for a forma they imagined it needed because through it quantity was distinguisht from nothing now that which makes a distinction is the form only Besides what is quantity without form Even nothing because without a form it is not that which it is as further appears by the definition of a form Since then we have proved that matter is primarily nothing else but quantity we shall easily make it appear that it cannot exist without the other modes as place duration c. IV. Quantity is a mode of a being through which it is extended that is through which it hath one part existing beyond the other or thus Quantity is the Mole Magnitude or Dimension of a being That which doth immediately follow this magnitude is the extension of parts and that which doth follow this extension is internal and external place and habit c. I say these affections follow one another not really for they are existent all at once but intentionally only because the one doth represent it self to the understanding before the other Now when the dispute is about the Ratio formalis of quantity whether it be divisibility mensurability mole magnitude extension of parts c. it is to be understood which of them doth primarily represent it self to the mind not which of them is re prius for they are really co-existent and identificated In Answer to the Question thus stated I hold that the extension of one part beyond the other or its repletion and possession of place is the potissima ratio quantitatis That which we do first conceive through the perception of a res quanta is its repletion of place or extension of one part beyond the other for at the first sight of a body we judge it to be a body because it appeares to us to have one part extended beyond the other or to possess a place this is presently after confirmed to us because it seems to be a bulk mole magnitude or to be divisible and by that we conclude it is no Spirit or nothing and as I said before because it doth replenish that place and is commensurated by it As for extension of parts one beyond the other it is the same with the repletion of an internal place which that it hath we come to know through its repletion of an external place Take quantity concretâ for a res quanta or res extensa sive locata mensurata divisibilis it matters not which as long as we agree inre although differing in nomine V. In Quantity or rather rebus quantis or in materialibus there is a minimum definitum and a maximum definitum Wherefore all beings must be one of those or interjacent between them for that which is less then minimum is nothing that which is more then maximum is infinitum neither of which is natural Fire we see if it be less then it can abide in its least quantity it goeth out and becomes nothing So whatever is less then a Sand of earth or the least drop of water is nothing of the said Species That which is actu greater then the world is infinite neither is there any thing bigger quantitate materials then it ergo there is a maximum Further were there not a minimum or a maximum there must be an infinitum actuale granted which the finiteness of all things
purity that is in its absolute state doth moysten less then Quicksilver which is not at all IV. The Form or first quality of water is gravity with crassitude There is no single word I can think upon in any Language that I know full enough to express what I do here intend and therefore am compelled to substitute these I explain them thus You must apprehend that gravity is a motion from the Circumference to the Center Levity is a diffusion or motion from the Center to the Circumference Now there is a gravity with density that is which hath density accompanying it Density is a closeness of minima's not diducted into a continuity but potentialiter that is Logicè porous and such is proper to earth There is also a gravity with crassitude which is a weight whose parts are diducted into a continuity or I might rather express my self whose parts do concentrate or move from the Circumference to the Center with a continuity that is without any potential pores dividing its matter as in Quicksilver diduct its body to the Circumference as much as you can yet its part will concentrate with a continuity but if you diduct earth you will perceive its porosity so that its body is altogether discontinuated Water is then weighty with a crassitude I prove it First that it is weighty or that its parts move from the Circumference to the Center Water when divided through force doth unite it self in globosity as appears in drops where all its parts falling from the circumference close to their center form a globosity 2. Water doth not only in its divided parts concentrate but also in its whole quantity This is evident to them that are at sea and approaching to the Land they first make it from the top-mast-head whereas standing at the foot of it upon the Deck they cannot The reason is because the water being swelled up in a round figure the top is interposed between the sight of those that stand upon the Deck and the Land-marks as hils or steeples but they that are aloft viz. upon the Yard arm or top-mast may easily discover them because they stand higher then the top of the swelling of the water The same is also remarkeable in a Bowl filled up with water to the Brim where you may discern the water to be elevated in the middle and proportionably descending to the Brim to constitute a round Figure Archimedes doth most excellently infer the same by demonstration but since the alleadging of it would protract time and try your patience I do omit it Lastly The Stars rising and going down do plainly demonstrate the roundness of the water for to those that sayl in the Eastern Seas the Stars do appear sooner then to others in the Western Ocean because the swelling of the water hindreth the light of the Stars rising in the East from illuminating those in the West The same Argument doth withal perswade us that the earth is round and consequently that its parts do all fall from the Outside to the Center V. Secondly That water hath a crassitude joyning to its gravity sight doth declare to us for it is impossible to discern any porosity in water although dropped in a magnifying Glass which in Sand is not It s levor or most exact smoothness expressing its continuity accompanying its weight is an undoubted mark of its crassitude whereas roughness is alwaies a consequent of contiguity and porosity There is not the least or subtilest spark of fire or ayr can pass the substance of water unless it first break the water and so make its way to get through this is the reason why the least portion of ayr when inclosed within the Intrailes of water cannot get out unless it first raises a bubble upon the water which being broke it procures its vent Nor the least Atome of fire cannot transpire through water unless it disrupts the water by a bubble as we see happens when water seeths or disperse the water into vapours and carry vapours and all with it But ayr and fire do easily go through earth because its parts being only contiguous and porous have no obstacle to obstruct them for sand we see in furnaces will suffer the greatest heat or fire to pass through without any disturbance of its parts Lastly Its respectiveness or relation doth require this form both for its own conservation and for others For the earths relative form being to meet and take hold through its weight and porosity this porosity is necessary for admitting the fire within its bowels for were it continuous as water is it would expel fire and dead it of the fire and by ballancing its lightness to preserve their beings mutually it needs the assistance of water for to inclose the fire when it is received by the earth and through its continuity to keep it in otherwise it would soon break through its pores and desert it So that you see that water by doing the earth this courtesie preserveth her self for were she not stayed likewise in her motion through the fire and ayr she would move to an infinitum VI. Moisture is not the first quality or form of the ayr I prove it Moysture as I said before is nothing else but the adhesion of a moyst body to another which it doth affect or touch Now in this moyst body there must be a certain proportion or Ratio substantiae of quantity it must neither be too thick or too thin Water therefore in its purity is unapt to moysten because it is too thick so ayr in its absolute state is too thin to adhere to any body that it reaches unto If ayr in its mixt nature through which it is rendred of a far thicker consistence is nevertheless not yet thick enough to adhere to the sides of another substance much less in its purity Who ever hath really perceived the moysture of Ayr I daily hear people say hang such a thing up to dry in the ayr but yet I never heard any say hang it up in the ayr to moysten but wet it in the water This drying Faculty of the ayr Peripateticks assert to be accidental to it namely through the permixtion of exhalations with the ayr Alas this is like to one of their Evasions Do we not know that the ayr in its lowest region is rather accidentally moyst because of its imbibition of vapours copiously ascending with the fire or heat tending out of the water to its element Is not the heat more apt to conveigh vapours that do so narrowly enclose it then earth which of it self permits free egress to fire yea where an Ounce of Exhalations ascends there arises a Pint of Vapours Waving this I state the case concerning the second Region of the Ayr or of the top of Mountains where according to their own judgment neither Vapours or âxhalations are so much dispersed as to be capable of drying or moystning any ex rinsick body even here do wet things dry quicker then
below because the ayr here is much freed from that irrigation of waterish moysture which the vapours contribute to the lowermost Region as impelling all extraneous vapours and exhalâtion to a body Moreover I will give you a reason for it To dry is to dissipate and disperse moysture or dampishness adhering to any substance but the ayr being a most subtil body doth through its subtility attenuate the water which attenuated fals off from that body whereunto it first hung and is then imbibed by the ayr which it doth afterwards detrude to its proper place Lightness with tenuity is the form and first quality of ayr What lightness is I have set down before Tenuity is a continuous exparsion and diffusion into all dimensions As water is weighty with crassitude so contrariwise as it were is air light with tenuity I prove that ayr is light because all aerial bodies as Cobwebs Feathers although they are complicated yet being cast forth into the ayr their parts are diffused from the Center to the Circumference Grease Tallow Oyl Wax c. these bodies because they do much participate of Ayr when melted and dropt upon the ground do spread themselves into broad splatches not contracting themselves like earth or water into close round bodies but rather contrariwise Gunpowder when kindled Smoak breathes of living Creatures Vapours Exhalations Dust c. are all diducted from their Center to the Circumference through the natural motion of the air inclosed within their bodies The Ayr if condensed as they say but improperly is in a counter-natural state for then it makes use of violence ergo its diffusion to the Circumference is natural to it That the air is tenuous or confisting of thin parts expanded in continuity into all dimensions its rupture doth signifie for were it contiguous every subtil exhalation or wind would not move it but might easily transpire through its porosity without concussing it but it being continuous is compelled to break which rupture causes both its commotion and sound Hence it is that the least breath moves the air and makes a sound in it The reason why the water is moved or at any time a sound is made in it is because it being continuous is subject to ruptures which disposeth it to both but neither happens to fire or earth because they are porous and only contiguous Lastly It s being and preservation is impossible without this relative form For through it the Ayr doth moderate balance and is subservient to it self and other Elements Water is weighty with crassitude and through its so being it compasses the earth so narrowly that the fire is unable of striking through its continuity for to meet the earth wherefore Ayr being light with tenuity doth diffuse and expand the body of water and so the fire is led to the earth by the conduct of the Ayr. Again water being of that weight would move to an infinitum and the lightness of fire is insufficient to stay it because water is heavy and thick and therefore contrary to fire which is light and rare and through that quality must necessarily expel the fire wherefore air is requisite for to balance its weight and having partly the same nature with water and partly different yet not contrary is alone capable of mixing with the water Ayr is partly of the same nature with water because they are both continuous and so do thereby immediately at their first conjunction pervade each other and come to an exact union This I will illustrate to you by an Example Affuse Spirits of Wine to Water you see they will mixe exactly in a moment for you may presently after tast them equally at the bottom of the Glass and at the top Now it is evident that Spirits of Wine are very ayry and fiery and therefore because continuous mingle instantly with the water But fire refuseth to mixe with it because it is contiguous and light and altogether contrary as it were It is different because it moves to the Circumference and water to the Center Pray observe the wisdom of Nature this is most necessity for although they are both continuous how could they mix unless the one did move to the Center and the other from it whereby they come to meet one another in an instant Did they move both to the Center they could not mix or meet together for being then supposed to be of an equal weight that which was undermost would remain undermost much in the manner of two Horses going both one pace one before the other about in a Mill who will hardly meet unless the one turnes its gate and go contrarily to the other and so they do immediately confront one another Hence it is that wine mixes quicker by far with water then one kind of water doth with another By this you may discern the absolute necessity of these motions in the Elements both for mixtion and their mutual conservation VIII The first quality of fire is Levity with Rarity Rarity is a subtility or minority of parts whereby its minima's are contiguous one to the other Who ever doubted of the lightness of fire Doth not fire diffuse its heat equally from its Center to the Circumference Doth not the fire in a Torch cast its light circularly from its Center That fire abhors a continuity we perceive by its burning for we see that the flames in Spirits of Wine do terminate into points which points make a roughness whereas were the fire continuous its terms would be smooth like unto those of Water and Ayr. Doth not the fire work through the smallest pores ergo through its contiguous points Hence it is that fire passes where ayr is shut out It s relative nature is constituted by its contiguity of parts for through it it is fitted for the embracing of earth were it continuous and light it would shun the earth or if admitted into the earth the earth would disrupt and expel it like as it disrupts and expels Ayr. Wherefore through its porosity and contiguity it enters the earth and the earth enters it each opening its pores at this friendly reception Nevertheless supposing that contiguity had no contrariety to continuity yet would the Ayr not be light enough to sustain the weight of the body of earth besides there must be two gravities conceived for one lightness and two or three continuities for one contiguity so that of absolute necessity a fourth Element must be added that might be answering to the earths gravity and density through its levity and rarity That which is light and rare is more vibrating and by far of greater activity and energy then that which is light and thin Summarily let us take a view of all their first qualities and compare them together Water and Ayr do communicate in a perfect friendship and so doth Earth and Fire water and earth ayr and water fire and ayr are all beholding to one another yet not in the same respect but divers Water and Fire
necessarily be so for water strictly so named had it been heaved up it would have been against its first nature and been moved violently which is improbable since that nullum violentum est perpetuum no violent motion is lasting The nature of air certifieth us that it must be it which moved above the waters under it Lastly The waters above the waters strictly so termed are called the Firmament from its firmness because they are as a deep frame or a strong wall about the waters underneath for to keep them together in a counterpoise from falling to an insinitum but it is aiâ that is above the waters and is a Firmament to them ergo the ayr must be comprehended under the Notion of waters Or thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the Hebrew is by the Rabbi's and Hebrews expounded an Expansion or thing expanded for its Root is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to attenuate if so then by the waters above must be implied ayr whose nature it is to be expanded as I shewed before So whether you take the word according to the interpretation of the Septuagints ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Firmament or of the Rabbi's Expansion there can be nothing else intended by it but ayr I say then as by waters a duplicity of Elements is implied so by the Heavens ayr and fire are implied I prove it Light is fire flaming but the light was drawn from the Chaos if from the Chaos ergo not from the earth for by earth there is only meant earth single but from the Heaven which imports a conjunction of Elements viz. of Ayr and Fire Secondly Is light being a flaming fire drawn from the Heaven ergo there was fire latent in it So let this serve to answer Van Helmont his Objection who denieth fire to be an Element because its name is not set down in the first Chap. of Gen. neither is ayr mentioned among the Elements in so many Letters yet it is comprehended among them 'T is true Fowl are called Fowl of the ayr but what of that this doth not infer that ayr is an Element because Fowl are named Fowl of the Ayr. Secondly Earth and Water are there expressed in so many letters ergo the Chaos was made up of all the four Elements III. The Elements in the Chaos underwent an exact mixture because each being a stem and perfection to the other they required it for had they been unequally mixt then that part which had not been sufficiently counterpoysed by its opposite Element would have fallen from the whole Hence it followeth that they must have been of an equal extent and degree in their first vertue or quality and not only so but also in their quantity that is they consisted all of an equal number of minima's that so each minimum of every Element might be fitted sustained and perfectionated by three single minimum's of each of the other Elements Now was there but one minimum of any of the Elements in excess above the other it would overbalance the whole Chaos and so make a discord which is not to be conceived But here may be objected That the earth in comparison with the heavens beares little more proportion to their circumference then a point I confess that the air and fire exceed the earth and water in many degrees but again as will be apparent below there is never a Star which you see yea and many more then you see but containes a great proportion of earth and water in its body the immense to our thinking Region of the air and fire are furnished with no small proportion of water and earth so that numeratis numerandis the earth and water are not wanting of a minimum less then are contained either in the fire or ayr IV. The efficient of this greatest and universal body is the greatest and universal cause the Almighty God I prove it The action through which this vast mole was produced is infinite for that action which takes its procession ab infinito ad terminum finitum sive a non ente ad ens from an infinite to a finite term or from nothing to somthing is to be counted infinite but an infinite action requireth an infinite agent therefore none but God who is in all respects infinite is to be acknowledged the sole cause and agent of this great and miracuious effect It was a Golden saying upon this matter of Chrysippus the Stoick If there is any thing that doth effect that which man although he is indued with a reason cannot that certainly is greater mightier and wiser then man but he cannot make the Heavens Wherefore that which doth make them excels man in Art Counsel and Prudence And what saith Hermes in his Pimand The Maker made the universal world through his Word and not with his Hands Anaxagoras concluded the divine mind to be the distinguisher of the universe It was the Saying of Orpheus That there was but one born through himself and that all other things were created by him And Sophocles There is but one true God who made Heaven and the large earth Aristotle Lib. 2. De Gen. Cor. c. 10. f. 59. asserts God to be the Creator of this Universe And Lib. 12. Metaph. c. 8. He attests God to be the First Cause of all other Causes This action is in the holy texts called Creation Gen. 1. 1. Mark 10. 6. Psal. 89. 12. Mal. 2. 10. Creation ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is not alwaies intended for one and the same signification sometimes it implying the Creation of the world as in the Scriptures next forementioned other whiles it is restricted to Mankind Mark 16. 15. Mat. 28. 19. Luke 24. 47. In other places it is applied to all created beings Mark 13. 19. Gen. 14. 22. Job 38. 8. Prov. 20. 12. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To create is imported by divers other Expressions 1. By ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To Form Gen. 2. 7. Esay 43. 7. 2. By ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To make Gen. 1. 31. 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He hath establisht Psal. 89. 12. Psal. 104. 5. Mat. 13. 35. Heb. 6. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 20. 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To stretch or expand Psal. 10. 2. Es. 42. 5. 5. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To prepare or dispose Prov. 8. 27. Psal. 74. 16. V. Creation is a production of a being out of and from nothing Tho. gives us this Definition in Sent. 2. Dist. 1. Quest. 1. Art 2. Creation is an emanation of an universal Being out of nothing By an universal being he intends a being as it comprehends all material and immaterial beings So that this is rather a definition of the creation of the material and immaterial world then a definition of the Formality of Creation 2. His Definition is defective and erroneous for he adds only out of nothing This is not enough it being possible for a thing to emanate out of nothing and yet not be created the immaterial operations of Angels and
it is but one 2. Were there more then one all the others would be created in vain because the Chaos being the greatest is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds for otherwise it could not be said to be the greatest 3. Or thus in other terms The Chaos is an universal quantity but were there more then one it could not be universal 4. Unity is the beginning and root of all plurality but the Chaos is the beginning and root of all plurality of bodies ergo it is but one 5. The Scripture mentions but of one Chaos Gen. 1. 1 2. 6. The Chaos is eval naturally like as the soul of man is eval and also immortal Eval that is of sempiternal duration yet counting from a beginning I prove it Eccles. 12. Let the dust return to its earth and the spirit return to God who gave it Here the body first returns to dust thence to earth but not to an annihilation for then the Scripture would have mentioned it Eccles. 1. 4. 2. The Chaos is to remain were it but to retribute the matter of humane bodies in order to their Resurrection 3. Annihilation is the greatest defect or imperfection for it supposeth an imperfect Matter and Form which cannot be imagined to be immediately created by God 4. Goodness lasteth for ever but the Chaos was good Gen. 1. 31. 1 Tim. 4. 4. Ergo. 5. Should the Chaos be annihilated then God would have created it in vain But that is impossible Ergo. CHAP. X. Of the first Division of the Chaos 1. Why the Chaos was broken 2. That the Chaos could never have wrought its own change through it self The Efficient of its mutation 3. The several Changes which the Chaos underwent through its disruption The manner of the said Disruption 4. How Light was first produced out of the Chaos What a Flame is 5. A perfect Description of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got to the Center and how the Waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. 6. The Qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of Fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration I. IT was an Elegant Expression of Clem. Alex. Lib. 3. De Recogn Like the shell of an Egge although it seemeth to be beautifully made and diligently formed nevertheless it is necessary that it should be broken and opened that the Chicken may thence come forth and that that may appear for which the shape of the whole Egge seems to be formed Wherefore it is also necessary that the state of this world do pass that so the more sublime state of the Heavenly Kingdom may appear in its brightness The same I may aptly apply to the Chaos that it is to be broken and opened that so a more glorious substance may thence appear and come forth II. One Substance can have but one first power or vertue of acting and therefore the Chaos having no more could not act any effect but which it did act and so had no principle of changing it self from that which it was and consequently would have remained in that shape for ever For this reason we must grant that the Creative power and universal efficient wrought a mutation upon it This mutation was gradual a perfecto ad perfectius It was not by way of a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or creation of the first manner but of a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or as Moses sets down through that he said fiat let there be and this was the Note of the mediate Creation The manner as we may best conceive to our selves was by expansion division or opening of the Chaos III. Through the first diduction and opening the Fire and Ayr being light Elements and so entirely knitted into one must necessarily have diffused themselves above the superficial weighty Elements these falling nearer to the Center The fire having hereby acquired a greater liberty and more force by being less oppressed by the water its contiguous parts were notwithstanding united and suppressed through the continuity of the ayr and conveyed a great part of earth and water with them the ayr also could not be detracted from the universal mixture without the adherence of some water and earth wherefore that appeared also very thick IV. The fire being the lightest and of most activity towards the Circumference must have been vented in the greatest quantity yet not as I said without incraffated ayr which united to the vibrating parts of the fire were both changed into a flame A Flame is a splendent heat Flamma est calidum splendens wherefore by this two new qualities were produced to wit heat and splendor By Calidum heat understand a red hot fire Ignis candens Fire is named candent quod candorem efficiat because it begetteth a candour that is the brightest light But how fire became at once through this division burning and candent I shall distinctly evidence hereafter The Representation of the Chaos after its first Division V. Through this concussion the waters being also somewhat freed from the minima's of the earth tending to the Center were continuated a top of the earth like unto a fleece or skin for the points of the earth which did before discontinue the water being through their more potent gravity descended the water getting a top must needs have acquired its continuity which as you have read ââfore is the first quality of water The water therefore got above the earth not because it is less weighty per se but per accidens through its continuation The flame of the first division was yet thick and reddy not exalted to that brightness which afterwards it was The heat of this division was hot in the first degree because there was not yet so much fire drawn out as to make a greater heat This flame I may compare to the flame of a torch or candle which is either but newly lighted or near upon going out the heats which these flames then cast forth are in reference to their highest state as it were but in the first degree Their light is a dusky red The first motion of this fire being to diffuse it self to the circumference of the ambient ayr is there arriving beaten back and reflected through the external surface or coat of the ayr not through the thickness of it for no doubt that was rather thinner there then below but through its own natural motion whereby it moves to its preservation for a same cannot subsist but by the help and sustenance of the ayr It so whither can it move not directly back again retorting into it self that being its extream contrary motion but rather to the sides moving circularly about the surface of the ayr in the same manner as fire in a rooft Furnace where we see it first diffuseth its self directly towards the Circumference of
the Furnace and beating against the Roof of it doth not reverberate into it self but reflects to the sides and so moves along circularly about the sides of the wall which doth more evidently appear in a globous Furnace Fornax reverberatoria The same is also manifested by the fire of kindled Gunpowder in a Squib which thickneth the ayr by impelling the Vapours and Exhalations therein contained one upon the other and augmenting them by its own fumes is almost every way resisted and beaten back whence therefore we observe it betakes it self to a circular motion The reason is because through a circular motion it is less resisted for one part of it preceding the other doth not stop the following parts but rather one part draweth another after it or bears another before it and moving alwaies round it never meets with any other resistance for the one part is gone before the other can overtake it or what should resist it It is just like un to two horses going both one pace round in a Mill the one can never be a stop to the other but rather the one draweth the other after him because they move both one way Was this motion any other but circular it would meet with resistance This motion is as it were natural to the fire and therefore is also of an eval duration for its nature is ever to move from the Center which it doth in moving circularly not primarily but secondarily it moving first directly to the Circumference and thence reflecting to the sides it creeps as it were all about the surface of the ayr one part drawing the other after it or pushing and thrusting it before it or both waies Did not the fire continue in motion it would soon lose its flame for the flame is continued by being united that which unites it is besides its own motion the crassitude of the ayr which the fire impelling one part upon the other renders thicker and so unites it self the more So that in all Particulars this motion is natural to the fire necessarily of an eval duration because the said motion preserves it in its being and is its proper nature Now were this motion the effect of heat it must be violent and consequently of no long duration for what is violent destroyes the essence of a being It would he violent because heat is produced by a violent cause from without namely the opposition of the ayr 2. We read of no burning heat in the Mosaick Philosophy but only of a moving spirit which is that I call fire or at least an effect impressed upon part of the Chaos by which it moved to the surface for you read that this moving vertue was upon the face of the waters before there was light that is it was drawn out from the Chaos before it could raise a flame to give light What can be more plain Lastly it was necessary that the Elements should be of an eval duration for they were created to exist the same duration which Adam had he abided in his primitive state of Innocency would have existed By all which it appeares that there is no other Principle whence its eval duration is deducible but from hence CHAP. XI Of the second Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of Effects befalling the Elements through the second Knock. The proportion of each of the Elements in their purity to the Peregrine Elements 2. The ground of the forementioned proportion of the Elements 3. That fire and ayr constitute the Firmament 4. A grand Objection answered I. LEt us pass to the second Division and speculate the effects of that Through this vibration did the earth yet more concentrate and the waters gulped also upwards equally from all parts for as I said the Chaos was equally mixt otherwise how could the waters equally cover the earth as they did the waters being got atop the ayr got loose in a far greater measure then it did before which being expanded constituted this great tract of the air which now we breath into This breach although in a manner agreeable to the absolute propension of fire and ayr could not since they were soexactly mixed with the weighty elements but give occasion of conveighing a greater proportion of both with them Neither was that little remaining bowl of the great mole whereon we now tread destitute of all her former adherents there still being immerst in her the same proportion of the light Elements to the weighty as there is a proportion of weighty elements attending the separated light ones Consider now the proportion of each to it self 1. Although the earth doth harbour some of the other Elements in her yet she is triumphant over them in the fourth degree that is there are three parts pure earth to one part of the others and amongst these others that constitute a fourth part in her own bowels it is to be conceived that water doth transcend the ayre and so the ayre the fire Supposing then the earth to-consist of 64 parts 48 thereof are pure earth 6 1 â pure water 5 1 â pure ayr and 4 1 â fire Hence from its predominance it is called earth and so the like of water ayr and fire to wit water reserves 48 parts of pure water 5 1 â of ayr 5 1 â of earth 5 of fire Ayr is called ayr also from its greater predominance over the other elements not from its purity as if it should be all pure ayr that is impossible It s purity appropriates 48. water and fire each 5 â â earth 5. Fire is pure in 48. ayr in 6 1 â water in 5 1 â earth in 4 1 â The proportion of these forementioned elements take thus 64 parts is the whole three fourths of it which are 48 denote the proportion of each element in its purity Then there remains 16 which is the last fourth signifying the proportion of the admisted elements to the principal element as it is considered to be in its purity Again there is another proportion observable among the perigrine elements as they are sharers of the last fourth which is 16. Wherefore in earth 6 parts and a third is taken up by water one less to wit 5 1 â by ayr and also one less namely 4 1 â by the fire In water five and a half is equally attributed to earth and air one less that is the overplus fraction of each compleat number of earth and air makes socially one more to fire The last fourth or 16 of the air is supplied in five and a half by each of the ingress of fire and water In five by fire Fire is tied to 6 1 â of ayr 5 1 â of water to 4 1 â of earth II. The ground and reason of this proportion is 1. That the least predominance whereby an element may acquire its name must be triple that is thrice as many times more in quantity then the elements affixed to it for did an element in its purity
overbalance the others but in two parts then it could hardly retain a form whereby its nature might be sufficiently distinguisht from the others if in more then in three parts it would be apparently discernable that that element was mixed if so then it must also be denominated by a mixed name for the cause why men generally impose a single name upon some beings that are mixt and compounded is because there is so little of the extrinsick body discernable that it doth not deserve to be named but if discernable then a compounded word is applied for instance there is none would say that water whereinto only a few drops of wine were instilled was wine and water or Oinolympha but they would nominate it water alone because there is so little wine in it that it is not gustable but supposing there were so much wine mingled with water as to make it perceptible either by tast or smell then no doubt they would say it was wine and water Even so it is here was there more then a fourth part of extrinsick Elements admitted to a single pure element it would be perceptible if so then we should not nominate the elements by a single name but by a compound one Now that it is not perceptible is evident for who can perceive water ayr or fire in the earth or who can distinguish water earth or air in fire c. Was there less then a fourth part it would disaptate the principal element from being an ingredient in a mixture The reason is because there must be some parts adhering to such an element whereby it may be received by the other for example had fire no ayr affixed to it as I have formerly noted it could not be received by water but would be immediately expelled Neither could the earth be disposed to receive fire and ayr but by the admisture of some parts of water some of ayr and others of fire but less then a fourth of these adherents would be insufficient That this is really in effect thus the separation of the elements is a testimony Distil Sea-water and rectifie it often but weigh it before distillation the residence or fixed Salt wherein fire ayr and earth are contained will in little less then a 6th or 8th considering that the water which is separated is not so pure yet but that it retaines some part of the perigrine elements and that another part is dispersed through the ambient ayr respond to the whole body of water Or thus Weigh Sea-water with distilled water and the one shall be a sixth part heavier then the other then imagine that the leasts which are evaporated of the peregrine elements are the remaining parts Lastly the elements being four in company it is very consentaneous to their number that each should be separated by the others in a fourth The reason why water constituting part of the fourth part of earth doth superate the ayr in one degree is because water is more agreeing and that immediately with earth then ayr because of its weight 2. Because it is nearer to the earth then the tract of ayr Fire is least in proportion because it is the remorest In the supplying the fourth of water earth and ayr are in an equal proportion because they are equally consentaneous to water for earth is agreeable to it through its weight and ayr through its continuity and because they are also of the same propinquity to water Fire is less in quantity then these through its remoteness it is more then it is in earth because it is nearer to it Ayr containes an equal part of fire and water by reason they are of an equal approximation of an equal concord with ayr the fire agreeing to it in levity water in continuity Earth is in ayr in the same proportion that fire is in water because they are equidistant to each of their allied elements and retain the same degree of Concord Fire hath the same proportion of earth which earth in its proper Region hath of fire It is sociated to more air in one degree then water to more water in the same degree then ayr to more water then earth in one degree also because their several situation is nearer to fire in one degree III. Summarily through this Division the Firmament was establisht The Firmament was the circumvallation of ayr and fire about the waters which made the earth and water firm in their present situation that is bound them up together and hindred them equally from all parts from falling from the universal Center for the ayr and fire being both light elements do as well diffuse themselves from their own center towards the universal Center as above it towards the imaginary vacuum and so by this means come to sustain the mass of the weighty elements IV. Here a grand Objection and no less Mystery offers it self viz. that it is improbable that the points of earth should be of an equal number and efficacy with the other elements which by this section are so much expanded that their magnitude is divisible into infinite points as it were in comparison to the points of earth and which in respect to the minima's of ayr and fire are but as one point to a million or more To the answering of this call to mind that the absolute form of earth is concentration through dense weight and the form of ayr and fire diffusion from the Center all these absolute forms are met and balanced thence seem to be checkt and obtused by their reciprocal relative forms Now the more these relative forms are degraded from their related form the more they acquire of their absolute forms and consequently greater and stronger motions Well then observe this great Mystery and the hitherto yet unknown Labyrinth of the greatest Philosophers The earth being degraded from her respective form through that the fire and the other elements are abstracted from her hath acquired the more of her absolute form which is to fall to her Center this then being her form no wonder if she doth come to so small a quantity The same apprehend also of water So on the other side fire and ayr being also as much advanced from their relative to their absolute forms do as much diffuse from the center as the earth and water fall to their center so that did not fire and ayr in diffusing from their center possess as great a place as earth and water in moving to the center possess a little place or the earth and water possess as little a place as the fire and ayr a great place it would be dissonant to their natures Besides the little place taken up by the earth and water is as much to them as the great place taken up by the fire and ayr their activity to the center is as much as the activity of the others to the circumference Were the earth imagined to be pure without the admixture of any of the other elements its supposed place would
for this a mans body although alive must needs be less weighty then the thick water at the bottom of the Sea I do not speak of the Seas depth near shoars but where it is of an ordinary profundity as in the Ocean Dissolve Salt into water the middle parts shall be more saltish then the superficial parts for the same reason Besides these experiments the understanding affords also an argument to demonstrate the same If the natural propension of water be concentration then the further it is remote from its center the more it must incline to it But the natural propension of water is concentration ergo II. Since then it is yielded that water is violently detained and remote from its center no wonder if it doth squeeze the extime parts of the earth whereby the earth giveth way in rotundity and is protruded either into longitude or latitude Water having formed but a small dent into the earth a greater quantity of water must needs depress thither and so through a continuated force bores a greater cavern into the earth until at last it hath perduced into her a vast grove whereinto the body of water did retire and so constituted the Ocean The earth being thus impacted by the waters must of a necessity be protruded above some part of the waters and hereby was the earth disposed to germination of plants she being now exposed to the celestial Influences and moderately irrigated and foecundated by the remaines of the water The Representation of the Chaos after its third Division IV. Through this division was the earth in part detected whereby as I said before it was rendred capable of germination or protruding plants God did also congregate the earth and separated her body from heterogeneous Elements yet not so but that there remained still some small part of them These heterogeneous Elements as I may call them for doctrines sake were coagulated into small bodies of divers figures These bodies were of a different size and proportion according to Gods intent and purpose for to effect various and divers kinds of mixt bodies The different proportion was that in some there was a greater quantity of fire in others of ayr c. The coagulation of these small bodies was a close and near compaction of the elements within one small compass Through this compaction each element was pinched in as it were which caused the same violent detention of each as you have read to be in water necessarily augmenting the force and activity of each element in fire it effected a heat which is nothing else but a greater and condensed motion of the fire look below in the Chapt. of 2d Qualit in ayr it agitated a thin swelling or bubling which proceeds from a coarctation of the ayr whereby it is constipated in its motion towards the circumference by water moving to the center Water again is incitated to a stronger motion through the detention of ayr swelling up against its compression The earth is no less compelled to require her natural place the Center then she is opposed by the fire Were all these violent motions as it were equal in their elements being formed also in one figure they might continue so for ever like as if they were all surprized by a Catoche but being coagulated in an unequal proportion and unlike figure they break through one another in some progress of time and being confused in various figures they effect also protrusions of no less variety in figures Observe that in these commistions the elements are confused in a contrary manner then they are placed without in their entire bodies For here the fire against its nature as it were is constituted in the center next the ayr then earth and water is outermost There the earth is the center next to it is water c. Herein appeares the wisdom and providence of Nature which although casting the Elements into a fight yet directs terminates them into a most perfect friendship These coagulated bodies are called seeds which are multiplied according to the number of the kinds thence budding Seeds understand in a large sense as they denominate the Rudiments and first beginnings of all mixt bodies Otherwise Seeds are strictly attributed to living Creatures alone as to Plants and Animals Although Hearbs and Plants are alone nominated by Moses to be produced through this Division yet the seeds of Minerals and of their recrements as they erroneously term them and of Stones were also implied since their Creation is no where else mentioned CHAP. XIII Of the Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of the Effects of the fourth Division That Nature created the first bodies of every Species the greatest is instanced in Bees Fishes and Fowl That all Species are derived from one individuum That Adam was the greatest man that ever was since the Creation What those Giants were which the Poets faigned 2. How the Sun and Moon were created That a Lioness is not more vigorous then a Lion 3. How the Stars of the Firmament were created 4. How the durable Clouds of the Ayr were created 5. The Effects of the fifth Division 6. The Effects of the sixth Division 7. The Effects of the last Division AS there was a coagulation of the waters and earth so God did in the same manner through the fourth Division coagulate and further purifie the Elements of fire and ayr This coagulation was of the heterogeneous Elements namely of part of the adjoyned 16 parts of the peregrine Elements These being congregated did condense and unite a great portion of fire which condensation through a mixture of ayr water and earth constituted it into a flame Earth giveth a body to fire and staies its light parts ayr and water keep in the flame Look below where I have particularly illustrated the generation of a flame 1. These coagulations consisted of parts differing variously in quantity some greater others less Nature did also observe a most exact order among them to wit she first coagulated one greatest body afterwards some greater bodies lastly many little ones I prove this In all kinds there is one greatest because there is the least for where there is a least there must necessarily be a greatest Among Bees there is one which is the greatest and therefore he is the Leader and King of all the rest Among Fowl we see the same namely that there is one greatest in each kind of them which all the rest follow and fly about In a multitude of Fishes they all swim after and about one which is the greatest among them c 2. The greatest of all kinds were created at the beginning of the world because that being the Superlative degree and therefore excelling the others must have been created immediately by God he creating immediately nothing but what is the most excellent Since that all beings have their rise and origine from one it is necessary that this one should be the greatest That all
man The great errour committed in trying of Witches by casting them into the water 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy 5. The third Respective quality of Fire What Driness is The Definition of Moysture The third respective qualities of Water and Ayr. Aristotles Description of Moysture rejected That water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst 1. THe Second Respective quality of Ayr is a continuous expression towards the Circumference as we see in water viz. in bubbles within whose body ayr being contained doth express the water to the Circumference When water is thus expressed to the Circumference we say then it is water attenuated or rarefied and when ayr is contained within the body of water so as it is not strong enough to come forth we say it is ayr incrassated but these are no real transmutations For can any body imagine that ayr is really and essentially incrassated or condensed as they call it or that water is attenuated or essentially changed into a thin substance by ayr I prove that a real incrassation of the ayr is impossible Peripatecicks generally conceive the incrassation of the ayr to happen when that ayr having thinly or naturally filled up a cavity there is as much more impacted in that cavity upon the preceding ayr as the cavity contained before Through this impaction the former ayr must needs give way into it self for to admit that ayr which is last entred wherefore say they there must be a penetration of bodies whereby that former ayr doth introcede into it self The ayr then thus introceding into it self is called ayr incrassated Water is attenuated when a Pint of water is diducted to a Pint and a quarter or more without being insufflated by the ayr or any other admitted body So rarefaction of earth is when the earth possessing the space of a Pistol Bullet is diducted to the extent of space of a Musket Bullet without the admission of any other Element Fire is supposed to be condensed in the same manner as Ayr is incrassated This is the true and evident state of the Controversie touching Rarefaction and Condensation Attenuation Incrassation which never any among the Peripateticks did yet truly state They supposing and taking it for granted that such a Condensation Rarefaction Artenuation and Incrassation is possible and hapneth every moment do proceed in debating whether a penetration of bodies be not necessary in Rarefaction and Condensation As for insufflation that is not to be called in question because we stated Incrassation and Rarefaction to happen without the admittance of any other body Wherefore proving such an Incrassation and Attenuation to be impossible and absurd their further surmising of penetration will seem ridiculous Supposing that a Glass were filled with pure water all the Arts of the world could not distend it without the admission of another body through the force of which its parts might be divided and lifted up Since then that water is said to be attenuated because its parts are lifted up diducted through Ayr and Fire retained with their body this cannot be a natural and proper attenuation of the real parts of water but only a violent diduction of water through the ayr which is under it Here may be objected That water when it is thus lifted up and expanded is stretcht and through that stretching its parts are attenuated and its quantity is increased because after the retching it possesseth a larger place To this I Answer that the encrease of quantity about the Surface is not through a single extent of water without access of other parts of water to it but the encrease is from the access of those parts which did possess the Center and now are beaten away and impelled to the Surface where arriving they must be extended in greater quantity and possess a larger place So that what is encreased in the Surface is decreased from the Center and its adjacent parts A Chord of an Instrument is producted in length because it is diminished in thickness and not from a meer quality without the Access of other parts 2. Were the natural thickness of water transmutable into thinness then one extream contrary would be transmutable into the other for thinness and thickness are as much contrary as coldness and heat or dryness and moysture and who ever knew the same coldness changed into heat or the same heat into coldness That would be as if one said one and the same was both cold and hot at the same time I guess your Reply to wit that through Thinness is not meant an extream Thinness but a less Thickness only I answer That if a thick Element is transmutable into a less thick then certainly through the continuance and intention of the cause of that less thickning it might become least thick that is most thin wherefore your Reply is invalid 3. Were thickness transmutable into thinness then every rarefaction would be a creation secundi modi or a new generation because such a transmutation is a non esse vel a nihilo sui ad esse aliquid for thickness is a positive if I may be suffered to term it so privation and negation of thinness because when we affirm a thing to be thick it is the same as if we said it is not thin 4. Thickness is a property quarti modi of water but a proprium quarti modi is inseparable from its Subject and that to remain in being II. The same Arguments prove the impossibility of incrassating Ayr and such a supposition is so far absurd that it is impossible and contradictory to Nature that one Minimum more of Ayr should enter into a Cavity already filled up with it and the ayr would sooner break the world then admit incrassation although but in one Minimum If the nature of ayr is to be thin then in taking away tenuity you take away the nature of Ayr. And if ayr could be incrassated in one minimum it might be incrassated to the thickness of water Lastly was there any such incrassation there must of necessity a penetration of bodies be allowed but a penetration is impossible ergo Incrassation also I prove that a penetration is impossible Suppose a hundred minima's of ayr were through penetration incrassated to fifty and these fifty to possess but half the place which the hundred did fill up I conclude then that through continuance and intention of the same incrassating cause they could be reduced to one minimum and from one minimum to the essence of a spirit or to nothing for since they through penetration have lost the space of Ninety nine unities of points through the same reason they might the easier lose the last unity and so become spirits and thence nothing if there was a penetration of bodies then the less body into which the
greater quantity is penetrated must have the greater weight or as great as it was under the greater quantity or else part of its Matter and Form must be annihilated but bodies that are incrassated or condensed have by much a less weight then they had before because the light elements which did before distend their bodies and through that distention their force of weight was intended as I have shewed before are departed Besides Experience speakes the same especially in this Instance the true reason of which was never laid down by any a man yet living or any other creature when alive is much heavier then when he is dead and this appeares in a man who whilst he was alive sinks towards the bottom into the water and is drowned the reason is because through the great heat which was inherent in that man the heavy and terrestial parts were the more detained from the Center they again being thus detained moved stronger towards the center therfore make the body heavier during their violent detention through the great heat which was in the said man when alive so that through this great weight the alive body sinkes down to the bottom now when a man is suffocated and the heat squeezed out of him by the thick compressing parts of the water then he is rendered less heavy and immediately leaves the inferiour parts of water as being less weighty then the said profound parts Nevertheless although the vital flame was soon extinguisht yet there remain ayry and some fiery parts in man which detain the earthy and waterish parts of his body so that although the vital fire is expelled yet these ayry and restant fiery parts not being overcome before a certain term of dayes in some sooner or longer occasion that a man doth not grow lighter then the water before a prefixt time varying according to the proportion and texture of the light elements and then being grown lighter then the water he swimmeth atop Every day after a man is drowned as the heat and ayry parts are expelled he is more and more elevated from the ground until he cometh to the top A strong compact well set man is at least 8 or 9 daies in ascending because his heat was deeper and in greater quantity impacted into his body but therefore sinkes sooner to the bottom as I have heard Seamen relate how that some of their men falling overboard were gone under water in the twinckling of an eye but then they were big lusty strong men as they told me On the contrary we hear how that weak and tender women have fallen into the River and have swom upon the water until watermen have rowed to them and taken them up and many weakly women that were suspected to be Witches being cast into the water for a trial have been wickedly and wrongfully adjudged to be Witches because they were long in sinking and alas it is natural the reason was because they were comparatively light for their earthy parts were not so much detained consequently moved not so forcibly downwards no doubt but their Coats conduced also somewhat to it Whence I collect that an ordinary woman is almost one third longer descending to the bottom then an ordinary man because a man from being a third stronger because he is a third heavier through the force of the light Elements but I mean not through fat or corpulency then a woman is conjectured to have one third more heat then a woman In case a man or woman is drowned in the Sea where it is deep if he be suffocated and dead before he comes to the ground he will not reach the bottom But to make this more clear I will demonstrate it through another Principle viz. the lightness of fire and ayr which is whereby they spread themselves equally from the Center to the Circumference Now that great heat burning within the body of man doth potently press down all the heavy parts of the body towards the Circumference The ambient or external parts of man are the Circumference which being so vigorously pressed must needs be very much intended in their motion downwards hence it is that when a man is in sinking he feeles a pressing within his own body whereby he finds himself to be violently as it were precipitated to the bottom and add to this the violent detention of the weighty parts and the depression of the superficial parts of the water and judge whether all this is not enough to draw him down to the bottom Pray now judge a little at the simplicity of the reason which the Peripateticks give for this They say that there is a fight between mans heat and the water and therefore the water draweth him to her innermost part where she detaines him until his heat is overcome and then the water casteth him up again Others say that mans Lungs being filled with ayr underneath after he is drowned is lifted up by it What groapings and absurdities First They suppose that the water draweth and that the fight is between the heat of man and the moysture whereas the water doth not draw neither is the fight so much between the water and heat as it is between the heat and earthy parts of the body which with the natural declination of those terrestrial parts and the assistance of the water from without doth depress a man or other living creature downwards 2. Why a man is detained such a time and no longer or shorter before he is cast up again they cannot conceive 3. How man is cast up is unknown to them it is not because his Lungs are filled with Ayr for it is more probable they are stopt up with water The reason and manner of his being cast upwards is 1. His body is rendered less weighty by the expulsion of the heat 2. His body is retcht out and diducted through the coldness of earth and especially of the water and therefore is rendered lighter for as compression and condensation is a mark of weight so diduction and extension of lightness Wherefore every particle of water being thicker and heavier then the extended body doth depress underneath it towards its center and so much the more because the dead body doth as it were detain the parts of water about it from their center and so through this depression of the water under the Corps it is lifted up by little and little Besides it is somewhat puft up with winds and vapours underneath the water which thence do lift it up towards the Element of Ayr. The reason why a Dog Cat Hare Fox Horse and other living Creatures are longer in being drowned although they have more heat inherent in them and as much earth comparatively as a man is because their haires being light close and divided do sustain them for the water being continuous doth strive against its being divided by contiguous parts which being light strive also against their depression This by the way III. Neither is the earth subject to
such a Rarefaction or greater Condensation because it consisteth as I have proved out of indivisible minima's If then we should grant a rarefaction or greater condensation we must allow the minima's of earth to be divisible for how could they either be retcht or give way into themselves else and so it would be divisible and indivisible at once which is absurd The same Argument serves against the condensation and rarefaction of fire But more of this in our Discourse de vacuo IV. Condensation Rarefaction Attenuation and Incrassation although impossible in this sense yet in another are usually received and may be allowed Condensation in a tolerable acception is when a rare body is united to a dense body and because it is then as it were made one body with the dense substance it is said to be condensed Thus when fire is united to earth it is said to be condensed but through this condensation there is nothing detracted from or added to the natural rarity of the fire 2. Condensation is also taken for the frequent and constant following of one particle of fire upon the other Now you must not conceive that the fire hereby is condensed or impacted in its rarity no but that one part pusheth the other forward and being so pusht forward one before the other they are said to be condensed that is following one another so close as that they just come to touch one another Thus we say that condensed fire warmeth or heateth the hand because many parts follow one another and so push one another forward into the substance of the hand so that condensation of fire in this sense is nothing else but an approximation of the parts of fire that were dispersed before 2. Fire burneth the hand when its parts being condensed according to both these two acceptions are received and collected following close upon one another and so do burn the hand The reason is because as the force of earth and water is intended by violent detention so is fire which being violently detained by earth and water doth move with greater force Besides through the latter of these condensations the parts of fire are more collected and united The fire is violently detained when it is detained from moving from the Center to the Circumference Besides according to these two latter acceptions you are to understand condensation above whereas I have attributed it to fire A body is said to be rarefied when it is affixed to a rare element thus they conceive earth to be rarefied when its minima's are diffused by a portion of fire A body is attenuated when it is united to a thin Element so water is attenuated when its parts are diducted through the renuity of Ayr. A body is said to be incrassated when it is adjoyned to a thick Element Thus Ayr is understood to be incrassated when it is cloathed about with water Remember that I have made use of these words in my foregoing Discourses according to the said Interpretations V. The Third Relative Qualities are such as do immediately emanate from the Second The third respective Quality of fire is Dryness A Dryness is an expulsion of Moysture which fire doth by forcing it to the Circumference and dividing ad extra its continuity Dryness in the earth is an effect of coldness through which it divides ad intra the continuity of moysture inwards and forceth it to the Center Moysture is an effect of water through which it overlaies a body with its own thick substance expanded in ayr it is a quality whereby it overlayes a body with its thin substance Aristotle in stead of describing these qualities he sets down one of their Attributes Moysture is that which is difficultly contained within its own bounds and easily within others This is openly false for the ayr is difficultly contained within the bounds of others insomuch that it striveth to break through with violence and therefore is more easily contained within its own bounds So water is easier contained within its own bounds for when it is poured upon the earth it vanisheth presently which is not a containing of it Besides granting this Attribute to them both it is only a mark of Moysture and not the Description of its formality No doubt but water is moyster then ayr because it is more apt to cleave through its thickness and adhere to a body then ayr which by reason of its tenuity is not so tenacious Wherefore it is Idleness in thâse who say that the ayr is moyster then water although water moistneth more because of its thickness And as concerning the primum siccum it belongeth to the earth because that obtaineth greater force in detracting waterish moysture which is the moystest That it doth so appeares hence because the waterish moysture through its weight is more obedient to the impulse of earth then of fire But if you agree to term nothing moyst but what hath a palpable Dampness and that drying which removeth the said dampness then water alone is moystning and ayr drying because ayr through its tenuity divides the crassitude of the water and so disperseth it CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three Conditions required in a Mixtion 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really 3. Aristotles Definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt Bodies 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion HItherto we have sufficiently declared the absolute and respective Qualities of the Elements That which I must next apply my self unto is to enarrate the qualities befalling them joyntly in their union one with the other I. Their union is called Mixtion which is an union of the Elements in Minima's or Points Observe that mixtion sometimes is taken for the union of parts not in points but particles and is termed Union by Apposition as when you mixe Barly and Oates together into one heap Anaxagoras and many of the ancient Philosophers did opiniate that Mixtion consisted only in the apposition of little parts to one body but Aristotle hath justly reprehended them for this Assertion and confuted their Opinion Lib. 2. de Gen. Corrup Cap. 10. Properly Mixtion is effected through an exact confusion of parts and their union in Minima's or the least particles the exactness consisteth in this that there must be an equal measure sive ad pondus sive ad justitiam of parts Parts are either little or great The great are constituted out of little and the little out of the least In mixture to wit an equal one are generally three condititions required 1. A mutual contact without which there must be a vacuum in misto a mixt body 2. This mutual contact must be in points whereby every point of an Element toucheth the minimum of another hence they say well mixtio fit
spirits How the Air happens to burst through a sudden great light That a sudden great Light may blind kill or cast a man into an Apoplexy 8. How Light renders all Objects visible Why a piece of Money cast into a Basin filled with water appears bigger than it is The causes of apparent Colours Why a great Object appears but small to one afar off The difference between lux and lumen What a Beam is What a Splendour is That the Lights begot by the Stars and other flames are not distinguished specie How the Coelum Empyreum is said to be Lucid. I. VVE are now to ennumerate and unfold the remaining qualities risen from the mixture of the Elements such are Light Colours Sounds Odors and Sapors We will first begin with Light as being the excellentest among them Light is a quality emanating from flaming fire A flame is nothing else but incrassated Air expanded and deducted in rotundity by condensed fire which is detained and imprisoned within the foresaid qualified Air. The difficulties requiring illustration are 1. How the fire comes to be condensed 2. How imprisoned 3. Why the Air doth immediately surround it 4. How light is propagated and the manner of its action As to the first Fire I have told you will not burn unless it be condensed for being naturally rare it penetrates through the incrassated Air with ease but being condensed it doth not because it is adjoyned to a heavy gross body namely the minima's of the Earth and Water which doth put a stop to its pass but nevertheless the force of fire is stronger by reason of those adjoyned heavy minima's For fire being violently detained by them is grown stronger 2. Fire being to divide another thick body makes use of the compressing accuteness of Earth to divide it which it effects by protruding those dense parts before it for through its single rarity it could not 2. Fire flying out and being expulsed out of a mixt body if it doth not meet with incrassated Air to retain it will pass and vanish but hitting against incrassated Air it strives to pass the Air again being continuous doth maintain her continuity with all her force and thirdly the fire moving circularly makes a circular dent into the mass of the said thickned Ayr which it beats against the advenient Ayr also striving from all parts to recover its situation and therefore necessarily surrounding the fire The Ayr again is also become stronger because of its violent detention notwithstanding the fire being the more potent doth diduct it into an oval or round Figure in the same manner as Wind striving to pass the water doth blow it up into a bubble Fire being thus condensed imprisoned and surrounded with thick ayr and diducting the same ayr into an oval or round Figure is called a flame II. The properties of a flame are 1. to be burning hot 2. to be an lux illuminans illuminating light The burning proceeds from the particles of condensed fire violently striking through the moisture of a mixt body whereby it divides it into ashes or a black crust tending to ashes Before I shew the manner of emanation of Light let us first examine what it is we call Light Light is that which is visible and renders all things about it visible Wherefore you do mark that Light is nothing but that which affects and moves the eye-sight If then I make it appear to you whereby it is that fire doth affect the Eye-sight therein I shew you the manner of emanation or operation of Light You must apprehend the optick spirits to be a thin continuous body equally interwoven through all its parts with a proportion of thin yet a little condensed fire for were it not a little dense it could not heat so that it is very like to the ambient ayr in substance and its other qualities 2. Supposing it to be an ayr we must conceive it to be continuous with the ambient ayr when the eyes are open This premitted I infer light to be nothing else but a continuous obduction of the Ayr caused by a flaming fire But let me here intreat your serious intention upon what I shall discover concerning the nature of Light it being one of the difficultest mysteries of all Philosophy and although its effects are luminous to the Eye yet its nature is obscure to the Understanding The search of this moved Plato to leave Athens and set saile for Sicily to speculate those flames of the mount AEtna Empedocles the Philosopher hazarded himself so far for to make a discovery of the nature of a flame and its light that he left his body in the Mongibell fire for an experiment although much beyond his purpose It is almost known to all how that the Learned Pliny took shipping from the promontory Misenas to be traversed to the Mount Pomponianus whither curiosity had driven him to fathom the depths of the Vesuvian flames but before he could feel the heat the smoak smothered him III. First then I prove that Light is an effect of a flame There is no flame but it causeth light and by the light we know it is a flame Ergo Light is an inseparable accident and a propriety quartimodi of a flame the Antecedence is undoubted Doth not a Candle a Torch a focall flame cause lights Or did you ever see light and doubted of the flame of it What is the reason when we hit our fore-heads against any hard thing we say there strikes a light out of our eyes It is because the violence of the stroke did discontinuate the optick ayr through which the condensed fire did unite and diduct the intrinsick ayr which was incrassated through the same stroke and so made a flame or rather a flash which is a sudden flame that is quickly lighted and quickly laid Secondly Light is not a single quality inhering in fire alone for were it so then where ever fire is there should be light but to the contrary we find that there is fire inherent in the ayr and many other bodies yet the ayr remains dark after the descent of the Planets 2. Were fire naturally light we could never be in darkness because the vast Region of fire is so large that it could not but illuminate thrice the extent of the ayr Thirdly Light is not fire rarefied and exporrected throughout all the dimensions of the ayr for who could ever imagine that a Candle being so small a flame should serve to be drawn out through the ayr and fill it with light to the extent of six or eight Leagues for a Candle may be seen at Sea in a clear dark night six or eight Leagues off or further so that it is absurd to imagine this and unworthy of a Philosophers maintaining it 2. It is impossible that fire could be so exactly mixt with ayr in an instant for so large an extent 3. There is never a particle of illuminated ayr but it is light to the full extent
only obducted in its extent according to the force of the flame and when it is so stretcht as it were through the fires obduction it receives the force of the flame partly only because it is contracted by expelling the extrinsick bodies contained within it so yields to the fires obduction The clearer the ayr is the greater light it makes because it containing no extraneous bodies cannot contract it self from the obtension of the fire by expelling such bodies but being totally continuous it is obtended so far as the said ayr is continuous and according to the force of the fire The reason then why a light is terminated is through the contraction of the ayr and oft times through the density of an intermediate body as of thick vapours and exhalations According to the diminution of the flame the ayr relaxes and so the light diminisheth V. The cause why a dense body is uncapable of generating a light is by reason it is contiguous and cannot be obducted or stretcht as it were I have said That that is light which moves our eye-sight even hence I wil sensibly prove to you that light is nothing but a continuous obduction of ayr Suppose that the optick spirits are for the greatest part an ayr to which the external ayr when the Eye-lids are open is joyned in continuity and becomes one continuous body with the optick ayr in a manner as when one float of water toucheth another they become continuately one Wherefore then when the ayr is continuously obducted as far as where it is continuated to our optick ayr it must necessarily also obduct and stretch the same optick ayr because it is continuous to it That light moves the sight by stretching the optick ayr is evident in that when we look against the light although its origin is far off we feel a stretching in our eyes 2. VVhen we have wearied our selves by seeing we complain that we feel a stretching in our eyes In case the ayr is not obducted so far as to reach our eyes then we do not see it as when a thing is out of sight the reason why we cannot see it although nothing is interposed to hinder is because its stretching doth not reach as far as our Eyes Hence you may observe that visus non fit emittendo sed recipiendo motum flammae sight is not actuated through the emission of beams from our sight but through the receiving of the motion of a flame and more through suffering patiendo non agendo than acting VI. The fire of a Flame is to some extent dispersed through the Ayr and so far it heats the Ayr nevertheless its enlightning is much further extended The Sun which is the greatest Flame its heat in the Summer reaches to us in a very intense quality its light would reach a hundred or more times further then it were the tract of the Ayr extended to a larger quantity but because it is not therefore its heat in the torrid Zone and in the temperate ones in the Summer reaches as far as its light which although it doth is not therefore to be accounted the essence of Light as some have simply imagined So that it was no less Mistake to believe that the Sun's light could be precipitated in a Glass and some to have collected of it no less then two Ounces and half a day The vertue of this Precipitate is described to penetrate into the substance of the hardest Metal I do believe that it is very possible to precipitate such small bodies constituted out of the fiery emissions of the Sun whose vertue cannot but be very penetrative through the predominance of fire in them but nevertheless it is not the light which is precipitated but fiery substances neither is fire the light it self but the cause of it Light is a property following the union of a flame with the Ayr wherefore the Ayr is rather to be taken for the principal Subject VII Light is not the primar cause of all the effects produced by the Stars but their temperament and exsuperating heat Accidentally or privatively their remoteness and remission of heat may be a cause of coldness and incrassation of the Ayr and consequently of its obscurity The light of the Sun doth not comfort the vital Spirits neither doth it act immediately upon them at all although through its heat it may help and excite the vital heat of some frigid temperatures The light hath only a power of acting immediately and per se upon the Optick spirits and through altering them may prove a mediate cause of Vital and Animal Alterations I prove it If you go forth out of the dark into the light you feel a distention or rather an obtension of your visive spirits return again out of the light into the dark and you will first perceive a relaxation and afterwards a contraction of your sight The mediated effect of light is a quickning of the Vital and Animal Spirits which are moved by continuation from the obtension of the Optick Ayr. A sudden great light causes a bursting of the Air which happens when the Air is so much obtended that it can stretch no more and then of a necessity it must burst A bursting is a sudden breaking of a body throughout all its dimensions and parts as it were The air is bursted through a great lightning or a flash before a thunder which if the same bursting do reach diametrically to the optick air of an open eye it will certainly blind yea sometime kill a man because the same bursting is continued unto and upon the optick spirits and sometimes is also further continuated that it bursteth the whole Treasure of the Animal spirits which necessarily must effect an Apoplexy A man coming forth suddenly out of the dark into a great light is often struck blind because his optick Spirits are bursted through the sudden and strong obtention or if it obtends the optick Air to the next lower degree so as it may not cause a bursting it then produceth a dazling of the sight that is an over-stretching of the optick spirits VIII How light renders all things visible is a matter worthy of Enquiry The air being thus obtended and made visible through light is terminated every where about by the surfaces of terminated bodies These terminated surfaces resist the obtended air and according to their several degrees of mixture or of fundamental light and darkness do attenuate refract diminish contract or condensate the obtension If the surface of the resisting object is continuous and weighty it attenuates and refracts or reflects the light of the air and of that nature is water for water being adunited to air in continuity doth not only sustain the obtension of the air but also through its reflexion obtends the obtended air yet more and so the obtension upon the water must be greater by reason it stops the obducted air more then any thing else wherefore its light is thinner but withal greater
makes all bodies therein contained shew greater Besides water containing much air in her body suffereth also an obtension of that whereby bodies must necessarily appear bigger then they are The reason why a piece of Money in a Bason with water appears bigger then it is is because the water through impregnation with peregrine air proper thickness and continuity doth reflect and admit much obtended air or light which being altered by the colour of the money doth appear much bigger then if seen through thin air alone Light is diminisht because the air is condensed so that whatever doth condense the air must diminish its light and obduction Whatever body light appulses against it is thereby darkned because the body which it strikes against condenses the air According to this degree of condensation the light is gradually diminisht and darkned if it be terminated in a most dense earthy body then it appears black if against a body that hath less earth or density it appears brown that is to say at the point of reflection against an Object and so gradually in all other This change being wrought upon the terminating obtension by an objected body it is repercussed to a certain distance namely as far as the repercutient action of that object can reach which is as far as until the Air doth recover its proper station If we are far off from an Object it appears less then it is because its action doth diminish gradually like unto the streams of water which about the center of action are greater but the more remote they are the less they grow A Flame is called a Light Lux because it begets light The light begot in the Air is called Lumen an Illumination Wherefore these lights are not really distinguisht but ratione Neither is a flame to be called a light unless when it doth obduct the Air neither is the Air to be termed a light or illumination unless when it is obducted by a flame Radius a Beam is a diducted line of a flame tending directly from the Center to the Circumference A Splendor is the intention of light by a reflection or refraction upon a thick continuous smooth body The Lights begot by the Stars and other flames are not distinguisht specie because they depend upon the same causes namely upon Fire and Air. Their difference consists in consistency purity bigness c. The Coelum Empyreum or Heavens of the Angels are said to be lucid which may be understood tropically or properly If properly possibly it hath a vertue of obducting the air like unto a flame If tropically lucid is equipollent to glorious The Bodies of the risen Saints shall appear glorious and splendid possibly because they shall be more ayry and fiery that is flammy CHAP. XXII Of Colours 1. The Authors Definition of a Colour That Light is a Colour Aristotles Definition of colour examined 2. Scaligers Absurdities touching Colours and Light 3. What colour Light is of and why termed a single Colour That Light doth not efficienter render an Object visible How a mixt Colour worketh upon the sight and how it is conveyed to it 4. The Causes of the variations of Mercury in its colour through each several preparation 5. That Colours are formally relations only to our sight That a mixt colour is not an intentional quality That besides the relation of colours there is an absolute foundation in their original Subjects How the same fundamental colours act 6. That there are no apparent colours but all are true 7. The Differences of colours What colour focal fire is of The fundamental colours of mixt bodies 8. What reflection of light is What refraction of colours is Aristotles Definition of colour rejected The Effects of a double reflection The Reasons of the variations of Colour in Apples held over the water and Looking-glasses The variation of Illumination by various Glasses 9. The Division of Glasses The cause of the variation of colour in a Prism 10. The Nature of Refraction Why colours are not refracted in the Eye I. COlour is a Mode or Quality of a mixt being through which it moves the sight if so then certainly Light is a Colour For 1. It proceeds from a mixt body 2. It moves the sight primarly immediately and per se. I prove it We do distinguish light from darkness and a light body from a dark one by our sight ergo it moves the sight Probably you may deny my Definition of colour wherefore I shall for your further satisfaction compare it with that of Aristotle and prove it to be consentaneous to it differing only in Precision ours being less universal and nearer to sense then his Lumen which is equipollent to colour est actus perspicui quatenus perspicui Light or rather Illumination is the act of a perspicuous body quatenus perspicui is redundant By actus is implied an actuation or motion 2. By perspicuous is intended a body that is capable of receiving or rather of reflecting light And is not the sight capable of receiving or reflecting light and of being actuated by it Or if you will take colour for a quality following the temperament and mistion of the Elements the difference is not great this being a Definition of colour as it is considered in it-self a priori the other described a posteriori relatively and accidentally for it is per accidens to it to move the sight I cannot but reflect at Scaligers boldness who pretending to exceed Cardan in subtility so as he seemed to reprehend and correct him in every Distinction but with more absurdity then he supposed Cardan to be less subtil and particularly about Colours and light Exercit. CCCXXV d. 2. Here he infers a real and formal difference between an Accident and its Subject the contrary hath so plainly been demonstrated 2. That an Accident is constituted out of a Power and Act. The falsity of which is detected in my Disp. of Pow. These Assertions are not exempted from Absurdities 1. An Accident and a Substance being really and formally different and owing their production to one substantial efficient it follows that a Substance produceth effects differing from it self in specie 2. That a Substance is an efficient of a Power and Act. Power and Act being two positive contraries one substancial efficient is inferred to be an efficient secundum idem ad idem of two positive contraries for a power according to Aristotle is not a privation for then it were a non ens reale but a positive 3. Neither is Power or Substance the true matter of colour Not the power for that is like to the matter not the substance that being the sole whole substance Wherefore if neither power or substance be the true matter it cannot be any real thing because whatever is real consists of Matter and Form Wherefore saith he we should say that it hath a substance for its subject wherein it is inherent but in it self it hath a power and act out
of the Sun and in oyl or fat cast into focal fire burning white Here may be objected That Snow is white Ergo it should consist most of fire which it doth not I repeat my distinction of durable and changeable colours and affirm that whiteness depending upon fire is deprehended only in durable and compact permixt bodies the other inherent in changeable subjects and thin open bodies derives more from the ingredient light entring their pores where being a little pinched and collected appears white so that this may be thought to be as much the colour of the condensed light as of the body which lasteth no longer than it is condensed by condensed water and that being melted the colour vanisheth withall possibly you will turn your objection to a bone which being white doth not contain fire predominating in it I answer That a bone consists of much fire and ayr as appears in its flammability and therefore is white Lastly you may object That a Marble stone or Alabaster is white but neither are fiery I answer That both do consist of a condensed and attenuated water and not without a little rarefaction caused by the fire Suppose that Marble were only a natural water which as I have demonstrated is naturally thick and consistent like unto Ice and condensed with a little earth certainly it would be of a transparent and crystalline colour this Ice being yet more condensed by earth pinches and collects the light a little and so appears white Wherefore observe that this white is primarily an extrinsick colour depending on the incidence of light and not fundamental alone wrought by the internal temperature of the mixt body So that this objection doth conclude nothing against our Assertion mentioning intrinsick colours acting from a compact mixt body The reason why Marble and Alabaster are shining is because their body is consistent of a continuated substance to wit thick water Intermediate colours are such as arise out of the descent of the Elements from their extreams To wit thus The less there is of fire the less it is intrinsecally and fundamentally white the less there is of earth the more an object diminisheth in blackness Which degradations constitute the intermediate colours Intermediate colours are almost infinite but enumerating them according to the above-stated condition of Latitude of Colours they are vulgarly counted ten in number 1. Yellowish Subflavus 2. Yellow 3. Reddish Subruber 4. Red. 5. Greenish 6. Green 7. Blewish 8. Blew 9. Brownish 10. Brown Red is an equal mixture of Black and White and is the Center and middle of all colours being equally interjacent between the two extreams so that all colours are between Red and White and between Red and Black as appears in the subnext scheme of colours Before I proceed I will commend to you a very necessary distinction of intermediate colours which are either fundamental or extrinsick The fundamental intermediate colours are those that are constituted by the internally proportionated Elements in temperament and are compactly permisted The extrinsick colours are such as are as much imputable to the external incidence and ingredience of Light This premitted I say that a fundamental Red doth only consecute a body mixed and temperated ad pondus which was alone in the Chaos the noblest of colours befitting so noble a body Of those red colours which we now have a sanguine cometh nearest to it because it proceeds from the exactest temperature ad justitiam which is nearest to that ad pondus The change from this towards the extreams as before constitutes a different colour if to water its change is into a green as you may observe in the bloud of hydropick bodies appearing greenish if to air blewish as you see it doth in the clouds which is changed out of a Red Cloud being dispersed into a greater measure of air if to Harth Brown if to Fire Yellow which is manifest in Bloud turning to a Yellow if predominated by fire or Choller to Brown if predominated by Melancholy or Earth to Blew if attenuated or incorporated with predominant air Besides these there are many others which because approaching to some one of the forementioned I shall not think material to relate but refer you to Scaligers CCCXXVth Exerc. where you have the names of most colours set down What Splendor and the cause of it is you know already its opposite is a deadishness which as splendor is effected upon a smooth and continuated body so is this effected upon a ruggid and contiguous body Luminous and Opake are also Opposites The latter is distinguisht from black in that this is taken for a fundamental colour the other for an extrinsick privation of light VIII Reflection of light is the beating back or reaction of a splendid or thick body upon the obtended air which Reflection obtending and stretching the air yet more then it was before makes it apdear much lighter That it is made lighter is discerned by the eye which is more forcibly obtended by the reflected light which if it be much causes a dazling in the eyes and is nothing else but an over-retching of the optick air and Membranes and sometimes is so great that it presses water out of the eyes Reflection is only upon continuous bodies as Gold Silver Brass Steel Precious Stones Glass and Water c. IX Refraction of colours is a reflection seeming to be broke as when you put a Stick into the water the colour of it seems to be broke By an internal reflection its colour seems to be more augmented in quantity and extent of parts then really it is The manner of it is thus Mark that a superficial reflection doth not augment the extent of a colour which reflects the light for Gold or Crystal is not augmented in extent of colour that is seems not bigger then really it is by reflecting light superficially neither do they render a colour in the air bigger then it is 2. A double reflection is the continuation of a reflection for there is also a reflection of light within the very body of an object as you may see by a piece of Money cast into the water or big Sands lodged sometime within the center of a Diamond or Crystal causing a reflection although remote from the Surface wherefore a Colour is not well described by Arist. Lib. de Sens. Sensil to be the extremity of a terminated perspicuous body for I have told you where and how it may be visible in the intrinsick body of an Object Notwithstanding this Scaligers Objection in Exerc. 325. d. 4. against colour stated to be the extremity of an Object is invalid His Objection is because a Chesnut is coloured in the middle as well as in its extremity ergo saith he Colour is not the extremity But how did he know a Chesnut to be coloured in the middle Questionless by seeing it cut through if so then that middle cut through is now come to be the extremity so there
appears no great subtility in his argument Wherefore I do grant that a fundamental colour is also in the center of an opake body but then it is no formal Colour that is it is not actu visible except in the Surface Crystalline bodies are internally visible throughout all their parts and do augment the extent of a colour To augment the extent of a colour is to dilate it or to make it less pinching upon the air then it was without reflection for example an Apple seen through the air appears no bigger then it is but if held over the water and its colour perceived reflected seems much bigger the reason is because the colour of the Apple pincheth the air which air thus pinched beating against the water is reflected that is is beaten back again which reflection is a greater obtension of that air so pinched and the same obtension or stretching must needs dilate that air thus pinched which dilation is the augmentation of the colour of the Apple The colour of the apple impressed upon the air by its pinching seems to be rendered paler through the said reflection because the dilatation of the air being through it made lighter doth through that light somewhat expel the obscurity of the colour of the Apple Here observe that this reflection is not a single reflection but a reflection upon a reflection which I call double I will more amply explain it to you A single reflection is which doth reflect upon the extream surface and descends no deeper thus it is upon Gold or Brass The double reflection is when this extream superficial reflection is continued and propagated by the circumferential parts next adjacent to the extream surface which makes the first reflection stronger and therefore more dilatating the coloured air which more dilatating of the coloured air makes the colour appear sensibly larger although the colour is somewhat dilated by a single reflection but it being insensible we do not state it to be larger The reason why an Apple held over the water and seen at a certain distance obliquely from the side appears much more enlarged then seen directly is because the light is reflected in a larger extent and consequently the colour impressed upon it must be more dilated Hence you may also be resolved why some Looking-Glasses render ones face bigger and paler then it is This happens through the thickness of the Glass wherein the second reflection is continued from some depth and therefore doth more obtend the air and dilate its impressed colour Thin and gibbous Glasses render a face less and swarthy because they do less reflect the light and rather loosen its obtension through their thinness A little piece of a plain Looking-Glass doth represent no more of the face then its bigness will permit so that if it be no bigger then your eye you will see no more in it then your eye A gibbous or spherical Looking-Glass be it never so little doth represent the whole face of a man although but obscurely Now let us enquire into the ground and cause of these different Representations Alhazenus and Vitellio seem to assert that all colours are represented in a Pyramid that is by being equally fastigiated from their extream circumference unto a point of reflection and therefore they term this optick Pyramid simpliciter an optick figure as if all colours whether radial or luminous were represented through it But this is contradicted by the Experiment of a plain Looking-Glass where the figure of an Object is not at all augmented or diminisht but reflected in an equal extent as it is represented through a simple vision Notwithstanding it holds true in Objects reflected upon spherick Looking-Glasses where as I have proposed just now objects if circular are reflected in a conical optick figure and if lineal their radiature is reflected in a triangular or pyramidal optick figure The ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of these is vulgar enough but the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I could never hear from any 1. It is certain that all colours are represented through their direct Rayes or in direct Lines 2. These Rayes are nothing else but the pinchings of the luminous air by the Objects 3. These pinches being plain or sometimes bubbly are equally and plainly reflected by a plain Looking-Glass and therefore the Object reflected seems equal to the Object when perceived by a simple vision But in case the Object be reflected by a spherical Glass then the central parts of it are reflected by the extream protuberance of the Glass in a sloping manner not plain because the body reflecting is not plain for it is the reflecting body which gives it its extent of figure as I said before if it be plain it reflects that bubble plain that is stretches it out to a plainness which must be full as big as the Bubble can stretch out But the reflecting body not being plain but falling slopingly the coloured air fals down with it and is thereby contracted into a lesser extent in the same manner as when you spread a Handkerchief upon a plain table the Handkerchief thus extended is of a larger figure then when you cover your head with it where its figure is contracted to a less compass because of the declining figure of the head IX Robert Flud Tract 2. Part 4. Lib. 4. sets down this division of Glasses A Glass is either regular or made up out of regulars A regular Glass is plain or difform The latter is 1. A Concave which causes a thing to seem bigger then it is 2. Convexe which causes a thing to seem lesser then it is 3 4. Pyramidal and Columnal making a thing to appear longer then it is 5. Spherical which causes a thing to seem broader then it is To these difform Glasses Cylindraick Conical and Parabolical Glasses are to be referred The causes of their various reflections you may easily deduce from our Discourse wherefore I shall spend no more time about it The obliquated Radiatures of an Object are propagated to a certain distance and sphere beyond which the said Object is invisible Hence you may know why a piece of Money being placed in a Bason and going back from it until it is out of sight comes to your sight again if you cause water to be powred upon it The propagation of an Object reflected is circular and therefore to as many as can stand about that Bason where money was placed in the same will appear The various Colours appearing to the eye looking through a Prism are effected through the gradual diminutions of Light passing through the depth of the said Prism and modifying the Sand contained within the body of the Glass the same colours do also appear to us when we see against the Light through a Glass full of water X. But to pursue my discourse of Refraction There must not only be a Reflection but also a discontinuation or abruption of planeness or equality of the Body reflected and thereby
ordinary doubt moved by the Peripateticks Through what medium a sound is deferred to the hearing Their solution is that a sound is really deferred through the air as through a medium but intentionally through the water This seems to partake of no small absurdity for many of them do assert that a sound is subjectively in the air if so then a sound would be said to be its own medium which is absurd for a medium is ever intended to be a different thing from that to which it is a medium Touching their Solution it is partly false in that they affirm a sound to be intentionally only deferred through the water But why more intentionally through the water then through the air I will first propose an Instance inferring water to be capable of receiving a Sound and then enquire further into the case Frogs croaking under the water make a Sound there which we hear above the water likewise we hear the Sound of a Pole hitting against a stone under water Certainly none will deny but that the Sound of these is really propagated by obtruding the air through its bursting upwards for we see the water plainly burst or pluffe upwards a little before we hear the noyse made by a Frog or Pole ergo the action of a Sound is real as well in or through the water as through the air Possibly they may grant me that the noyse made in the water is a real action but deny the noyse made in the air and propagated through the water to be real asserting it to be intentional only I prove it to be reall A great sound made in the air doth sensibly cause a streame in the water ergo its action is really continued upon the water But again a sound being made in the air its action is much obtused because of the improportion between water being very thick and air being very thin so that a great noise in the air will make but a little noise in the water and a little noise in the air will make no sensible noise in the water But were this audible quality in the water intentional then the least sound in the air would be perceptible in the water But the one is false ergo the other is false also That a great sound in the air is audible in the water yet but very obtusely is testified by duckers or divers under the water the same is seconded by Pliny in his natural history 10. b. 70. Chap. attributing hearing and tasting unto fishes and relating that fishes have been called together by a certain sound to take their food Gellius lib. 16. noct attic c. 19. doth also recite out of Herodotus that Arion being cast over-board by the Sea-men did through the harmonical sound of his Musick draw the Dolphins to him whereof one took him upon his back and carried him safe to a Harbor Supposing this to be but a story nevertheless the allusion of the famous Inventor witnesses that fishes can hear under the water IV. Certainly few will require any proof from me that a sound is a real concussion or pluffing of the ayr since there is no great sound but it shakes air houses and the earth too whereon we stand and that sometimes to a very great distance Some years past it hapned that the Magazine of Delf a Town in the Low-countries was blown up by an accidental fire sighted upon the gunpowder the great sound or Concussion of the ayr caused through this blast was extended to many miles insomuch that it was very perfectly perceived at Amsterdam The same blast forced open one of the windows of the Chamber where an Acquaintance of mine lay then at the Hague with that violence that its rebounding against the Wall broke most of the panes At Dunkirk the sound raised by blowing up of two or three barrels of Gunpowder killed a boy although at some distance from it which accident hapned because the Concussion or pluffing of the ayr was continuated with that force that it did in that manner violently concusse or rather disrupt the animal and vital spirits of the boys body which in a manner are as I said before a continuous ayr intermixt with some contiguities of fire and earth I have formerly told you That the propagation of ayr or any quality or effect inherent and impressed in and upon the ayr reaches no further than its continuity is extending and works only upon other continuous bodies The reason is because the same action is continued only upon bodies which are of the same nature and which receive that action in the same manner Wherefore ayr and water being both continuous and united in continuity do receive the effects acted upon their continuities alike and in the same manner that is to say as far as they are both continuous and the effects are acted upon their continuities in a like manner Saving that the tenuity of the one and crassitude of the other doth hinder or facilitate augment or diminish the said action thus continuated from one to the other Further as much as one is deprived from its continuity by having its body intermixt with contiguous indivisibles so much there is detracted from the intenseness of the act continuated unto it by another continuous body Thirdly as the various incidence of light doth alter the face of colours so doth the various continuation of other various bodies variously qualified in their continuity by having other contiguous bodies immixt in them alter the property of the sound continued in them Lastly since a sound is an effect impressed upon the continuity of the ayr nothing is more averse to it or drowns it sooner than a contiguous body By help of these Theorems you may now resolve the node of several difficulties touching sounds 1. Why doth earth or fire dead a sound more than water glass or paper or why is a sound propagable through water glass or paper and is quite deaded by earth in a manner that by how much earth or fire there is contained in a body by so much a sound is deaded by that body and by how much water or ayr there is contained in an intermediate body by so much a sound is propagated further The reason is because a propagated sound is nothing else but the vibration of ayr continuously continued upon a continuous body to which continuity contiguity is contrary I will explain it to you by a conquassation of water whereby it is concussed into streams these streams so concussed are propagated into other more remote streams but if you interpose a board near the centrical streams in will hinder the propagation of the same streams because it doth divide the continuity of water Even so it is with water glass and paper those being continuous do propagate the ayrs quality in as much as they are continuous But let us dive a little further into this and question whether the continuity of the thick waterish substance of glass and of
water be the cause of the propagation of this continuity in sounds or of the ayr admitted within the subtil invisible pores of glasse or of both I answer of both but of the one primarily and perse of the other secundarily and per accidens First I prove it is of the thick waterish parts for a great noise as perhaps of a Gun will bend the glass of a window which glass through its continuity again communicates the same impression to the adjacent ayr In little sounds the waterish part of a glass is not moved but the ayry parts contained within it which propagate the same motion into the next adjacent parts for it is improbable the motion of every small sound should move so solid a body as that of glass unless it were the ayr contained within its subtil porosities Likewise in water it self as it is now the sound which is propagated through it or from it is not alwaies the motion of water it self but of the ayr contained within the water for it is also improbable that every slight sound should be sufficient to move the weighty body of water Besides were it not through the ayr but through the water a sound could not be propagated in so short a space The reason why the sound caused by a soft percussion of the ayr upon one end of a long Beam or of a Mast is so readily heard by another applying his ear to the other end of it is because that sound is propagated by the percussed ayr slyding down along the Surface of the said Beam or Mast not because the sound is propagated through the internal continuity of the Beam or Mast for that were impossible for the sound to reach to the other end through so thick a body in so short a time or by so gentle a percussion But were the sound made by the force of a great Hammer it is not improbable but the sound would pass through the body of it The noise of a Troop of Horse marching over a plain hard sandy ground may be heard at a far distance because the sound is continuately propagated by the ayr impelled along the Surface of the earth there being no contiguous body interposed to dead its sound or interrupt its continuation for otherwise any length of grass or quantity of corn standing in the fields between the hearers and the horses would interrupt and dead the sound The same reason may be applyed to resolve one why a sound made in the ayr by one upon the water is heard from a further distance than if made upon the land because the earth being contiguous doth somewhat dead and interrupt the propagation of a sound but the water being continuous and smooth doth rather further it because it doth slide and reflect the sound from her and so makes it greater and swifter than otherwise it would be if propagated through the ayr alone Water attenuated by the ayr makes a real sound to those that are under water because it concusses the auditory ayr V. This plussing up of ayr in a sound is distinguisht from the obtension of it by light 1. In that in obtensions the ayr moves to the body obtending whereas in plussing the ayr moves from the percutient 2. A plussing is a more course action whereas the other is much more subtil for they are both motions almost of the same kind differing only in tenuity and crassitude Whence I infer That there is no other difference between the Optick and Auditory spirits or ayr than that the Optick ayr is by far subtiller the other more course both having Membranes to qualifie their Objects Hence let us examine whether it be possible for a man to see or discern a voice or sound with his eyes or to hear a colour A man who hath all his senses well qualified if he make trial of the query will bring in his verdict for the impossibility of it Wherefore let us propose the doubt in a more probable state to wit whether a man whose Optick spirits be thick and his Membranes thin and somewhat denser is capable of perceiving and discerning a voice or sound through his sight 2. Whether a man whose Auditory spirits are very thin and Membrane more thick and transparent than ordinary be capable of perceiving colours and light I affirm it and will make it appear to you by experience and reason I have oft been told that the Constable of Castile his brother could perfectly discern sounds and voices by his eyes How this came to pass I shall easily demonstrate by considering first the disposition of his ocular Membranes and Optick spirits The Membranes of his eyes were somewhat thin and course not overmuch transparent standing deep in his head Whence this hapned I do farther explain to you He was deaf in such a degree that the greatest Thunder could not be perceived by him when his Eyes were shut This deafness arose from a total coalition of his Auditory passage and want of a Tympanum The matter of this Tympanum was converted by the plastick vertue in his formation to the constitution of the membranes of his Eyes whence the said membranes appeared deadish course and skinny in short the Tympanum of his eare was in a manner transferred to his eyes His Optick spirits must then of a necessity be thicker or less thin than ordinary for to be proportionable to that membrane for all parts of the body are informated with spirits proportionable to their consistency and in effect their modus consistentiae is caused from the modus consistentiae spirituum fixorum His eyes stood deep in his head and so thereby framed a grove wherein the sound was congregated In fine his eyes were the greater half eyes and the less half eares That all this is agreeable his other acts did testifie because his sight was imperfect he could not see at a distance Objects unless they were great and lustrous could not be perfectly discerned by him on the other side his hearing through his eyes was by far more imperfect a moderate sound he did not perceive a loud sound or voice he was alone sensible of Since then he was capable of perceiving sounds through his eyes no wonder if he learned his speech from thence for speech is nothing else but an ecchoing of a voice spoken by another and perceived by spirits disposed to receive its impression by expressing the same impression again by the tongue in the same manner as it was impressed Now his speech being very imperfect and unequal did testifie that the voices perceived by his eyes were imperfect and unequal That it is possible for an Animal to see colours with its eares is evident in a Mole whose ears not being very deep but its Tympanum somewhat transparent is thereby disposed to distinguish light from darkness and one colour from another that it perceives colours and light is granted by all which it cannot do by its eyes for it hath none ergo it must
I. A Tast Sapor is a quality whereby a mixt being moveth the tasting faculty The tasting Faculty is inherent immediately in the fixt animal spirits and mediately in the influent ones of the Tongue and Palat. These Spirits are in two degrees thicker then the auditory spirits there being the olfactive spirits intercedent differing but one degree in thickness from the said auditory spirits The object of this faculty is required to be respondent to it in consistency wherefore the faculty viz. the Spirits being dense and thick the Objects of the tast do move the same faculty by a greater density and thickness then those of visibles and audibles Otherwise if the Object be thinner and rarer then is requisite it is uncapable of moving the tast hence it is that we cannot tast air or warmth proceeding from fire That which is thick moves the tast by a kind of continuous compression of the spirits in the tongue thus fair water affects the tast which the more ayry and thin it is affects the tongue the more Water being tempered with Spirits makes a kind of a sharp and brisk tast for instance Wine Dense bodies move the Palat by a contiguous compression and therefore make a more distinct and forcible tast Summarily tast is nothing else but the discerning of the several temperatures of mixt bodies effecting several passions in the tongue and upon its gustative faculty which several passions are said to be several tasts Hence it is also obvious that the quality whereby a tast moves the gustative faculty is nothing but its action whereby it acteth distinctly in several Subjects wherein a different gustable quality is inherent Since the Gustative Spirits are deeply latent within a porous and Spongie body nothing can move the tast unless it be of that thinness or small quantity as that it may pass the pores of the tongue the passing of which subtilities waterish Moysture doth very much facilitate which proves in stead of a Vehicle to them and makes those passages slippery Hence it is that no great bodies have any tast unless they be first attrited and diminisht by the teeth and the more they be diminisht the more their tast becomes perceptible Dry bodies are not so gustable as when they are a little moistened whereby they reserate the pores of the tongue and procure a passage to the seat of the taste II. As many different waies as objects move the taste or cause severall passions in it so many different tasts there be That which doth only gently shake the taste and as it were doth but tickle it is sweet and deriving from a temperateness yet so as that water is abounding in it That which doth sensibly alterate the taste is an intermediate sapour that which doth most alterate it so as it may not pervert the faculty is an extream sapour Extreme sapours depend upon the greatest predominance of each Element in a several mixt body which being four do also constitute four extreme tastes 1. A fiery hot taste as in Pepper Ginger c. 2. An earthy taste 3. A waterish taste 4. An ayry tast not such as Theophrastus cals a fat taste like there is in oyl The rest are intermediate as bitter acerbe acid and salt for that is a tast mixt out of a waterish and ayry tast Peripateticks assert that tastes for to move the gustable faculty are to be immediately applyed to it and there they assert that tastes are only real among all the sensible qualities But this doth not alwaies hold true for tasts may be communicable through a medium and if the air is at any time to be allowed to be a medium it is sometimes in tasts and alwaies in odors to wit the air as Apothecaries do all testifie for when they are powdering or a peeling of Colocynthis its bitter taste doth very sensibly reach their tongue III. A smell or scent is a quality or action whereby a mixt body moves the olfactive faculty The difference between this and the gustable faculty is none other but that the one consists in a degree of a finer and thinner consistency of spirituous air and the same difference is between their objects viz. a taste is of a thicker body than a scent in manner that the scent is too subtil to strike the gustable faculty and a sapour is too thick to strike the olfactive faculty wherefore that which through its subtility passeth the sence of taste doth thereby reach to the sense of smelling moving its faculty withal It is thân apparent That the objects of both these senses are the same differing only in subtilty of body and that they are nothing but temperaments of bodies comminuted and moving the said powers immediately yet not so but that the subtiler parts for to move the sense are requisite to be separated from the courser and more then that each needs a Vehicle or a medium for to be carried and directed through the subtil passages to the deep latent sensory The vehicle of tasts is water to which spittle and drink are equipollent as being through its thickness respondable to receive so thick and course an object a thinner vehicle as the air could not receive it because it is too thin to support it The vehicle of scents is air as being through its thinness proportionated to receive and convey such subtil bodies were this vehicle thicker it would through its gravity expel or express bodies of that subtility that smells are of You may here observe the depravate Judgments of the Peripateticks concerning the mediums of sensible objects where they ought to grant a medium as to scents and tastes they withhold it where they should allow no medium there they grant it as to audibles and visibles I stated temperaments of bodies to be the objects of sense by which you are to understand the subtiller and volatick parts of substances reduced to a certain degree of temperament and obtaining certain vertues of acting So that hereby I do not intend any quality distinct from a substance for the objects of sense but real bodies so qualified as to move sense where mark qualities are not really distinguished from their bodies but really identificated with them in the concrete although in the abstract they are distinguisht ratione for what is a quality in a body else but a body qualified Wherefore the action performed through the quality of a body is not to be taken as if the body were one thing and the quality another but as one and that action proceeds from the body qualified of this I have discoursed more at large in my Metaphysicks IV. Smels do nourish no more than tastes nourish the animal spirits none doubts but that neither nourishes the solid or humoral parts because of their unsutableness in consistency and temperament Wherefore although some are said to have sustained their life for a long time through smels alone as it is recorded of Democritus who sustained his life three daies through the
smell of hot bread and of others who are said to have lived many daies upon the sent of Tobacco chawed or smoaked yet this is not to be understood as if their parts had been really nourished for they grew leaner and leaner but their life was maintained by keeping the spirits alive which is performed by scents that do gently stir them as hot bread rose water c. As for Tobbacco that maintains life accidentally also by taking away the sharpness of the hungry spirits knawing upon the stomack and obtusing and thickning them through its sulphuriousness and by attracting slegme to the stomack from the head and other parts which the stomack in time of need turns into nutriment yet some question whether they do not nourish the animal and vital spirits since they are so apt to revive the spirits in faintness and other weaknesses I grant they revive the spirits but whether this hapneth through stirring up of the spirits or through nourishing or increasing them may be doubted Certainly not by increasing of the spirits because that smells are crude exhalations differing from the vital and animal spirits wherefore they ought first to be concocted and fitted for assimulation by gradual elaborations of the Stomack Liver and Heart and must be purified through the same members from their suliginous excrements Who would say that the spirits of Vinegar should revive through nourishing the spirits and not through their exciting or irritating of the said spirits Certainly such sharp spirits do decline from a capacity of nourishing the spirits of the brain but nevertheless are very fit to revive by stirring and moving of them In a like manner do pinching and rubbing of the skin revive in a swoun not by nourishing of the spirits but by moving and stirring of them up Likewise crying loud into the ears and holding a bright light to the eyes opened by force doth as soon revive and recal swouning patients as any thing but assuredly the working of these is by exciting and stirring the spirits and not by nourishing of them The more thin the olfactive Membranes and nerves are and the more subtil the spirituous olfactive air is the further odours or scents are perceived But then it is requisite that those objects which are to move such a sense should be more subtil because of being proportionated to the faculty for if they are course they will exceed the perception of such a scent hence it is that those who excell all others in exquisiteness of scent cannot attain to the smelling a thick smell near by unless they go so far off as that those thick exhalations by moving through the air may be grinded less and so be the better fitted for to strike the olfactive faculty hence it is then that a Vulture being blinded and placed suddenly in a Room where dead stinking flesh is shall not find it through his sent although his smelling is the most exquisite of any living creature according to the usual Verse Nos aper auditu linx visu simia gustu Vultur odoratu praecellit araneatactu A Boar in hearing a Linx in sight a Vulture in his smell An Ape in taste a Spider in feeling do us far excell Because the scents being thick are not thin enough to strike his subtill smell but then again he shall perceive those scents at the greatest distance where these thick scents are so much subtiliated through the length of passage that there he perceives them very sensibly as being fitted to his scent The smell of a Tallow-Chandlers shop doth little offend or move our olfactive power when we are in the shop yea not at all but at our first approach before we come near to it the smell may direct any one thither blindfold Neither do Dogs or Hogs smell thick scents as of excrements or other rotten stinking smells of corrupted flesh when they are near to them for did they they would certainly abhor them yet it is certain they smell them at a great distance but then that smell at a distance is not a stinking smell to them but sweet and pleasant for otherwise they would not be so much inticed by them for although such objects stunk near by through their thick pernicious and strong motion yet through the grinding of the air they are mollified and their putrid temperature is laid and equalized and their stink is quite taken away this appears in Musk Civet or Ambergreece which if held close to the Nosthrils strike as unpleasing a stink as excrements but again how fragrant and sweet a scent do they emit at a distance Even so it is with the scent of Excrements to Dogs and Hogs A Dog scents a Bitch a great way off although lockt up without seeing of her and apprehends the scent under her Tayl to be no ill scent Wherefore I say That in many if not in most scents that which smels sweet to a man sents stinking to most beasts and that which sents stinking to us smells sweet to most beasts It will not be difficult now to give a reason why and how a Dog winds the scent of a Hare at so great a distance it is because there are some exhalations or evaporations emanated through the habit of a Hares body and especially of her belly and inguina inhering in the ground and in the air near about it over which the Hare hath taken her flight the which although they be very subtil thin yet they do sensibly and perfectly move the olfactive power of the Dog this sent is as intirely pleasing to the Dog as the sight of his eagerness in pursuit pleases the Hunters and so they are both equally inticed to the pursuit of the Hare Fishes are said by Aristotle Lib. 4 de histor animal to have a smell in that they are inticed by the smell of food cast to them into the water I do wonder where he found out their Organ of smelling for my part I could never discern it nor any body else It is true Fish doth perceive the taste of food through its continuous dissolution through the water by their Gills or Pallate at a great distance because the particles of the food are diducted into a large extent which being the more exquisite do serve them for to taste and to smell V. That which doth gently shake or move our olfactive air is only that which we call a sweet smell and therein the sent of man is much pleased Wherefore sents being of a different temperature all smells do not equally please all men or every Creature is most pleased in different objects So most beasts as Theophrastus writes are pleased with the smell of a Panther and therefore do all follow him Cats are delighted by the smell of a Mouse or a Rat which she ketches in the dark more through guide of her sent she having a most exquisite sent as appears by her finding the Larder or victuals hidden in any part of the house or room than of her
of Magnitude or sometimes of the universal Center 4. None but the whole body of the Elements do tend to or strive for the universal Center but particular or mixt bodies for their own particular Center as you may read further in the Chapter of Local Motions II. The earth is and must necessarily be the Center of the world or of all the other Elements within which it is contained like the Yolk of an Egge within the White and the Shell I prove the Proposition If the nature of Earth be to move conically from the Circumference to its own Center through a contiguous gravity and the nature of Air Fire be to be equally diffused from the center through their levity ergo the earth must needs fall to the midst of them all its parts tending circularly and conically to their Center The earth being arrived to the center it resteth quiet and unmoveable the Reason you shall know by and by Return back to the explanation of the manner of the dissolution of the Chaos which cannot but demonstrate the evidence of this Point to you Nevertheless let us consider that old Phansie of Pythagoras Plato Aristarchus Seleucus Niceta and others upon this Matter revived by Copernicus in the preceding Centenary and weigh its probability 1. He imagineth the fixed Stars and their Region to be the extremity of the world and both to be immoveable 2. That the Figure of that Region doth appear to us to be circular but for what we know our Sense may be deceived 3. That the Sun is the Center of the aspectable world being immoveable as to its ex ernal place notwithstanding since through help of the Telescopium is observed by the discerning of the motion of its Spots to change his face about although still remaining in the same external place its own Axis in 27 daies 4. Between these two immoveables the Planets are said to move and among them viz. between Mars and Venus the Earth is imagined as a Planet to move about the Sun and to absolve her Circuit in twelve Moneths 5. That the Moon is seated between the Earth and Venus and is thought to move through its own particular motion about the earth between that space which there is granted to be between her and Venus and between her and Mars Besides the Moon doth also move with the Earth as if she were her Page about the Sun absolving her course much about the same time In like manner are the four Stars first discovered through a Telescopium by Galilaeus said to follow the motion of Jupiter and to move with it about the Sun in twelve years there being besides another motion adscribed to them whereby they move about the Same Jupiter between the space which is between it and Saturn and between it and Mars the innermost whereof absolves its course about it in a day and a quarter the next in three daies and a half the third in three daies and four houres the last in sixteen daies and eight houres besides these they have found out by the help of the said Telescopium Stars which are Concomitants to each Planet 6. That the space between Saturn and the fixed stars is almost immense That the Region of the fixed stars is immoveable he takes for granted without giving any probable proof for it for which notwithstanding may be urged Omne mobile fit super immobili that all moveables do move upon an immoveable which if granted doth not inferre that therefore the Region of the fixed starres must be immoveable since he hath stated one immoveable already namely the Sunne what need is there then of more Further if we do grant two universal immoveables we must also grant two universal contrary motions whereof the one is moved upon one immoveable the other upon the second but the universal diurnal motion of the stars we see is one and the same ergo but one universal immoveable is necessary Lastly He cannot prove it by any sense only that it must be so because it agrees with his supposition and what proof is that to another The holy words in Eccles. do further disprove his position where it is said that God moved the Heavens about within the compass of his Glory His second Position denotes him no great Naturalist The third Position infers the Sun to be the immoveable Center of the world 1. This doth manifestly contradict Scripture which doth oft make mention of the Suns rising and going down And in Isaiah 38. 8. the Sun is said to have returned ten degrees back And in another place Let not the Sun move against Galbaon 2. The Sun is accounted by most and proved by us to be a fiery body or a flame and therefore is uncapable of attaining to rest in a restless Region which if it did its flame would soon diminish through the continual rushing by of the fiery Element tearing its flames into a thousand parts whose effects would certainly prove destructive to the whole Universe but especially to all living Creatures 3. Were the Sun immoveable and enjoying its rest ergo that rest must either be a violent detention or a natural rest not the first because that could not be durable or what can there be thought potent enough to detain that vast and most powerful body of the Sun for that must also be sensibly demonstrated and cleared otherwise you do nothing Neither can it be the latter for were it natural it must not only have a natural principle of rest but also be contained in a vacuum or else in a Region whose parts have likewise attained to a natural rest through the enjoying of their Center It is a property of a Center to be as a point in comparison to the Circumference but nothing can be contracted to a point but Earth and water as I have shewed above whereas according to their own confession the Sun is a vast great body and its Beams spreading and dilating ergo it must be only Earth and Water Now what sign of predominance of Earth and Water is there apparent in the Sun for were it so the Sun would shew black and give no light The Moon is liker if any to be the Center it consisting by far of more earth then the Sun as her minority in body motion and degree of brightness do testifie Lastly Is it not more probable that our sight should hallucinate or be deceived in judging the Sun not to move then in judging it to move all Astronomical Phaenomena's being so consentaneous to this latter Judgment Besides how is it possible for us to judge whether the Sun doth move or rest since that according to this supposition we are carried about with that swiftness By the same reason we may doubt of the motion of all the other Planets The fourth Position concludes a most rapid motion of the earth What principle of motion can the earth consist of Of none certainly but of fire and air which are admitted into her body in
were digged for deeper under the ground their labour would be richly answered by finding purer and better metals 3. The coldness of these places must be a proportionable coldness for if the places be too cold then the liquid parts will be detained from arriving to cast up hollownesses by being too much incrassated and condensed whereby the energy of their rare and subtil parts is suppressed 4. The liquid matter must also have a due proportion of the Elements whereby to constitute certain kinds of stones and metals If the matter be thick and terrestrial not containing many subtil and rare parts then it will generate into a course stone The reason of the courseness is because the terrestrial and aqueous Elements are but rudely mixed by reason they wanted internal heat whereby their parts might be divided into lesser particles and so become the more concocted and harder In case the matter be more subtil and rare and that the course parts are united in less particles then the said stone will according to its degree of fineness and concoction prove flinty Marble Jaspis Cornelian c. In case there be more thick water than earth the body thence generated becomes crystalline as Crystal Diamonds Rubies c. In these water doth retain almost its natural consistence as I shall tell you immediately In case there be an equal part of earth and water and these well concocted and intirely mixt together it produces Gold If there be something more of water than earth and they well percocted and permisted they ingender Silver If there be an equal proportion of water and earth and they only rudely concocted and but half mixt it generates Copper If there be more earth than water and but half mixt and concocted it constitutes Iron If there be more water than earth and they but rudely mixed and rawly cocted the effect will prove Lead or according to the proportion of the ingredients and coction Pewter Mercury is generated out of water being rendred fluid through much air and fire containing withall a small part of earth These do not only differ in proportion of materials but also in degree of internal heat and of the temperament of their Matrix otherwise termed a vein from its Cylindrical Figure Gold had the strongest heat whereby the parts were firmly united in minima's which heat did after the performance of its office exhale by degrees nevertheless suppose that there was a degree of heat left the matrix of Gold must be very close for to retain that intense heat so long until the constituting parts are well permisted and concocted As for the external temperament of the climate it is little material to the business since we see that Gold Silver c. are generated in cold countries as well as in hot in moist as well as in dry It is the internal temperament of the earth which supplies fit matter for the generation of metals The Matrix of Silver is less close the matrix of Brass more open than it and so gradually in the others Mines or mineral veines are usually found to be in hills or mountains because these do generally contain hollownesses especially if they appear dry and sandy without Those mountains are for the most part best disposed for the generation of metals that are situated at a convenient nearness to a pure crystalline river Easterly mountains are most to be suspected provided the River which is not far distant from them be easterly withall The clearness of sky is no small token A long Bar of Iron thrust into the ground after having digged to some depth if it changeth whitish or yellowish gives no small suspition of Gold or Silver A long trunk peirced likewise into the ground where suspected as deep as may be and afterward applying the ear to it if it renders a tinging or sibulous boyling noise is a sign of some hidden treasure under that soile That the generation of Metals is such as I have proposed may be demonstratively proved by sense from their colour consistency difficulty of liquation from the theorems of concoction the which since you may easily collect from what hath been hitherto discoursed upon I shall omit any further proof V. The present occasion doth urge me to touch somewhat upon the transmution of Metals The difference which there is between them you may collect from their matter degree of coction and disposition of matrix However there is more agreement between themselves than there is between them and stones wherefore the question is Whether Silver is transmutable into Gold Here I propose the doubt according to its most probable appearance there being less difference between Gold and Silver than between Gold and any of the others I answer That naturally it cannot be because it is impossible that after Silver hath once acquired its form it should be convertible into a perfecter form Because heat is deficient for it is exhaled neither was there ever at its highest internal heat enough to have concocted it into the nature of Gold or had there been heat enough there would have been too much water and air The case is less probable after its constitution specification individuation that it should change into another species or another individuum If the transmutation to a greater perfection of all other species and individua be impossible so must this also But the Antecedence is true ergo the consequence likewise I grant that it is possible to reduce it to a more imperfect and base species that being plain in all corruptions Wherefore I say that it seems more possible to reduce Gold into Silver Silver into Brass or Pewter Brass into Iron and Iron into Mercury by means of an artificial corruption because the finer Metal may be thought to contain the courser as an inferiour degree whence it is ascended but the finer cannot contain that in it self which is finer than it self is Neither can our proposed transmutation be effected by any art of man unless he knew a means wherby to detract such a proportion of the redundant waterish parts of the Silver as that there might remain just as much as is required to constitute Gold besides the work will need a strong and vehement internal concoction and that to a certain degree and for a certain duration It will require also a justly disposed matrix all which I conceive impossible to art They may as well strive to make a Ruby or a Diamond out of a Flint Happily you will object That some have converted Silver and Brass into Gold through the admission of some volatil subtil penetrative particles which were of that force as might be supposed to have divided the whole mass of Silver and penetrated into and through all its minima's whereby the gross parts fell closer to one another and become perfectly concocted so as through their consistency to represent the true weight and colour of Gold which might really pass our censure upon a Touchstone I answer That
Iron Sory is a Mineral hard and thick like to a Stone glistering with yellowish Sparks These three are of a causting quality thereby burning Scars and Crusts into the Flesh besides they are somewhat adstringent Misy is the strongest and Sory is the next to it in strength Antimony is a Mineral of a blewish colour shining throughout its Body like Streeks of Silver its mixture is out of course earth and dense fire yet less dense then any of the foregoing It s vertue is internally vomitive and purgative externally it is discutient detergent and adstringent All these are natural recrements of Metals yet not recrements alone as I said before Bombast and his Sectators analyze all Metals and Minerals into Sal Sulphur and Mercury as if they were all generated out of these as their first Principles for say they our Art instructs us to reduce every Metal or Mineral into each of those foresaid Principles Either this is to be understood that it is possible to reduce all Minerals really into Sal Sulphur Mercury or into some certain more concected beings analogal to them Generally they seem to pretend to educe real Mercury out of all Minerals but as for the others they are only analogal Why should they more expect to extract real Mercury then real Salt or Sulphur Wherefore it will be more consisting with Reason to conclude them all equally analogal that is like in consistency to ordinary Mercury Sal and Sulphur but not in effects It is a Madness for any one to imagine that Gold is constituted by the same Mercury but more concocted that is usually digged out of Mines and that Mercury is convertible into Gold if thereunto intended by a strong concocting preparation They might as well say that Gut-Excrements were convertible into Flesh and that flesh consisted out of the said real Excrements The Case is thus Mercury is by them accounted to be an Excrement of Metals wherefore as an Excrement is a Body really different from those bodies from which it is rejected and in no wise convertible unless it be some of the purest parts of it that have escaped natures Diligence so neither is Mercury any part of Metals nor convertible into them unless it be the smallest purest parts which had fled the earths Metalliferous quality Possibly you will Object that Gold feeds upon Mercury and Mercury upon it wherefore they are convertible into one anothers Nature I deny the Antecedence for Gold is dissolved and destroyed by it as appears in Amalgamation or dissolving Gold by the fume of Mercury ergo it is not fed by it Mercury effects no less in the Body of man for it dissolves his humid parts yea his solid parts too as Mercurial Salivations testifie All which is a sufficient Argument to induce us to forbear from explaining the Causes of Natural Beings by Sal Sulphur Mercury Probably you reply That this is not the meaning of Bombast who intended these Names only to be analogal to those things vulgarly so called Wherefore by Mercury is understood a thin pure liquor by Sulphur a subtil Spirit by Salt the gross substance of a Body I Answer Either you must take these for first Principles or for mixt bodies they cannot be the first because his Mercury is constituted out of water reduced from its greatest hardness into a subtil fluor through admixture of Air and Fire His Sulphur consists of fire condensed by Earth and of Air ergo they must be mixt Bodies if so they are no first Principles of Metals because even these are reducible into more simple bodies viz. his Mercury into thick water a thin air and a rare fire Sulphur into air fire c. This I will grant them that all Metals are dissolveable into such kinds of analogal Substances which are not bodies less mixt but only changed into bodies of several consistencies viz. thick and thin course and fine CHAP. II. Of Stones and Earths 1. A Description of the most Precious Stones 2. A Description of the less Precious Stones that are engendred within Living Creatures 3. A Description of the less Precious Stones that are engendred without the Bodies of Living Creatures 4. An Enumeration of common stones 5. A Disquisition upon the vertues of the forementioned stones An Observation on the Effects of Powders composed out of Precious stones Whether the Tincture of an Emerald is so admirable in a bloudy Flux 6. A particular Examination of the vertues of a Bezoar stone Piedra de Puerco Pearles c. 7. The Kinds of Earth and their Vertues I. OUr Method hath led us to propose the Demonstration of universal Natures before that of particulars and that of Metals before the other of imperfect Minerals and Stones as being more excellent through their perfection of mixture wherefore we have next allotted this Chapter for the treatise of the particular natures of Stones Stones are either known under the name of most Precious less Precious or Common The most Precious Stones are ordinarily called Jewels being 18 in number 1. An Agathe 2. An Amethist 3. An Asterites 4. A Beril 5. A Carbuncle 6. A Chalcedonie 7. A Chrysolite 8. A Diamond 9. An Emerald 10. A Jaspis 11. An Jacinth 12. An Onyx 13. A Ruby 14. A Sarda 15. A Saphir 16 A Sardonix 17. A Topaze 18. A Turcois An Agathe is a stone of divers mixt colours and in no wise transparent An Asterites is a stone somewhat resembling Crystal and within the Moon when she is at full An Amethist is a stone of a Violet colour A Beril is of a Sea-green colour and sometimes is found to have other colours mixt with it A Prase is not unlike to it only that it is not of so deep a green neither so hard for it wears away by much usage A Carbuncle is esteemed for the most precious of all Stones and is of a Gold or Flaming colour It is said that there is a kind of a Carbuncle called a Pyrope to be found in the East-Indies which shines as bright in the Night as the Sun doth in the Day A Chalcedonie is a stone of a Purple colour A Chrysolite is of a Golden colour hard and transparent A Chrysoprase is hard and of a greenish colour A Diamond is thought to be the hardest of all Stones An Emerald is hard and of a perfect green colour A Jaspis is of a greenish colour sported here and there with bloudy Spots An Jacinth is of a Gold or flaming colour Some of them decline from a Yellow to a deep Saffron red or sometimes to a blewish colour They are neither perspicuous or opake but between both An Onyx is of a brownish white but of a dull transparency An Opale stone is by Pliny Lib. 37. c. 6 accounted for the best and rarest of Stones as participating of the rarest Colours of the rarest Stones its fire is more subtil then of a Carbuncle shining with a Purple of an Amethist greenish like to the Sea-green of an
Emerald c. A Ruby is a reddish stone A Granate is a worser sort of Rubies A Sarda is of a transparent fiery red colour A Cornelian is comprehended under it A Sardonix is composed as it were out of a Sarda and Onyx it is scarce transparent A Saphire is opake but of a clear sky or blew colour and very hard A Turcois is opake and of a colour between green and blew A Topaze is transparent and of a colour between a grass green and a Saffron yellow it is falsely confounded with a Chrysolite there being a very discernable difference between them II. The less Precious Stones are found either within the bodies of living Creatures or without Those that are found within the Bodies of Living Creatures are 1. The Bezoar stone which is found in the Belly of an Indian Goat-Stag a Beast in some parts like to a Goat in others to a Stag. The Stone is for the most part of a dark green yet some are found of a yellowish others of a Brown and Olive colour They are brittle and friable containing oft-times a Straw or a small Kernel in the midst of them about which there concreaseth a slimy matter baking to it in Blades There are two sorts of them viz. Oriental and Occidental 2. A Tair of a Stag is a little Stone engendred in the corner of a Stags eye It is very bright smooth round very small and light It s colour is yellowish mixt with a few black streaks and gives a strong Sent. 3. The Stones of a Goat are taken out of its Stomack or Gall. 4. There are also Stones found in the Stomack and Gall of an Oxe 5. The German Bezoar stones are taken out of the Bellies of some Does that haunt the Alpes 6. The Stone of an Indian Hogge or as the Portugueses call it Piedra de Puerco is found in the Gall of an East-India Hogge or in the stomack of a Porcupine it is soft and fat to feel to just as if you felt a piece of Castile Sope. Pearles that are generated within the Bellies of Sea shell-fish as of Cockles Muscles or Sea-Oysters These do most gather to the Sea-shore about the Spring where they or rather the Sun through its drying faculty do open their shels whereby that glutinous and clear moysture which they had retained undigested a longtime in their Bellies and now being freed from its ayry parts doth congeal through compression of the remaining thick waterish substance which if they do happen to be engendred when the sky is dampish and cloudy are affected also with a cloudiness as not being sufficiently purified through the driness and heat of the Sun and the ambient air As long as they be under water they are soft but after a short time lying in the dry air they do soon grow hard When they are taken out of the shell some of the Fishes flesh cleaves to them which they usually bite off by covering them for a while with Salt 2. The Alectory Stone is taken out of a Cocks Maw This stone is more frequently found in Cocks when they are in their fourth or fifth year 3. A Bufonite is a Stone found in the head of an old Toad its shape is for the most part long or round 4. A Chelidony is taken out of the Maw or Liver of a young Swallow its colour is a black mixt with a little red Sometimes they breed two together whereof the one is more blackish the other enclines more to a red 5. The Carp-stone is white without and yellow within being found in the throat of a Carp There is also another triangular stone engendred in the head of it besides two long stones more sticking above its eyes 6. The Stones of a Crab otherwise called Crabs-eyes are white and round 7. A Saurite is found in the Belly of a Lizzard 8. A Limace-stone is engendred in the head of a House-Snaile 9. The Perch-stones are taken out of the head of a Perch near to the Back-bone III. The less pretious stones found without the bodies of Living Creatures are 1. The AEtites or Eagle-stone which is found in an Eagles Nest and is of a light red colour 2. Coral which is a shrub of the Sea being green and soft under water but assoon as it is plucked from the bottom of the Sea and exposed to the air it becomes red and hard like unto a stone Hence Ovid. Lib. 4. Metam Nunc quoque coralliis eadem Natura remansit Duritiem tacto capiant ut ab aere quodque Vimen in aequore er at fiat super aquore saxum There are several sorts of it viz. Red Green White Yellow Brown Black and of a mixt colour Some pieces of Coral appear to be half Wood and half Stone Crystal waxeth upon the snowie Hils It is oft found upon the Alpes that divide Italy from Helvetia It s shape is hexagonal the cause is the same with that of the angular shape of Alume Authors are at great variance whether it is generated out of Ice No certainly for Ice is nothing near so clear neither can it be purified after its concretion It s Matter then is the subtiler and purer part of Snow concreased and congealed for what is more crystalline and pure then the liquor of Snow as being purified from all gross parts through its first evaporation from the waters to the Heavens and thence precipitated pure and freed from its greater part of terrestrial admixture I need not add more for to explain its generation since it is generated in the same manner that all other stones are generated The Haematite or Blood-stone is of an Iron colour permixt with bloudy streakes some are more blackish others yellowish The Galactite or Milk-stone is of an Ash colour A Marble is a smooth shining stone admitting of sundry colours It is known by three sorts 1. Alabaster which is a white transparent Marble 2. The Porphirstone which is drawn through with red and white streakes 3. An Ophirstone whose colour is a green spotted with spots like unto those of a Serpent A Sarcophage or flesh-eating stone is of an Ash colour It derives its name from eating mans flesh away without pain A Lazul-stone is of a blew colour speckt within its body with Golden specks like unto so many stars An Armene stone is of the same colour excepting that in stead of Golden specks it is marked with green blew and blackish spots The Themeade is a stone which driveth Iron from it wherein it proves contrary to the attraction of the Loadstone upon which we shall insist particularly in a Chapter by it self as requiring a more distinct and nice search The Nephritick stone is sent hither by the Inhabitants of Nova Hispania it looâs greasie about as if it were besmeated with Oyl Iâs colour is for the most part a light green others are of a mixt colour It is hought to be a kind of a Jaspis The Judaean stone so called because it is frequently found
through what it is that the Magnete together with the nautical Steel do accline to the South and North Pole Here take notice that the steames of our stone consisting of predominating fire and air do therefore also imitate the nature of both Wherefore it being natural to fire and air if detained from their Center to continue a circular motion and to move upon two Poles of North and South about an Axeltree from East to West and from West to East it cannot but it must also be the nature of all steams as being likewise detained from their Center to affect the same motion and in the same manner For fire and air flowing from East to West like the Ocean which hath also made choice of the same motion do carry all igneous and aierial bodies along with them as the said Ocean bears all swimming bodies with it That fire and air obtain such a motion we shall in the ensuing Chapters evidently demonstrate These Herculean steames are also assisted by the protrusion of the flowing ambient air because they being continuous and cohering do give way to the airs propulsion For if they were contiguous and their particles dishering they would scarce be moved by the air but would break through So that it is more than probable that the steames move with the air Eastward Besides those Miasmata being aerial do of their own nature strive for rest against the earth which causeth them to move circularly Lastly we are to evidence how the air may be assisting in moving the steames back from East to West about the Needle for the air doth in our Hemisphaere continue a westward floud but this is easie enough All flowing bodies do whirl when appelling against a body that lyeth or standeth in their way As for instance where you hold your finger in a flowing water or River there the water whirles or moves round about your finger or where there are heaps of gravel or sand lying in the water there you see the like effect Even so it is with the air which being alwaies in a floud doth whirl about any weighty body that lyeth or standeth in its way Wherefore then the floud of the air hitting against the weighty Iron of the Needle lying in its way doth turn and whirl round about it and so doth withal impel the Chalibeat and Magnetical steames to the same course whereunto they do also of their own nature seem to incline Moreover Iron wrought into a thin long shape and insisting moveably and lightly upon an immoveable sustaining point doth inclinatively turn its extremities towards the arctick and antartick Poles of the Air The reason is because its steames are led with the stream of the air which ever tending from East to West doth convey the steames of Iron although but weakly because they do not emanate very copiously from it westward and consequently its Poles must then necessarily be coincident with those of the air A Needle swimming in the water but then it must be still and thin doth obvert it self to the same Poles the reason is evident Supposing that those steams did cease and were quite exhaled nevertheless would a long piece of Steel insisting lightly upon a sustaining immoveable point be caused to stick out its Poles North and South because the air moving in a great swift and full steame enters the pores of the steel and drives it cross or long waies just as we see in a River which carrieth a boat or any long piece of wood as a Mast being adrift athwart or with its cross sides against the stream and points its ends to the borders of the said River which being as it were immoveable in respect to the cross drift of the Mast are instead of its Poles X. There wants yet the inserting of the cause of the deviation of the Mariners Needle Which being accidental to it happens through terrestrial and aqueous bodies condensing and incrassating the air whereby they do somewhat stop and retard the airs swift course only in its lowermost Region which being retarded there makes an obliquity in its stream since the other part of the air flowing in the second and third Region is forced to leave the lowermost streams a little behind which makes the Essluvia of the Needle and Loadstone choose another Pole So then about the Fortunate Islands the lower Region keeps touch with the others and therefore is conpolar rendring the Essluvia of the Stone and Needle likewise conpolar The reason is because the air being very thin there is not thick enough to retain any gross bodies such as might hinder its course Besides that Climate being temperate and but little infested with heat is not so much obnoxious to the imbibition of Vapours or exhalations neither is it subjected to receive any dense minimas falling down from the Coelestial Poles which do likewise retard the inferiour Region of the air Under the Line and within some degrees of it the air is likewise retarded by being discontinuated below through the torrid minimas raining down from the Heavens and reflecting there whereby it is compelled to be expolar in a degree two or three whence also the Needle varies in the same number of degrees About Neurenburgh the air in its lower Region is retarded bear 10 degrees and consequently differs in the distance of its Poles from those of the 2d 3d Region in 10 degrees In Nova Zembla 17. and very probably the further Mariners steer to the Northward the more degrees they find their Compass Needle to linger because the more remote they go from the universal flame the more they find the air condensed and incrassated with earthy and waterish minima's whereby it is flowed in its fluor And doubtless directly under the Poles of the Heavens the inferiour Region of the Air is altogether immoveable and consequently its Poles must likewise be admitted to be at the same places Further these deviations of the Needle do signifie the Altitude and declination of the Poles of the air which altitudes and declinations are to be conceived nothing else but the degrees of the Airs retardation and acceleration in the inferiour Region or the degrees which the superiour Regions of the air exceed the lowest in swiftness of motion which various excess of Degrees seems to us to make choice of sundry Poles but in effect doth not it hapning through nothing but through the airs addensation Against what I have here proposed may be objected That although granting such a motion to the universal tract of the air yet it is dubitable whether the air being separated from its whole body and included within the limits of a Compass box doth continue the same motion for water contained in a Porringer and seperated from its elementary body doth cease imitating the course of the great Ocean likewise Pools and other standing waters desert that actual motion which if united to the Ocean they would reserve Hereunto I give my answer 1. That water in
we are to apply it as it relates to the other Elements and is the proper cause of her Commerce with them Water although appearing fluid yet naturally that is absolutely conceived by it self is void of all fluor but partakes of the greatest weight hardness crassitude smoothness and consistency that is imaginable I prove it Water the more it is remote from the intense heat of the Sun the more heavy thick hard smooth and consistent it is Have you not Mountains of Ice of great weight thickness c. in Greenland in the Summer much more in the Winter yet more directly under the Poles and most of all if apprehended absolute by it self and deprived from extrinsick air and fire when we cannot but judge it to be of the greatest weight thickness and consistency that is apprehensible The Scripture seems to attest the same Job 38. And the waters are hid as with a stone and the face of the deep is frozen By the deep here is meant the Chaos ergo the waters were naturally at their first creation thick and hard Lastly As there are two fluid Elements viz. fire and air So it is also necessary that they should be balanced and met with two opposite consistent ones namely Earth and Water The first being contiguous and hard responds to fire the other being continuous and hard responds to air being continuous and soft Whence we may safely conclude that it is the advent of the fire together with the air that renders the water thus thin and fluid as we see it is II. How Water first gained such a body together as the Sea is our exposition of the worlds creation will advise you The Sea is the greatest collection of water by the Latinists it is called Mare from Meare to go or to flow and not from amarum or the word Marath among the Caldeans signifying bitter as some have thought so it is likewise called Oceanus the Ocean from Ocior amnis a swift current It procures various distinctions from its beating against several shores from those of the East and West India it is surnamed the East and West Indian Ocean of the Mount Atlas the Atlantick Ocean from those of Sarmatia the Sarmatick Ocean near Madagascar the rough Sea from the quicksands that are frequently thereabout of Spain and Brittain the Spanish and Brittish Ocean c. And from the Plage whence it doth flow it is called the East West South or North Ocean The same spreads it self into many particular Seas or great Bayes whereof these are the more principal 1. The Mediterranean Sea so named because it flows through the middle of two great parts of the Earth viz. between a great part of Europe Africa and Asia Or more particularly between Spain France Italy Dalmatia Greece and Natolia of the one side and AEgypt and Barbary of the other Where it toucheth the Spanish coast it is called the Iberick sea and more forward the French Balearick Ligustick near Genoa Tyrrhenian or Tuscan about Sicily Sardinian Sicilian Adriatick Cretick Libyan Phoenicean Cyprian Syriack sea c. its mouth is called the Straits 2. Pontus Euxinus the Euxian sea otherwise named the black sea or Mare Majus whose mouth is called the Hellespont from its narrowness its throat Propontis and the Thracian Bosphor so called from bos an Oxe as if an Oxe were too big to pass through that narrowness 3. The Arabian and Persian sea 4. The Gangetican sea so named from the river Ganges which is disburdened into it 5. The Red sea deriving that name not from the colour of the Sea but of the red sand over which it floweth The Baltick Sea alias the Sinus Coddanus or Suevick Sea from the Suevi a Nation that formerly inhabited those coasts at the mouth it is called the Sound flowing 150 leagues far between Denmark Finland Sueden Prussia Liefland Pomerania and Saxony The pacifick sea is so called from the gentleness of the waves or the South sea because it lyeth to the Southward of the Line limited by the coasts of Asia America and terra Australis or the Country of Megallan III. A Lake is a great and perennal collection of water cirrounded by the Earth whereby it is cut off from the Sea It is distinguisht from a Pool in that the one is perennal the other is apt to be dryed up sometime by the heat of the Sun and driness of the earth and to be filled up again with rain Some of these being famous for their extent others for their admirable qualities I shall willingly insert 1. The greatest Lake in the Universe is the Caspian sea in Asia otherwise called the great sea the Albanian Hircanian Pontick Tartarian Sea the Sea of Sala Bachu Abachu Terbestan or Giorgian It diffuseth it self into three Bayes or Gulph viz. near the Mouth into the Hircanian on the right side into the Caspian and on the left side into the Scytick Gulph It bears the name of a Sea very improperly since it is incompassed by the Earth Nevertheless it is saltish and full of fish 2. The Lake Asphaltites in Judaea otherwise called the dead Sea from its immobility because as Corn. Tacit. relates that scarce any wind be it never so violent is strong enough to lift it up into Waves is noted for sustaining weighty bodies especially if anointed with Alume water that are cast into it in a manner that a man his hands and legs being tyed and cast into it shall swim it breeds no fish nor any other living creatures The Lake of the lesser Armenia and the Lake Aposcidamus in Africa and of Sicily are almost of the same strength On the contrary the Lake Avernum in Campania and that of AEthiopia are unable to sustain the weight of a leaf fallen into them from a tree and according to Pliny there is no fowl that flies over them but falleth dead into them There is a Lake near Lerna and another in Portugal which are so attractive and depressing that they do immediately draw and press down to the bottom whatever is cast into them in such a manner that a man having thrust his hand into either must use force to draw it out again Pomponius Mela and Solinus make mention of a Lake in AEthiopia which to the eye appearing crystalline and sweet to the pallat doth so besmear those that bath in it as if they had been duckt into a bath of oyl In the west of the Isle of Iseland travellers have discovered a great Lake fumous very cold in a short space changing whatever is cast into it into a stonish or rockish body a stick being thrust right up into the bottom that part which is under water is in two daies changed into an Iron substance the other above remaining what it was Hect. Boeth writes of another in Ireland which after some months renders that part of a stick that is thrust into the ground Iron the other part that is under water fliuty the upper part
any musical Instrument in a manner that at its sound it is apt to sieth and run over as if it were for joy Baptista Fulgosius affirms to have seen a Fountain which appears very clear and still to one walking about it and looking therein without speaking but if speaking although but a few words it is immediately put into a commotion and siething appearing very turbulent The same Author makes mention of another in France which being for the most part of a very cold nature doth nevertheless not fail of casting flaming fire from it There is a fountain in Illyrium that like fire burns into ashes whatever is cast into it Epyrus and Cyrenaica are noted for Fountains which in the morning and evening feel warm at noon hot and in the night scalding The same is said of the Fountain Ammonius For Springs to be cool in the summer and warm in the Winter is not extraordinary In Arcadia springs a certain fountain out of the mountains whose water is so extream and piercing cold that no golden or silver vessel is capable to hold it but is forced into pieces by it nevertheless it suffers it self to be contained in a Mules Hoof. Not far off from the Danow there is a Fountain surnamed the Fountain of the Holy Cross which sometimes casts out abundant streams of perfect bloud very useful for the curing of sundry diseases A fountain in the Island Tenedo doth during the Summer alwaies overflow from three in the night to six in the morning There are three Fountaines in Cantabria that sink dry in twelve hours and fill up again in the same space of time The fountain Cyane among the Syracusans as also another in Hungaria increase and decrease with the course of the Moon The same is said of the fountain of Hucune in China The fountain of Jupiter in Dodan is said to sink and rise thrice of a day Another in Epirus doth begin to ebb in the morning is dry at noon fills up again towards the Evening and at midnight is risen to that fulness that it runs over There is a fountain near Weenen generating stones out of any thing that is cast into it Many waters as they drop from the hills concrease into stones as soon as they arrive to their rest and these drops being multiplied concrease at last into pillars of stone The Fountains of Herbogia Veroniuns in France Zepusium in Dacia do all breed great abundance of stones out of and within themselves Fulgosius speaks of another in England of the same nature The water of Sibaris causeth sneezing if drank those of Clitumnus in Umbria Cappadocia and of Cesiphus in Boeotia make the hair of the Cattel that drink of it grow waite but that in Arabia as Aristotle doth arrest changeth them into a reddish colour Theophrastus writing of the Fountain Lycos reports it to be of the same property that Oylis of and to burn in a Lamp although within the Well appearing limpid But that which is more admirable we observe in the Church History of Euseb. whom Paulus Orosius and Eutropius do second viz. That near upon the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour in the Reign of Caesar Octavianus there brake out a Fountain in a Tavern at Rome floating a whole day with abundant streams of pure Oyl Isidorus and Solinus in his Polyhistor make observation of a Fountain whereon those that were to depose their Oath were to lay their hand whose eyes in case they had forsworn themselves were withered and brought to a blindness Had God pleased that such a fountain might have appeared near the Hals it is to be feared that an honest man could hardly walk the streets without being affronted by a blind man One of the same Authors doth also witness of Jacobs Fountain in Idumaea that every three months it groweth troubled and becomes red and green afterwards returning to its primitive clearness Likewise it is said of a fountain in Cherronesus that it sieths and ferments once a year purging it self of all filth and uncleanness The same is observed of many other fountains From the likeness of the subject I shall take occasion to appose a word or two touching the properties of some eminent Wells and Baths differing in little else from fountains than that these spout out of the earth with a great force and in greater abundance IV. Near to this City there are three Wells much cryed up for the cure of diseases whereof two are purging by stool and urine viz. Barnet and Ipsum Wells The other of Tunbridge is only diuretick or moving urin Of the two first the latter is counted the stronger both being much approved for the curing all chronicall diseases particularly a Tertian Ague obstructions of the mesaraick vessels of the Liver and Spleen crudities of the stomach the yellow Jaundise and Catarrhs That of Tunbridge is more profitable in Quartanes inveterate Head-aches Dropsies Gouts Hypochondriack Melancholy black Jaundise Melancholy of the brain Leprosie Cancers malignant and inveterate Ulcers Kings Evil Convulsion sits sits of the Mother stoppage of Courses VVhites Phtisicks Palpitation of the heart stoppage of the Kidneys and Bladder the Gravel and Stone the Impostume of the Kidneys of the Mesentery of the Liver and Spleen But as for those that are troubled with the French Leprosie let them beware from these waters as from poyson for there is nothing in the world that sets those virulent humours more into rage and fury than Mineral waters Next to these the Spaw waters are very famous divided into four several Wells viz. Savenier opening at the foot of a hillock three miles from Spaw its faculty is most diuretick and somewhat Eccoprotick 2. Pouhont bursts out in the middle of the Village and agreeth much in vertue with that of Savenier excepting that it is somewhat more eccoprotick They are both much coveted for their pleasing sharpness of taste 3. Geronster is distent from Spaw near three miles but is much less in esteem than others because of its unpleasing nauseous sharp taste causing a disturbance of the brain stomach bladder and guts 4. Tonnelet retains some faculties like to the before mentioned but much inferiour to them in strength V. Baths are hot Wells hence in Latine they are called Thermae hot scilâaquae from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hot This Island affords some inferiour to none Especially those in Somersetshire whose fame hath deserved the name of Baths ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for the Town where they erupt out of the earth They are 1. Cross-bath pouring out in a mild temperate heat 2. Hot bath being about two hundred foot distant from the former and differing from the other in intenseness of heat whence also it derives its name 3. Kings bath which is near to the Cathedral and is less hot than the Hot bath but hotter than the Cross bath Their vertues are excellent in curing of most chronical diseases incident to the joynts and sinews as Gouts Lamenesses Numnesses Palsies hard
nodes and cold tumours of the joynts Rickets in children c. they dry up the superfluous moisture in dropsies expel gross humours by sweat and by that means curing inveâerate headaches aches of the Limbs they procure womens courses consume their Whites cure the Green-sickness and many other diseases VI. A River is a collection of waters descending from a Fountain and streaming through a tract of the earth towards the Sea whereof some are long others short broad or narrow deep or shallow swift or slow straight or winding some ebbing and flowing as the Thames Elb Mase Seyne c. others for the most part following one course c. Most of the River Waters about the Alpes if usually drank of are apt to breed a great swelling in the throat called by Physitians Bronchocele Vitruvius affirms the same of a River called Silar changing the roots leaves and boughs of the trees that grow on its banks side into stones Pliny adduces another of the same property whereunto the River near Laodicea and those of the Country of Barcia in Hungary may be adjoyned About the borders of Norway near a Castle called New Castle flowes a River whose streams seem blackish breeding also fish of the same colour Philostratus in his book de vita Apoll. recites a Fountain wherein if a forsworn person doth wash his hands or feet he is soon infected with a shameful leprosie Diodorus the Sicilian makes mention of another of the same nature The water of the River of Jordan doth still retain its great fame among the Papists of working Miracles Pilgrims do oft bring quantity of it along with them thence obtesting that it is impossible it should fail curing Dropsies Consumptions malignant Ulcers Kings Evil Barrenness in fine all diseases that surpass cure by Art It renders the face beautiful and nitourous and for cuting spots and deforming rednesses of the face it is taken notice of by most women in Spain France and Italy The East Indians do adscribe the same vertues to the River Ganges which they do believe with such an assurance that as soon as ever they fall dangerously sick they cause themselves to be carried to the River side where they sit under a Hutt with their legs half way in the water so long untill they are either dead or perfectly cured and if they die they leave in their last will that their cinders may be cast into the same River for to be purified I suppose against their Resurrection The AEgyptians used to take their prognostica ions of sundry important things from the River Nilus which if it failed overflowing their Country portended barrenness and consequently Famine and oft times a Pestilential disease and sometime change of Government Thus its inundation was deficient two years together before the death of Antonius and Cleopatra the same hapned also before the great Famine and change of Government under Claudins On the other side if the said River happen to overflow beyond its usual limits it proves likewise an occasion of barrenness because the length of time before the Country can return to a just driness through the decrescence of the water is protracted beyond the Season of Sowing Usually and naturally as I may so say the Nile overflowes once a year being forty daies in increasing arriveth to its height which is unto 16 cubits about the seventeenth day of June and is forty daies more after that in decreasing The Countrey being much fatned by this inundation produces great abundance of pasture corn and other fruits The increase height and decrease of the Nile they know from the observation of a Pit made out of one stone whose water increases and decreases with the Nile This River doth also dispose women for conception whence it is ordinary with them to multiply by twins and three at one birth Moreover it is a very healthfull water preserving the body in a good disposition and curing many diseases Notwithstanding the subtility of the water and heat of the climate yet it never emits vapours whence it is that there falls no rain in that Country The same is also attributed to the River Boristhenes and the Anouros in Thessalia viz. not to rick or to occasion the air to be nebulous The River Ganges is likewise apt sometimes to exceed its bounds through which inundation the Country is very much fertilized The River Arrius of Florence the Danow the Eridanus or Padus the Tiberis and the Athesis of Verona have oft caused a submersion of the neighbouring fields VIII The chief straits or narrownesses of the sea are 1. The straits of Gibraltar where the Sea floats through betwixt the two pillars of Hercules viz. The two Promontories of Calpe and Abila and divides Spain from Fez it is otherwise called the straits of Caliz from the Island Caliz near adjacent to it It s breadth is about seven Leagues 2. The straits of Anjan passing from the outermost western parts of America to the Eastern Coasts of Tartary It is very probable that some of the posterity of Sem crossed these straits to inhabite the West-Indies where they are since multiplied into those several nations 3. The straits of Magallan so called from him that first passed them but since they have found another way into the Pacifick Sea more commodious to sail through called the straits of Le maire 4. The straits of Davis towards Greenland 5. The straits of Nassow or Waigats near Nova Zembla The Mediterranean is pinched by these straits 1. The Siciliân straits 2. The Tuscan straits between Sardinia and Corsica 3. The Calydonian straits 4. The straits of Euripus between Achaia and Euboea 5. The straits of the Hellespont 6. The Thracian straits 7. The Cimmerian or Meotian straits 8. The straits of Cilicia or Caramania between Cilicia and Cyprus A Gulph is an arm of the Sea or the Sea broken into the Earth in the form of an Arm. The principal Gulphs of the Oriental Ocean are 1. The great Gulph passing betwixt Maugi and India extra Gangem 2. The Gangetican Gulph streaming between the Golden Chersonesus and India intra Gangem 3. The Persian Gulph 4. The Gulph of Arabia or the red or Eruthrean Sea deriving its name from the red Sands over which it floats or according to Q. Curtius from the King Eristhra 5. The Gulph of Canthus 6. The Gulph of Barbary or Progloatis or di Melinde The principal Gulphs of the Western Ocean 1. The Sarmatian Gulph 2. The Granduican Gulph or white Sea 3. The Gulph of Mexico 4. The Bay of Biscay The Mediterranean Sea is chiefly dispersed into these Gulphs 1. The Gulph of France reaching Marseilles 2. The Adriatick or Venetian Gulph 3. The Ionian Gulph floating towards Epirus and Macedonia 4. The Corinthian Gulph alias the Crisean or Alcionian Sea 5. The Gulph of Naples 6. The Pamphilian or Issican Gulph 7. The Thermacian or Thessalonian Gulph 8. The Argolick Gulph 9. The black Gulph CHAP. VII Of the Circulation of the Ocean
under water over the bottom of the Sea along with the course of the Ocean from any noted point that the same part of the Ocean or Bowl shall in the space of 15 natural daies arrive to the same point and exactly at the same time begin its next periodical course thence when it departed from that term the month before Nevertheless the Ocean doth not omit its single course in fluctuating about the Earth in somewhat more than twelve hours but then it doth not dayly arrive to the supposed point of a compounded periodical course at the same minute when the latter viz. the compounded begins its progress Expresly the great Ocean through its diurnal course flows the length of 348 degrees about from East to West performing also the same circuit through its nocturnal course That is every twelve AEquinoctial hours it absolves 348 degrees of the terrestrial AEquator Wherefore for to flow 360 degrees it requires 24 24 2â minutes of an hour above the foresaid twelve hours that is the Ocean flows about the terrestrial AEquator in twelve hours and 24 14 2â minutes absolving every hour 29 degrees How this swiftness is possible to the Ocean we shall make further declaration of it anon Besides a single diurnal and a periodical compounded monthly motion another must also be added which I call an augmentative motion through which the Ocean doth gradually accrease every high water to some certain cubits of which more fully hereafter Since that time is nothing but a measure of motion and that one time is made known to us by another it is thence occasioned that we come to know the time of the Ocean by comparing it with the time of the Moon and of the Sun as being general marks whereby to calculate the seasons of the Ocean This premised it states a ground reason of the measure of this great Sea viz. That it is usually high water in the Ocean under the AEquinoctial and Ecliptick as also upon the shores of the same at six in the morning and evening when the Moon is in opposition to or conjunction with the Sun and at the same hours about the Moons quarters the waters there are at their lowest On the other side it is as common among Mariners to measure the motion of the Sun and Moon by the Tides or motions of the Seas they being exquisitely skill'd in discerning the hour of the day and night or the season of the several aspects of the Moon by the said tides Wherefore it may be thought as equal a consequence that the Moon in her motion depends upon the course of the Ocean as pressing the air through her tumefaction which again doth impel the Moon forward as that the Moon should tumefie the air and thereby impel the waters forward But I pass by this as ridiculous Although the Ocean keeps so constant and exact a rule and measure in its course as likewise the Sun and Moon yet we must not therefore conceive the one to depend upon the other because two great marks of their time that is one of either viz. The greatest height of waters and the greatest aspect of the Moon are concurring in one day that rather happening because the Ocean began its course at that instant when the Moon after her creation being placed in opposition to the Sun began hers But possibly you will propose this instance to evince that the highest water doth depend upon the greatest compression of the Moon because when she is at her Full she may cause some compression and commotion of air and water she then being in her greatest strength and situated in Perigaeo of her eccentrical Aspect and therefore nearest to the water and so may add somewhat to the enhightning of its stream I answer That it is a mistake to apprehend the Moon to be nearest at the Full most Astronomers asserting her rather to be remotest then and to be nearest when she is in her quarters Ergo according to that rule the highest waters should happen at the Moons quarters and the lowest at the Full of the Moon Or otherwise how can the Moon further the said motion when she is upon the extremity of her decrease her rayes drowned by those of the Sun and she in Apogaeo deferentis Certainly none can be so obtuse as to maintain her in that capacity to have a power of compressing the air when she being most remote the air doth most enjoy its freedom yet nevertheless some are so obstinate to assert that the greatest altitude of the Sea because it hapneth then doth likewise depend upon the compression of the Moon What is more constant certain periodical and equal than the course of the Sea Whereas the Moon is vulgarly maintained to be subjected to anomalies then in this part of the Heavens then in another now in Apogaeo perigaeo concentrical excentrical then swift slow c. if so then a constant and equal effect cannot consecute the efficience of an unequal cause III. Against our discourse touching the diurnal course of the Ocean might be objected That it seems very improbable that the Sea should move so swift as in a little more than 12 hours to overflow the whole terrestrial Globe whereas a ship through the advantage of her sails and a prosperous wind and weather being supposed to out-run the Tide can scarce accomplish that course in a Twelvemonth Hereunto I reply that the water takes the beginning of her motion from underneath for as I have formerly proved that the formal cause of the waters perennal motion is her gravity which bearing down upon the Earth for to gaine the Center is resisted by her and nevertheless continuing in its motion is necessarily shoven there to the side and so the same hapning to the succeeding parts are all impelled through a natural principle of gravity sidewards like unto an Arrow being shot against a stone wall and there resisted is shoven down the side VVhence it is apparent that the waters take beginning of their motion underneath not far from the ground where being pressed by the great weight of many hundred fathoms of water lying upon them must needs cause a very swift course of waters removing underneath and withdrawing from that of the Surface which is prevented of a swift motion because it sinks down to that place whence the subjected parts do withdraw themselves which gives us a reason why the superficial parts of the Sea do not flow by many degrees so swift as the subjected ones Nevertheless some small motion is visible upon the Surface which may accelerate or retardate the course of a ship but not comparable to the waters in the deep This instance will further certifie you touching the truth of the matter before said a flat-bottomed Kettel filled up with water having a hole at the bottom near to the side of the said Kettel doth emit the water underneath spouting out with a very great swiftness through the hole whereas the
water upon the Surface moveth but very slowly towards the side near the hole because the water moving so swiftly underneath doth cause that atop to sink upon it which prevents its swift motion towards the side and that which causeth the water underneath to spout so violently out of the hole is the weight of the water atop pressing violently and forcibly downwards This occasions me to call to memory that apposite Phrase of the Dutch sea-men who instead of saying the water ebbs say Het water sackt that is the water sinks as if they would signifie the water to move from underneath The Ocean then originally and primarily moving from underneath in a very swift current as the forementioned instance may easily confirm to us hath not that extent to overrun there which we might conceive it would have atop but is above the half shortened in its periphery through its depth and consequently through the deep excavation or extenuation of the Earth Wherefore observe 1. That the Ocean underneath doth well absolve so many degrees as we have writ down before but then they are much abbreviated and lessened in comparison to those degrees whereby the superficial circumference of the water is measured 2. I say that the Ocean absolves the foresaid course of 348 in 12 equal hours only in its lower parts But as touching its superficial ones it is certain they are slow absolving the same compass in no shorter time than six months which may be named a Marinal year This slow progress is evidenced to us by the slow drift of a piece of wood floating in the Ocean 3. Although the superficial parts of the Ocean do not slow with so rapid a course yet it hinders not but that they may tumefie as they do throughout their whole circuit about the Earth in the space of 12 hours 4. Since it must necessarily follow that where the water tumefieth in one place it must sink in another therefore the water tumefying once every 12 hours in the East 6 houres long in which space it arriveth to its height it must sink as much in the VVest because that moisture which causeth the intumescence in the East doth slow underneath from the VVest By the same rule the Eastern Ocean must also sink 6 hours in every 12 for to cause a tumefaction in the VVest VVhence it is that every 6 hours we perceive a change of the Tide in the Ocean 5. VVe are not to perswade our selves that the Eastern floud is occasioned by water returning from the VVest and the western floud through the refluxe of the same water from the East because the Ocean doth continually pass from east to west by way of the South not returning the same way through the South from west to east as appeareth by the quick Voyages of those who setting sail with a good wind and weather from Spain towards the West-Indies do usually make land in three or four weeks whereas returning from thence can scarce recover Spain although having the wind very favourable in less than three or four months Likewise a voyage from Moabar in the Indies to Madagascar otherwise called St. Laurences Island may be accomplisht in 20 daies but from Madagascar to Moabar scarce in less time although with a very prosperous wind than three months In the same manner one may much sooner make a voyage from this Island to Spaine lying hence more eastward than from Spain back again hither or in sailing from Alicant a City of Spaine situated upon the Mediterranean Coast towards Palestina they usually make less speed than in returning All which are undoubted marks of the perennal course of the Ocean from East to west VVherefore Philosophers have been misled in imposing the names of Fluxus and Refluxus upon the course of the Ocean as if returning the same way it went I have taken notice that as the Dutch used a fit word for to denote the Ebb so the French have imposed another no less elegant upon the floud viz. La Montè de la Marè or the rising of the Sea exactly squaring with our foregoing discourse Thus when it is floud they usually say Lamarè il monte that is the Sea rises The Latinists call it AEstus Maris or heat of the Sea because when the Sea begins to be filled with hot exhalations it is wonted to be hot through which it swelleth like hot bloud flushing into our faces and glowing causeth a puffing up and a rising whence it is impelled to flow some part of it one way and another another way which caused the floud observed through the rising of the waters upon the shores These exhalations being dissipated the Sea beginning to cool withdraws it self again into its former compass and leaving the shores puts them in mind of the Ebb. But this dictate being proved to be absurd doth justly advise us to reject the forementioned name 6. VVe need not to doubt being fully informed of this Doctrine but that every floud brings in new water that of the last Ebb flowing forwards with the course of the Sea towards the accomplishment of its annual period 7. Let none be offended at us for granting an internall cause of the Seas motion against Scalig. Exer. 52. asserting the Sea to be an Animal in case it should be moved from an internal cause were this a Paradox we must then believe that the Air Fire Heavens and Stars are Animals they all moving through an intrinsick principle IV. My method doth now lead me to demonstrate the several Phoenomena's of the Ocean by their proper causes 1. The Ocean flowing from East to West cannot be thought to be the sole cause of the diurnal intumescence and detumescence of the Sea since it may be supposed to slow equally over an equal ground Wherefore a second cause must concur to wit an unequal ground or an unequal grove through which it passeth The waters being through the second division of the Creation separated from the Earth which then lay in an equal round figure under the waters these consequently equally covering it in the same figure were afterwards through the third division collected into one place where they must have pressed their great weighty body into two great universal groves whereupon the Earth must necessarily be pressed up into two great universal eminences which are divided from one another through the said waters and consequently constitute two great Islands viz. of the New world or America and the Old world or Asia Africa and Europa The Sea after this working through its great weight deeper and deeper into the Earth must necessarily thereby have formed many other deep and great cavities within the sald universal groves The Earth through whose recess or giving way the said other Cavities were impressed must needs have been compressed to some other part not towards the center because the Earth was so very densely beset there that it was impossible it should give way Ergo towards the Surface where it was
moulded and compressed up into all those great mountains which we see every where about the Sea-shores and into all those great Banks and Rocks which Sea-men do meet withall every where yea some being stuffed up a great way from the shore as witness many Ships that have run aground in the Atlantick Ocean above 60 80 or 100 Leagues from the shore likewise a great banke lying off the Cape of St. Austin and extended near 70 Leagues long Lastly A great part of the receding earth was cast up into great and small Islands especially those numerous ones in the East and West Indies Let us then suppose those said small Isles together with the great ones of the East Indies to be accompanied with great and large banks or shelves whereof some are visible others not This supposition must needs force another from us viz. That the waters passing from West by the North to the East are retarded and partly stopt by the said Isles shelves or banks In the mean time during this retardation and partial stoppage the waters flowing from East by the South to West do decurre decrease and evacuate themselves unto the west grove untill such a degree that they are run off as low as possible at which time the other is at its highest and then they overflow the borders of the Eastern shelves and free themselves from the retention of the Isles by which means the Eastern grove begins to fill and encrease whose swift decurrence of waters being stopt and retarded by the Western borders and banks fils up until high water This discourse may seem strange to you since the waters are never visibly stopt by any shelves or banks these alwaies lying covered but were it so that they proved a stoppage it must be imagined they should lye dry Hereunto I answer That supposing the waters to move from underneath they arriving at a deep grove must needs be retarded through its shelving sides as being against their natural inclination to move upwards This retardation of the water on the bottom of the grove must necessarily cause the waters atop to swell and become turgid or tumide ever framing a round figure atop which is a certain sign denoting the grove to be of a parabolical figure This tumefaction the Ancients did abusively term an exestuation as if proceeding from a fermentation within the water The water underneath being depressed on the bottom of the grove according to its greatest capacity and having withall elevated the waters atop to their greatest height doth now begin to strive to clime up the shelves of the grove being thereunto moved through its own force continuated against the Earth but reflected by the same upwards and propelled by the succeding parts of the water as also compressed and squeezed by the greatest weight of the waters atop lying upon them which compressing is much augmented by the great force of the air and fire bearing against the water and earth for to gain the Center Whence the waters do now begin to flow over the banks of the said shelves making a tumefaction and gradually a high water wherever it comes and so evacuating it self out of one great grove into another happens to cause a low and high water in the Ocean Hence now you may easily collect the reasons and causes of these several properties befalling the Ocean in its diurnal course 1. Every twelve hours there appears a rising of water in either of the universal groves viz. South and North grove continuating the space of 6 hours because the bottom of either grove is 6 hours in filling out of the one into the other Likewise every 12 hours the Ocean falls for 6 hours because its water beneath is so long in evacuating it self 2. The beginning of the swelling of the Ocean is ever slow for two hours much quicker the next two for one hour before the last is quickest of all and the last moves in an equal velocity with the latter of the two first it is at its slowest a little before the pinch of high water at dead low water The beginning is slow because that part which causeth the beginning of the tumefaction of the water is weakest as being most remote from the central parts and employing its greatest force in making way and mounting over the shelves loseth its strength which it recovers when it is backt by the body or central parts of the water following it and so promoting its course with a greater swiftness And being with its whole body arrived to the bottom of the grove it doth as it were rest there for to recover its strength which doth occasion its greatest slowness the same consequently causing the greatest diminution of motion at low water in the other grove 3. High and low water of the Ocean is retarded every natural day near three quarters of an hour that is 34 â4 2â minutes of an hour in every single period or 12 hours because it accomplisheth but 348 degrees of the terrestrial AEquator in every 12 hours which doth want 12 degrees of its compleat circuit and before it can absolve those 12 degrees through the beginning of a new period there passeth 24 24 29 minutes of an hour which gives us the true reason of the Oceans retardation every day near three quarters of an hour This course lingring every natural day so many minutes doth in 30 periods or 15 daies stay back full 360 degrees being the total circumference of its circuit and so as it were absolves a compounded period through its retardation in 15 daies which space agreeing with the time of the Moons middle motion between her conjunction and opposition no wonder if the Ocean also agrees to be at its height at a prefixt and constant time alwaies being one and the same when the Moon her aspect is New or Full. 4. The Ocean happens to be augmented or elevated higher than ordinary every Full or New Moon because every thirtieth or middle period which ever falls accidentally but not as if only depending upon the Moon as upon her New or Full Aspect it hath acquired its greatest force of flowing whereby it drives before it and carrieth along with it a greater confluence of water than at any other season This intension of course it procures gradually more and more every period untill at last it comes to its highest after which in like manner it decreases again untill it is descended to its least remission which is upon every thirtieth circuit coincident for the most part with the Moons quarters that is the Ocean at its high water is in comparison to the high waters of the other precedent or following courses at the lowest when the Moon appears in her quarters because the force of the Oceans course is then most remitted Here we may observe the beginning of this intending or periodical compounded course to be when the Ocean moves with the least force causing the lowest high water and the highest low water which
frequently happens near to the Moons quarters whose middle is marked by the Moons Full and New Aspect being when it flows with the greatest force causing the highest high waters and the lowest low waters and tends towards its ending when it remits from its height and intends in lowness This augmentation and diminution may be resembled to the fermentation of Wine or Beer swelling gradually untill its height and thence decreasing again Touching the beginning and ending of the Seas single diurnal circuit if we consider it simpliciter it hath none because it is ever in motion as never being eased by a total rest but if agreeing to state the beginning where the Ocean is slowest in its course and thence tending to a swifter motion then the Proposition is resolveable And according to this Supposition the beginning and ending must be moveable differing every single course near 11 degrees This by the way Returning to explain the cause of the gradual augmentation of water and intention of force I am to remember you of the great proportion of the Oceans peregrin Elements consisting of most Earth then Air and lastly fire of whose close coherence with the waters their saltness is an undoubted argument These salin particles violently detaining the waters from recovering the center must necessarily add force to the gravity of the waters and consequently in intending their force they must also augment them in quantity because the more force the waters use the more in quantity they bear along with them The detention of the said salin particles being at their beginning of no great strength or in no great quantity do therefore cause no great intention of the Oceans force but every single period piercing gradually by rarefaction upon the waters must necessarily also augment their tumefaction gradually higher and higher every day untill at last being arrived to their height of penetration which ordinarily happens in 15 circuits the Ocean is likewise elevated unto its height Some of these salin particles being penetrated through the body of the waters are gradually depressed to the ground through their own disposition and the weight of the Ocean others being attrited and confused through their passive motion against the water and the decess of their heaviest particles do more and more gradually desist from their violent detention every circuit returning to the bottom and so the Ocean doth also gradually every day incline nearer and nearer to its natural force and detumescence of its water untill it is returned to its own proper course at which season its force and intumescence are equally at their lowest During this space those subsiding particles begin again to be expanded rarefied and attenuated because of the grinding of the water against them and through the expansion of the aerial and igneous parts adunited to them do bear up again The others elevated atop beginning to concentrate through the conquiescence of the Sea are ready to be compressed downwards both which gradually striving a reciprocal meeting do in the foregoing manner gradually reunite the force and augmentation of the Water V. Here we cannot but admit the Suns intense hear every day beating down the torrid Zone to be a great instrumental and adjuvant cause to the stirring of the aforesaid salin particles But this continuing in one measure equality and station in respect to the torrid Zone all the year long cannot in any wise be thought the principal cause of a motion varying twice every day Likewise the Moon being beset with a great quantity of dampish and heavy particles doth every day spread down some of those particles whereby the Ocean is also gradually filled more more every day And like as these said particles are most apt to rain down the nearer the Moon doth appropinquate to the Ecliptick because the air enjoyeth a greater subtility there from the rarefaction of the Sun hence it is that the Moon frees her self most of these heavy concomitants near her Conjunction and at her apposition So they are most apt to ascend the further the Moon is declined from the Ecliptick as happens in her quarters when for that reason the waters are also at their lowest That these two Lights are accidental causes of the intention of the Oceans force and daily augmentation of its waters is plain enough and their mutual concurrence to the effecting of the same effect we have confirmed beyond all doubting whereby the absurdity of the Moons compression proposed by Des-Cartes and so disagreeing with his own position of the nature of the air is likewise set before you The Moon near her Conjunction makes very high waters because conversing with the hot rayes of the Sun sends down a great number of the foresaid bodies and not because she is impregnated with the light of the Sun whereby she should be grown more potent to excite vapours and exhalations This is ridiculous for we find other bodies to be swelled near that time not only through exhalations raised out of themselves but particularly through particles demitted by the conveyance of the air into their pores The like happens although in a weaker manner when the Moon is in her full Aspect because of her nearer approximation to the Ecliptick But much more in a Lunar Eclipse because she is then found directly in the Ecliptick And most of all yea twice higher than ordinary at the Full Moon of March and September because the Sun being then in the AEquinoxial and most directly over the torrid Zone under which the greatest body of the Ocean floats and the Moon in the same way near the Ecliptick must needs joyntly cause a vast decidence of the forenamed bodies intending and augmenting the waters Or to declare the matter plainer to you The continuation of the Seas Motion forward is not only depending upon the pulsion of succeeding parts bending by refraction naturally forward but also by a kind of attraction or suction of preceding parts thus Suppose the Earth to be excavated into certain great cavities like to great pipes whereof of those that are formed from the East towards the West by the South the furthermost are alwaies deeper and longer than those which are nearest to the East Likewise conceive such Cavities framed in the same proportion to one another from West back again to the East by the North Now I say that the deepest and furthermost cavity must alwaies attract the water out of the shallower and lesser in the same manner as the longer pipe of a sucker a Siphon as some do call it must attract all the moisture of the shorter because the parts of water being continuous and consequently cleaving to one another the lesser part must follow and yield to the greater the which through its crastitude being pressed forwards must also draw the lesser part after Since then the water is no sooner arrived into one cavity but is thence drawn into another hence it is that this tumefaction of waters is not sensible to us in the Ocean
The number of these cavities we must suppose to be fifteen on each half of the terrestrial Globe because the Sea doth in every periodical compounded course make thirty stations or so many tumefactions by which it must needs work it self into so many cavities This supposed it doth infer another assumption viz. That since the Ocean moves over so many borders or shelves of cavities it must necessarily move in Bores A Bore or more properly a Bare is a tumefaction of water underneath moving very swift and elevating the waters atop into a tumefaction proportionable to it underneath An example of Bores you have in the River of Seyne and many other Rivers where great shallows obstruct the floud of the waters underneath But of this more hereafter The Ocean then moving in a great bore must raise a tumefaction wherever it passeth This tumefaction being originally in the middle parts causes the floud by sending a proportion of waters falling through their gravity from the top to the sides as being lower situated to the coasts on both sides which it passeth Hence we may collect that where ever the borders of the foresaid cavities do respect the Coasts there the Inhabitants must have a swise appulse of the floud The Ebbe is nothing else but the waters returning from the sides to the middle parts being left lower through the recess of the Oceans bore or tumefaction but this by the way It is most certain that the Western Ocean directs its waves towards the East but whence this continual course of water is supplied may justly be doubted and although the Eastern Ocean doth constantly flow towards the West yet how and where Mar del Nort meets with Mar del Zur remains to be made to appear Their visible communication through the straits of Magallan or of Le maire or the straites of Martin Forbisher and of Anjan cannot be imagined to conduce any thing considerable towards the presupposed evacuation that of Magallan little exceeding a League in breadth or above 10 or 12 fathom in depth besides the many turnings and windings and length of near 110 or 120 Leagues hindering any considerable course of water The others not much surpassing these either in breadth or depth seem to conduce as little But to make the course clear beyond all dispute the West-Indian Earth is boared through deep underneath by the former compression of the Ocean through which immense perforation the great bore of the Sea enjoys a free passage and rowles along under the Peruvian Ocean By means of this vast perforation the Indian Earth is much elevated and in most places hath acquired the full height which it obtaineth being clome up atop the Sea by many Leagues whence it is that the Land by far overlooking the Ocean doth appear to Mariners three or fourscore Leagues off at Sea CHAP. VIII Of the course of the Sea towards the polar Coasts 1. What the Libration of the Ocean is That the Tides are not occasioned by Libration The Navil of the World Whence the Seas move towards the North Polar Why the Ebb is stronger in the Narrow Seas than the Floud and why the Floud is stronger than the Ebb in the Ocean Why the Irish Seas are sorough 2. Why the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rice of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rice of this Sea I. HItherto we have followed the main course of the Ocean Westward In the next place let us cast an eye towards the Northern coasts where we shall meet the Sea rowling contrarily now from the South to the North then from the North back again towards the South This contrariety must not perswade us although authorized with Scaligers subtility that the Sea is an Animal neither need we to lay hold upon that notion of the Libration of the universal waters for to salve this doubt However I will not think it much to tell you the meaning of it The Libration of the Ocean is the projection of its parts from the Center to the Circumference through a diurnal fermentation raised by the torrid rayes of the Sun or according to Libavius his droling through a diurnal-egurgitation of water out of a bottomless pit of the Ocean called its navil and projected toward its extream parts As this kind of spouting should be the cause of the floud so its returning back into the Earths tun belly or the cessation of the foresaid fermentation should be the cause of the Oceans reflux from the said parts be they Northern or Southern c. The exposition it self of this subject will evert its supposed reality for if such a fermentation were granted the Ocean must at one and the same time move to all the points of the Compass and at the same time return from the same points to the Center But what expert Mariner is there that will not testifie otherwise And where is this Center Possibly in the torrid Zone between Madagascar and Los Romeros where a very strong tide is generally observed but not moving Eastward and Westward at one time if so no Ship could pass without yielding her self to the bottom Neither can Libavius his fansie be admitted because such a Gurges spouting out would cast Ships from it at one time into all parts with an unimaginable force and likewise would attract Ships from those parts back again with no less force and swallow them down into her belly That these properties would necessarily accompany such a vast Whirl-Pool is proved by that dangerous Whirl-Pool in the North sea near the coasts of Norway by Mariners called the Navil of the world through its egurgitation casting Ships to a great distance from it and through its ingurgitation drawing them from the same distance into her throat These Hypotheses insisting upon no sparke of appearance we are forced to make choice of our precedent one whereby to demonstrate the different flowing and ebbing of these narrow Seas towards and from the Septentrional Polar There be few but knows that the Narrow Seas undergo a gradual tumefaction a rowling up of their waters being withal very swift and arriving successively from one coast to another as also a successive detumescence and decurrence of the said waters Now the reason why these waters do not accompany the Ocean from the East towards the West is their shallowness and inclosure between narrow borders For the bore of the Ocean coming rowling down the AEthiopian Ocean towards Mar del Nort is discontinued as it were in its depth through the shallow bottom of the polar Seas and therefore doth only give them a cast or throw in passing For the bore arriving and swelling gradually doth through that gradual swelling squeeze the shallow polar seas towards the Poles in passing by notwithstanding continuing its course Westward The bore being passed the Ocean beginneth to wax detumescent whereby the shallow waters being deserted
of the squeezing Ocean do return into the Ocean The universal intumescence passing twice every naturall day doth cause a double change of the polar Tides in the same time That swiftness which befalls our Tides in these parts is likewise caused through the shallowness of waters which are necessarily impelled swifter forward than if they being imagined to be deep where consequently waters being in a great confluence more weighty must move slower Hence we may learn the reason why the tide in some places doth move swifter than in others namely because the Sea is more shallow there and therefore Ships arriving near the shore make a greater benefit of the Tide than far from it The Floud is commonly weaker and slower near the shores and within the compass of these narrow Seas but the Ebb is stronger and swifter because the waters do clime upwards being forced against their natural impulse and therefore resist more potently but returning do descend fortified with their own natural inclination into places detumefied and therefore meeting with no resistence On the contrary in the middle of the Ocean the floud or rather intumescence is stronger and swifter than the ebb or detumescence because the universal bore which is the cause of the floud or intumescence of the water doth cause a greater impulse of the water atop through her presence than when she is quite passed Hence it is that Ships sailing from East-India Westward do over run a larger tract in one six houres of the intumescence than the other six of detumescence Those Seas which are derived directly northerly from the Ocean do suffer a greater commotion of tides than others than are indirectly thence descending Hence it is that the Irish Seas being directly opposite from the North to the Ocean do undergo more violent Tides than others because they receive the squeezing or impulse of the Ocean directly upon them whereas in the Channel North sea and the Bay of Biscay the waters do perform their Tides more moderately because they floating under the North the Oceans universal impulse is much mitigated by the defence of the Promontories of France England and Spain That which doth further augment the violence of Tides in the Irish Seas is the shallowness of the water and the meeting of Tides viz. First they receive the impulse of the Ocean directly from the Southwest passing between the West of England and the East of Ireland towards the North then the same Ocean continuing its impulse against the west Coasts of Ireland the Sea sets about the Northwest Cape of Ireland towards the VVest of Scotland and the stronger because it is refracted and as it were somewhat pinched by the shallowness of the Hebrides and other Islands Through this thwart setting off of the Tide it meets with the Tide passing through between England and Ireland which it beats back and that more forcibly towards the latter end of the Floud The Tides then meeting here and reflecting must necessarily cause very rough Seas besides this the German Seas seem to set off somewhat towards the Northwest of Scotland where meeting with the Irish Sea do much intend the aforesaid roughness This also causes the duplication of Tides in several parts of the Irish Seas It will not be unprofitable to observe the streams of the Tides where Sea-men do state a general rule viz. That the Tide sets off athwart wherever it beats against a great Promontory Hence it is that throughout the Channel the Tide sets off athwart in many places from the French Coast towards the English where the Land sticks out in great nooks As from the great Promontory of France in the mouth of the Channel and from that which is opposite to the Isle of Wight and from before Calis c. II. The Promontories do very much weaken the Tides and clip them off from waters streaming in the No theast whence it is that there is no Tide in the East or Baltick Seas besides 1. Because the Tide of the German Sea is clipt off by the peninsule of Denmark or Jutland and the narrowness of the Sound 2. The course of the German Sea is the easier kept off because it floats to the Northward whereas the Baltick Sea opens into it from the East Hence it is also that a great part of these Seas consists of fresh waters because the North Sea is not disburdened into it Touching the first production of this Sea to wit the East Sea it is very probable that it derived its rice from a great Lake risen in the deepest and broadest place of the said Sea which by continuance of pressure hath bored through that large tract vvhich novv is That this is so I prove 1. Had the German Ocean bâred this Cavern then a greater part of it vvould have been salt and heavy like unto the same 2. It would then have been more deep than it is and have had a greater opening vvherefore it must needs have had its beginning from a Lake and for that reason is very improperly called a Sea more justly deserving the name of a Sinus or Gulph III. In many places the Sea is taken notice to rise to the height of a Pike as before the River of Seyne vvhose rising they vulgarly call the Bare or bore taking its beginning vvith the advent of the Floud and aftervvards overflovving a great length of that River as far as Roan in a great height but gradually diminishing The cause of this is to be attributed to the depth of a Cavern encompassed by shelves and banks wherein the Sea is collected and stayed until such time that it doth gather it self into a bare whereby it lifteth it self up and climbs up the banks and being attended with the same force whereby it did elevate it self is protracted as far as Roan Here again we have an evident testimony of the Seas moving underneath confirming what I have proposed touching the universal Bore If the waters here took their beginning of motion from their superficial parts then a bare were impossible to arise here because the waters are free and in no wise stopt in their motion atop Ergo being stopt underneath it is undoubted that the waters take their beginning of motion thence The same bares you have here and there in the Seas which occasion the oversetting of many a Ship or the casting of them upon rocks and shelves which they could not escape because of the violence of the same bores This bare is seldom visibly perceived in the Seas because it seems to be drowned by the waves nevertheless in many places it is The cause of the breaking of the Sea upon banks you may easily know out of the precedents IV. The Mediterranean Sea undergoeth an intumescence and detumescence although not very strong or swift the reason of the latter is because it being situated Easterly escapes the strength of the course of the Ocean flowing westwards Only the Ocean through its continual passing by doth continually impell the
waters of the straits of Gibraltar or the Pillars of Hercules inwards This impulse of the waters inwards is much stronger at the intumescence of the Ocean but weak at the detumescence nevertheless the current of the Sea runs constantly inwards because of the constant diurnal course of the Ocean from East to VVest so that this constant current into the Pillars of Hercules is an Herculean argument confirming the constant diurnal motion of the Ocean That which causeth the floud or intumescence here is the Ocean impelling the Sea strongly underneath at its intumescence The cause of the detumescence is the water falling from underneath the Mediterranean into the universal Cavern because of the detumescence of the Ocean Moreover observe the property of the ebbing and flowing of this Sea Through the intumescence the water is impelled Eastward as well near the shores as in the middle Through the detumescence or waters falling from underneath the waters of the shores do fall towards the central or middle parts of that Sea yet somewhat westward because the Sea doth fall from underneath westward and notwithstanding the detumescence doth the middle of the Mediterranean float constantly inwards although but weakly because of the aforesaid impulse Hence it appears that the Mediterranean is an exact emblem of all the motions befalling the Ocean Touching its original it is certain that the Ocean did not form its Cavern through its constant motion because were it so that Sea would be largest at its mouth as having withstood the first violence of the Ocean 2. Because it is situated out of the reach of the course of the Ocean floating alwaies westward 3. VVhere this Sea communicates with the Ocean it seems rather to be its ending than the mouth of its narrowness and it is very probable that near the creation the extremity of Spain and the Kingdom of Fez joyned in an Istmus which since through violence of the Ocean and the pressure of the Mediterranean is bored through The rice then of this Sea must be adscribed to the peregrin Element of water breaking out of the Earth through the concussion of the third Division which afterwards was contained within a great rent or Sinus of the Earth Neither did the Euxian Sea derive its original from the Mediterranean because of the narrowness of the Channel through which they have access to each other But this with most great Lakes of the World as the Maotis Haneygaban c. were formed through accidental protrusions of the peregrin Element of water as you shall read in the next Chapter Among the various courses of the Sea we must not forget the inserting the causes of currents whose waters although communicating with the Ocean do notwithstanding make choice of a distinct motion varying withall at certain seasons Thus Mariners observe a strong current from Cabo Delgado towards the Cape of Good Hope streaming Southwest and another floating westward from Cabo das correntes to the River Aguada of Boapaz Near Aguada de San Bras the current runs towards the Land The cause is the different position and degree of depth of their Cavity which varying from that of the Ocean do suffer their waters to be squeezed to a different course Neither must any imagine that the wind is the principal cause of these currents and much less of the universal Tides of the Ocean because the stronger the wind blowes against them the stronger they float against the wind CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rice of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where 4. The effects of the first Deluge 5. Inland Inundations 1. THe Ocean and others of its Arms through their continual violence against the Earth do in time bore great Caverns into her body whence the great Gulphs of Bengala Persia Arabia Mexico most great Bayes and straits took their beginning and no wonder since they were moulded by the strong stream of the Ocean floating westward Neither is the Ocean satisfied of the Earth for possessing the Center for which they have both an equal claim in making such assaults upon her but is still striving to enter and begin new irruptions into her whereby it oft grows victorious of some of her Plains as appears by those frequent inundations sustained in England particularly that of Somersetshire extending to 20 miles in length and 15 in breadth whose fury had drowned several Towns and swallowed up many hundreds of men some making their escape upon deales and pieces of Timber of Houses that were washt away Rabbets fled their lodges and got atop Sheeps backs swimming as long as they could for their lives Corn and straw floated up and down in abundance being filled with Rats and Mice endeavouring their escape besides a great number of dead creatures that were seen adrift Holland many places of Asia Africa c. Among these none was ever more furious than the Deluge hapning in the year of the Creation 1656 mentioned in the seventh Chapter of Genesis whose eminence above the Earth reached to 15 Cubits destroying all living Creatures except some few only that had thitherto fed upon the fruits of the ground I must not forget here to rectifie Peoples judgments perswading themselves that this Inundation should have been universal I grant it was universal in two respects 1. To all the Earth that was inhabited by the Patriarchs and their Tribes 2. In respect to the universal damage and loss for it had destroyed all that was upon Earth excepting those that were miraculously preserved for the preservation and use of the race of Man But pray can any one rationally conceive that the height of 15 Cubits of water above those hills of Asia should have exceeded the tops of all the mountains of the world What proportion is there between those hills 15 Cubits and the Peak of Taeneriffe the Mount Venpi in Queticheu or Jekin in Chingutu or Kesing Mung Hocang Juntay Loyang Kiming where they are nine daies in getting up to the top Funghoan being all Mountains of China reaching higher than the lower clouds The Olympas Athos or those high Mountains upon the West-Indian Coasts No more than there is between a man and a steeple Or is it probable that forty daies rain should drown the whole World when a whole six months rain falling every Winter upon the East-Indies scarce increaseth the intumescence of the Ocean But observe the scope of the Scripture Gen. 7. 18. And the waters prevailed greatly and were greatly increased upon the earth c. Here the divine Text seemeth to intend nothing further than a great prevailing and increase of the waters which could effect little more than a partial Inundation for otherwise to have caused an universal one none less than
the greatest prevailing and increase of waters would have sufficed Wherefore the words of ver 19. viz. And all the Hills that were under the whole heaven were covered are to be understood only of all the hills that were covered by the whole heaven described by their Horizon And still in the popular speech when we say the whole heaven we mean no more than the Horizon that is as far as we can see round about us II. Next let us consider the manner of this great Deluge 1. It was not caused through the irruption of the Ocean into the earth because then the said Deluge would have been extreamly sudden viz. in six hours time the floud must have brought in the waters and it must have left a large Gulph where it brake in Neither was the Sea high enough to have made such an assault 2. The beginning of it was taken as the Text holds forth v. 11 12. From the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the windows of heaven and the violent rain These sudden impetuous tempests must needs have caused a great astonishment and anguish upon those who had so justly deserved The breaking up of the Fountains were the bursting of the peregrin Elements contained within the bowels of the earth especially of water air and fire out of the great deep that is the vast Mediterranean Sea by men of that Age called and accounted the great deep The great occasion of this bursting out of the waters were 1. The heavy innixe of earth in the shallows of the Mediterranean pressing the waters underneath from its Center 2. The air and fire forced through the earth of the said shallows to pass to their own Element 3. The tearing winds sent down through the opening of the windows of heaven which piercing the pores of the earth contributed not a little to the stirring up of the air and fire contained within the earth and to the vibration of the terrestrial Mass. 4. The impetuous showers of rain breaking down and dividing the earth Through this tempest the waters of the Mediterranean got above the earth and a great proportion of the tract of air brake into the earth having so fair an opportunity as at the nick of bursting to get nearer to the Center But being inclosed by water separated from its Element was by the potent compression of the said water forced to return whereby the waters must necessarily be much tumefied listed up and cast out of their mole whence they were constrained to float over the earth but the air being most returned the rain restrained and the winds directed to pass over the earth the waters setled and retired into their Cavern leaving the earth very much disposed to germination of plants and so the stopping up of the Fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven was accomplished III. Not many years after there hapned another deluge somewhat less than the former caused through the bursting up of those waters that now constitute the Mare majus or Euxiun Sea and the Lake Maeotis Some hundred years after another deluge came upon Persia and Tartary by the bursting up of the Hircanian or Caspian Sea The West-Indians have successively retained in their memory a great Inundation which they imagine was universal came upon them through the bursting up of the Lake Haneygaban or Perime in Guiana Through these before-mentioned deluges a great part of the Island Cea half of the Town Tyndarida in Sicily Acarnania being drowned in the Gulph of Ambracia and Achaia in the Gulph of Corinsh and other great Countries must have been swallowed up and laid even with the bottom of the said waters as likewise hapned to Pyrrha Antissa Elice Bura and many other places others must have appeared through the thrusting up of that Land in whose stead the waters succeeded This occasioned the new appearances of Delos and Rhodus of Nea situated between Lemnus and the Hollespont of Abone Thera Therasia Hiera and Anaphe IV. Through the said discontinued and unequal bursting up of the waters and breaking of the land Sicily was separated from Italy Cyprus from Syria Besby from Bithynia Atlas and Macria from Euboea Euboea from Boeotia Leucosta from the Sirenian Promontory and many other Islands comprehended within the Mediterranean from the Continent Likewise have many Sea port Towns in Europe been separated from the Continent as witness many Ships that have run a ground upon their steeples and houses Thus in the year 1421 many Towns and Villages of Holland and Freezland were swallovved up by the Sea and the Sea-men to this day are forced to take notice vvhere such and such of their Tovvns vvere drovvned for fear of inhabiting them again The vvaters through their pressing vveight do sometimes decline from one place vvhich they then leave dry to another vvhere they have moulded a deeper Cavern by such an occasion vvere the Islands of Antissa left dry and so united to the Continent of Lesbos Zephyrius to Halicarnassus Ethuso to Mindus Dromiscon and Peres to Miletus Narthecusa to the Parthenian Promontory Hybanda Epidaurus Magnesia and Oricon to the Continent The same hath arrived to many other places namely that some part of a shore hath been deserted through the Seas declination as hapned to the Country about Ambracia Ephesus the Plain of Arabia and above Memphis as far as the AEthiopian Mountains having been all over covered by the Sea in such a manner that Ships vvhich had been cast avvay upon the sands near to that shore vvere after some hundreds of years found some miles off from the Sea deeply covered vvith earth by length of time cast upon them partly from the adjacent hills by the vvind and partly by the heaving up of the sand through the seas diurnal Tides Hence vve may easily knovv vvhence that Mast came that vvas found vvith a Pulley to it sticking out of the top of one of the steep hills of Spitsberg in Greenland near vvhere they usually fish for Whales Before I go further I must convince those of their mistake that state Earthquakes the occasion of the disappearance of some Islands and appearance of others formed through the violent and unequal bursting up of earth 1. Let them take notice that Earthquakes are fresh enough in mens memories in the West-Indies and those great ones too yet they never or very seldom have protruded any Islands there neither is their eruption large enough for to compass such an effect 2. Earthquakes happen most through the Earths belching up of wind that hapned to be inclosed vvithin her belly but it is impossible that a wind should drown a Country or raise an Island Possibly you may reply That together with a wind there oft bursteth out a floud of water I grant it and what is this else but a Deluge Thus many Towns and Villages in Holland and Friesland have been formerly swallowed up by such deluges as their great Lakes are still testimonies of and
to my apprehension all that Country must necessarily be subjected to such deluges since it swims upon the water Touching Inland Inundations as that which befell Friesland in the year 1218 where near 100000 persons were buried in the water and that of Holland and Zealand in the Reign of Charles the fifth Emperour of Germany in the year 1531. and several times since as that of the last year when a great part of the Country all about Gorcum was seized upon by Inland waters Their causes are to be attributed to torrents streaming down out of the melted snow as also to the swelling of the Inland waters through receiving a great quantity of frosty minima's pouring down from the North in a cold Winter The River of Nile proves yearly extravagant in AEgypt for two months and ten daies because being situated very low it is obliged to receive the superfluity of water falling from above out of severall great Rivers and Lakes as the Lakes Zembre Saslan Nuba and the Rivers Cabella Tagazi Ancona Coror and many others besides the water which it draweth from the hills and other grounds These Rivers and Lakes do constantly swell every year by reason of the great rains that fall there at certain times of the year Besides the heat of the Sun exercising its power very vigorously near the latter end of May doth very much subtilize and rarefie those waters whereby they are rendred more fluid penetrating and copious and lastly the Sun conversing in the northern declination doth impell the Ocean stronger against the Northern shores whereby the waters are also much increased Hence it is that the waters of the Nile are so subtill that they deceive the air in carrying of them up in vapours viz. because they are so subtilly strained No wonder then if they prove so healthy The same causes are appliâble to the excessive increase of the Rivers Ganges Padus Arrius Danow Tiber and Athesis CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-mentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate I. VVHat the cause of those effects of the Lake Asphaltites should be the name seems to contain viz. The water glued together by an incrassated air and condensed fire constituting the body of a certain Bitumen called Asphaltos whence the said Lake doth also derive its name It is uncapable of breeding fish because through its sulphureous thickness it suffocates all vitall flames On the contrary the Lakes Avernum although deep 360 fathom and that of AEthiopia are so much subtilized through the passing of rarefied air that they are uncapable of sustaining the least weight Touching their pernicious quality to fowl it must be attributed to the venomous spirits permixt with that rarefied air infecting the whole Element of air as far as it covers them The Lake Lorna and the other in Portugal cause their effects through the permixture of a quantity of crude nitrous bodies which prove very depressing That Lake of AEthiopia is unctious through the admixture of incrassated air II. The Lake Eaug in Ireland acquires a sideropoetick vertue under water from the imbibition of crude Aluminous juyces by means of their indurating and constrictive vertue changing wood sticking in the mud into an Iron-like substance that part which is under water into a stone-like substance because of the diminution of the said Aluminous Juyces which through their weight are more copious in the mud the part of the wood that sticks out of the water remains wood as being beyond the reach of the said heavy juyces The Lakes of Thrace and Gerasa prove pernicious through admixture of crude arsenical exhalations The Lake among the Troglodites being Mercurial is infestuous to the brain The Lake Clitorius through its nitrosity disturbs the stomach and attracts a great quantity of moisture to it and infecting it with an offensive quality causes a loathing of all Liquors The sudden tempests befalling the Lake Laumond and Vadimon are caused through winds breaking out of the earth through the water Lakes resist induration by frost through igneous expirations pervading them The Lake Benacus shews its fury when its internal winds are excited by external ones causing a Concussion and a Rage in the water like unto an aguish body which is disposed to a shaking fit by every sharp wind raising the sharp winds within III. The River Abda passeth freely through the Lake Larius without any commotion of its body because the waters of the Lake through their extream crassitude are depressed downwards and so are constituted atop in a rigid posture whereas the River is impelled forwards and very little downwards But were it to flow through a shallow water whose quantity doth not bear any proportion to receive the pressure of the air downwards against the earth they would soon communicate in streams 2. The waters of a Lake differ much in crassitude and density from those of a River and therefore do exclude its streams The Lake Haneygaban doth not visibly disburden it self of those waters but thrusting Caverns underneath into the earth raises all those hills through the intumescence of the said waters that are near to her out of which some Rivers do take their rice Pilats Pool is stirred into a vehement fermentation by flinging any pressing body into it because thereby those heterogeneous mineral juyces viz. Vitriolat and Sulphureous substances are raised mixt together and brought to a fermentation and working Through this fermentation the water swells and exceeds its borders but the water being clarified the commotion ceaseth Neither needs any one wonder that so small a matter should be the cause of so great an exestuation since one part of the water doth stir up the other and so successively the whole pool comes to be stirred Pools owe their rice to great rains or torrents which sometime do slow visibly over the meadows or through Rivers causing inundations Sometimes through Caverns of the Earth as that near Laubach CHAP. XI Of the rice of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rice of Fountains examined 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rice of Fountains The rice of many principal Fountains of the world 4. Why Holland is not mountainous 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived 7. Whence it is that most shores are Mountainous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the polars The
cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the earth I. THe opinion of Fountains scattering out of the earth and supplied by waters rained down and collected within Caverns of the earth as it hath vulgarly taken place among many so it is very suspitious experience tells us that many perennal Fountains spring forth out of sandy and every where about dry Mountains whereunto notwithstanding but little is contributed by the moisture of the heavens since the rain falleth but seldom as in AEgypt and other places and the Sun is very hot the Country very dry insomuch that did the rain fall in twice that quantity it would scarce be sufficient to irrigate the soile much less of supplying moisture for Fountains 2. Many Fountains draw their water very deep near a hundred foot yea two or three hundred deep out of the earth Whereas rain seldom penetrates deeper into the earth than ten or eleven foot 3. Some Fountains break forth out of Rocky Mountains which are uncapable of imbibing rain Ergo their rice and continuation are not from rain II. The opinion of Aristotle is much more absurd asserting subterraneous air converted into water to be the cause of Springs since we have formerly made it appear that the conversion of air into water is impossible or were it not it would seem very irrational to suppose the earth to be so hollow as to be capable of containing such an infinite quantity of air as to continuate the course of a Fountain because a great quantity of air condensed as they call it would produce but little more than a drop III. 1. In brief Fountains owe their beginning and continuation to great quantities of water collected within great Caverns of the earth This the diggers of Mines confirm to us who sometime through digging too deep meet with great and sudden burstings out of waters which oft do prove perennal Such mischances have hapned not once in the Coal-pits near Newcastle to the drowning of many a man Moreover there are no great hills but which rest upon great gulphs of water underneath them insomuch that a hill is nothing else but the raising of the earth through a great gulph of water lodging underneath it Hence it is that hills are generally the store-houses of Rivers and their sides or tops their Springs How many slouds of water are there discovered to break out of the sides of several great hills in Kent Surrey and innumerous other places of the world Whence should those pregnant Pewter Mines in Cornwal or Lead Mines in Derbishire and all other Mines in the world be supplied with a sufficient quantity of water for their matter were it not that the hills afforded it out of their Caverns Whereout should all those vast stony and rocky Mountains of the Universe consist but out of water derived from the Earths bowels Whence should those great perennal Rivers that spout forth from under the Alpes and Peruvian Mountains take their rice but from those gulphs of water whereby they are raised to that height Whence should all the water of those great Lakes upon hills arrive As that between the middle of the three tops of the hill Taihu in China whose depth was yet never fathomed and that upon the Mount Jenkin near the City So being of no less depth and near a quarter of a Mile in compass likewise that of Tieuchi near Mien that deep Lake upon the Mount Tienlu called the Lake of the Drake because it is so horrible through its depth and commotion that if any should cast a stone into it it would render a great noise like unto a thunder besides many others in Europe as those in Ireland c. In fine do not all the greatest Rivers of the world viz. Ganges Nilus Senaga Nuba Tana Nieper Morava Garumna Thames c. yea and all others spout out of hills or are they not derived from Lakes Lakes usually are environned by a Plain because those waters which should thrust up hills about them are collected in an open Cavern Notwithstanding are the same waters of Lakes through the ait's pressure forced underneath into the earth where at some distance they do cast up hils for to disburden the earth whereat they spout out Rivers for a Lake is uncapable of it self to spout out a River because being situated low wants force to spout it out from it whereas waters that are protruded and continually impacted and crusht very thick or close into Caverns of hills do by a renitency press against the earth above and below and swallow up the air contained within the said Caverns into their substance and the earth doth reciprocally press against them but the air being thin smooth and glib is at last violently protruded by both their gravities which erupting with a great force and discontinuation of the earth doth make way upwards for the water to be pressed out the easier by the earth with such a force as may square to the protruding of a long River Wherefore it is necessary that Rivers should derive either immediately or mediately from hills Thus immediately the Rhein springs forth out of the Mount Adula aliás Vogel The Danow out of a Mount within the black wood some 6 Leagues off from Tubingen The Necker out of another near the same Town The Garona out of one of the Perinean Mountains The Jaxartes out of the Sogdian Mountains as Ptolomy names them The Dnieper out of some Mountains near Dnieperco The River of Jordan out of two Issues of the Mount Lebanon viz. Jor and Dan both which meeting communicate in one name of Jordan The River Euphrates out of the Mount standing in the midst of the Garden of Eden The Boetis in Spain out of the Mount Orespeda near Castao The Anien out of the Mountains among the Trebani the Zepusium out of some Mountain in Poland and so a million of others Mediately The River of Nile descends out of some Hills that draw their water out of the Lake Zembre The River Niger salies vigorously out of some hills near the Lake Borno whose Caverns are filled the length of threescore Leagues under ground by streams flowing out of a Lake between Guidan and Vangue The River Nuba out of Mountains deriving their water from the Lake Nuba and in like manner many others Touching narrow short Rivers that flow from their head downwards to a low place they may draw their rice immediately from a Lake because they need not that vigour of impulse IV. Holland and Zealand although very rich in water yet are pooâ in Mountains because their ground is so much thorow soakt and masht with water that being changed into a mud it would sooner break into crums than be raised up into hills Wherefore the name of Holland was very aptly imposed upon that Countrey since that underneath it is hollow filled up only with water the
ground swimming atop it in the forme of clay or mud they having little or no sandy ground within their dikes or bankes Hence it appears that towards the constitution of a Hill these conditions must be required 1. A great quantity of water must be bored underneath the Earth for a small quantity would prove invalid to lift it up 2. They must form their Cavern very deep for near the Surface they would sooner break through than raise the earth 3. The ground under which they bore must be very dense dry and sandy for to keep in the water for were it moist or loose it would not rise but sooner break Besides this density and sandiness of the earth doth serve to concentrate and conclomerate the earth into one body whereby it is gradually raised and lifted up From this discourse observe why hills are sandy and dry although containing such a bulk of water underneath them viz. because of the closeness or density of the minima's or sands of the earth compelling the water under them 2. The reason why all hills do not emit fountains of water is because the water is lodged very deep under them or because of the extream density of their terrestrial minima's V. This cannot but confute that improbable opinion asserting hills to be formed through the violence of the waters after the Deluge carrying great pieces of the earth along with them in returning to their receptacle another reason against this is because great torrents tumbling down with a tempestuous fury and causing an Inundation or Deluge wherever they touch scarce leave any sign of inequality of the earth behind them 2. Here may then be demanded from them how and whence those hills before or after the Deluge of Noah or of Ogâges or Deucaleon it is the same received their formation Hills there were before for besides the Bible Josephus Abydenus Berosus and others make mention of a very high hill in Armenia major called Barin by others Chardaeus whereupon a pious man should have saved himself in an Ark. So Ovid speaks of the Mount Parnassus whose height should have preserved Deucaleon with his wife Pyrrha from the rage of the Deluge Others to save the matter have conceited the Stars to have attracted lumps out of the earth and so raised them into hills but this opinion is so absurd that it needs no confutation The Vulgar observing most hills to be sandy do beyond all reproof believe that they are nothing else but congestions of sand or earth heaped up by the winds I shall not think it much to insert their judgment touching a very high hill in Holland situated a mile off from the Hague towards Shiveling and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã called the High Clift which about a hundred years ago they say was of that height that one might have washt his hand in the clouds upon the top of it but now is diminisht to one third to what it was and I my self can remember that it was much higher than now it is The cause of this diminution they adscribe to the winds blowing down the sands out of which they say all those small hills that are about it were formed But to rectifie their apprehensions who can rationally judge that winds are forcible enough to remove hills of that weight and bigness or that winds should be strong enough to heap up such a Mountain Any one would sooner imagine the winds to blow them down If then winds have not the power to raise a Mountain certainly they are too weak to pull one down Or thus If winds be so powerful why did they not blow down such hils before they came to that height 2. Hills in many Islands of the West-Indies are raised much higher where the winds are much more out ragious Wherefore the cause of the diminution of the fore-mentioned High Clift must be adscribed to the removal of the water underneath whereby the hill doth gradually sink and grow lesser and boring further into several places about hath raised those other hills VI. But since hills are so numerous Lakes and Rivers not scarce a disquisition must be made whence and how such a vast quantity of water doth redound within the bowels of the earth The peregrin Element of water within the earth bears no proportion of affording a competent moisture towards the casting up of so many monstrous Mountains or scattering such large perennal Fountains and Rivers or of depressing the Surface of the earth by such vast Lakes Wherefore I say nothing appears full enough to effuse such dimensions of water but the Ocean alone whose belly being oppressed with an inexhaustible plenitude is constantly irritated to vomit up its superfluities into the weaker and lower parts of the earth Reason will incline us to this truth that must be the original of waters whereinto they are disburdened for otherwise if the Sea did retain all those waters evacuated by Rivers it would manifestly increase but since it doth not it is an argument that the Sea expels as much as it receives but that is the Ocean Ergo. 2. Many Lakes Fountains and Rivers although remote from the lips of the Sea do notwithstanding participate of the flowing and ebbing thereof as that Fountain in the Island Gades another near Burdeaux c. ergo the sea doth press water thither 3. The divine words of Solomon confirm the same to us Eccl. 1. 7. Unto the Place from whence the Rivers come thither do they return again but that is into the Sea Ergo. 4. The ancient Church-men do also subscribe to this viz. Isidor lib. 3. de Orig. Cap. 20. Basil. Hom. 4. Hex Jerom upon Eccles. 1. Damasc. lib. 2. de sid orth c. 9. Hugo de S. Vict. upon Gen. Dionys. upon Prov. 8. c. The manner of the Seas conveyance or passage to the innermost parts of the earth is by screwing pressing and penetrating through the lowermost parts for there the Sea is most potent exercising its weight refracted to the sides whereas atop it is too weak or were it strong enough it would break forth before it had passed any considerable way Besides its own weight the saltness of the Sea doth very much conduce to the intending of its force for those salin particles are apt to undergo a dividing and cutting pressure VII Places that are bordering upon the Sea are alwaies and every where cast up into high hills or mountains because they receive the first impulse of the Sea waters pressing underneath Hence it is that every where about the Coasts are encompassed by hills Mountains are oft higher and greater within the Land than near the Sea because they are raised by the meeting of great quantities of water impelled from two Seas So the Alpes are cast up by the water impelled from the Venetian Gulph of the one side and the Tyrrhenian Sea of the other both meeting under them The Peak of Teneriffe is thrust up to the height of threescore miles through casting up all that
ground into whose room a great depth of water is succeeded undermining it all about The Island Ferro is not irrigated atop with any fluent moisture as Lake River or Springs except only with the abundant droppings of a tree drawing moisture from a great depth or by collecting the dew of the air which sufficeth to quench the thirst of all the Inhabitants and their Cattel because consisting throughout of high Mountains their sand lying very close deep and heavy doth detain the water underneath them The earth is much more depressed under the torrid Zone and as much more raised towards the Poles because the Ocean being gathered into a vast body under the forementioned Zone depresseth all the land under it and near to it with one collected and united force of weight towards the Poles which doth undoubtedly assure me that under both Poles Artick and Antartick the firm land doth stick out far above the waters And questionless Greenland is protracted quite throughout the Northern polar Region The Mountain Serra Leona in AEthiopia bearing up to the height of the clouds wherewith the top is alwaies beset although raised within the torrid Zone is suffulted by a great gulph collected through the meeting of two or more parts of the Sea under ground And whole Africa seems to be inflated into high mountains from the limits of AEgypt until the farthest part of the Atlantick mountain through communication of Lakes which again arise out of the concourse of waters propelled from the Mediterranean Eruthrean AEthiopian and Atlantick Seas Arabia is likewise lofty through hills vaunting upon waters immitted from the Persian and Arabian Gulphs Muscovia and Lithuania are for the greater part Champian Countries because their soil is too much soakt for to be raised up into hills 2. By reason of the multiplicity of Lakes and Rivers through which the subterraneous waters are vented Sweden Norway Scania are very abundantly watered with Lakes and Rivers the Sea upon those Coasts exceeds in depth the length of Ships Cables The reason is because those waters are very much intended in their pressure downwards through the vast number of cold and frosty minima's raining down from the North Pole VIII Before I digress from the subject of this Chapter I am only to shew you the possibility of Marin waters their pressure out from the depth of the Ocean in to the innermost parts of the earth This I shall easily accomplish in mentioning that the force of fresh waters within the land have moulded through the ground the length of many Leagues if so the same is much more possible to salt water The River Niger bores through a heavy dense and deep ground the length of 60 miles before it evacuates it self into the Lake Borno The River Nuba doth likewise force a Cavern many miles long into the earth The Spaniards vaunt excessively of a long Bridge whereon ten thousand Goats and Sheep reap their pasture and is nothing else but the passing of the River Anas alias Guadiana the dimension of 8 or 9 Leagues underground beginning to disappear near Medelina The Tigris runs her self under ground on one side of the mount Taurus and comes up again on the other side and beyond the Lake Thorpes hides it self again within the earth 18 miles further Camden in his Britannia makes observation of the River Mole in Surrey diving under ground near white hill and appearing again a mile or two thence near Letherhed bridge Historians tell us that the Alphaeus floats secretly under ground as far as Sicily where with its appearance makes choice of a new name viz. Arethusa famous for gulping up of offals that had been cast into the Alphaeus at the Olimpick Games usual every fifth year The Danow runs some miles under ground before it flows into the Sava Upon the top of the mount Stella is a certain Lake near 12 Leagues distant from the Sea which oft vomits up wracks of Ships that were cast away at Sea CHAP. XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountain of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epyrus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 1. THe Fountains of Thrace Arcadia Sarmatia Armenia Lydia and Sicilia are deleterious through the permixtion of crude arsernical juyces transpiring out of the earth The same causes operate the same effects in the Founts of Wolchenstein Valentia Berosus c. The Lethe of Boeotia owes its effects to crude Mercurial vapours immixt within its substance Another in the same Countrey produceth a contrary effect through a succinous exhalation The Fountains of Cea and Susae differ little in causality from the Lethe The Lincystis inebriates the brain through repletion by sulphurous exhalations The Fountain of Arania makes use of crude nitrous juyces for the accomplishing of its effects The Fountain which Solinus affirms to conduce to foecundity must be a thorowly attenuated and well concocted water like to that of the Nile The other opposite to this in operation must be very Saturnal A sulphureous Nitre or a mixture of Sulphur and Nitre into one close juyce dispersed through the waters of the Fountain of the Sun among the Garamantes renders them very cold in the day time because the Nitre then predominating condenseth and incrassates the waters the more because its sulphureous parts which do otherwise rarefie them are through the Suns beams extracted disunited and dispersed Whereas in the night season the sulphureous parts benâg united through the condensing cold of the night and condensation of the nitrous particles turn into an internal flame causing that fervent heat The Eleusinian waters are irritated to a fermentation of heterogeneous mineral juyces through the percussion of the air by a sharp musical string whereby through continuation the waters are likewise percussed and its contenta stirred In the same manner is the next related fountain cast into an exestuation through the shrill acute vibrating and penetrating percussion of the air by the lips whereas the walking about stirring the air but obtusely cannot effect such a penetrative or acute motion The Fountain of Illyrium contains secret Vitriolat sulphureous flames within its substance whereby it proves so consuming The Fountains of Epyrus and Cyreniaca vary in heat by reason of the greater or lesser dispersing and rarefying or uniting and condensing of their sulphureous flames Springs remain cool in the Summer through the rarefaction of their fiery spirits exhaling and passing out of the ground in the Summer they produce a small warmth through the condensation of their igneous
waters of the Fountain Campeius are bitter and flowing into the river Hipanis in Pontus infects it with the same taste There are other fountains between the Nile and the red Sea that agree with the former in taste likewise those of Silicia near Corycius The pit waters of Galniceus are acerbous The salt taste of waters is unknown to none since the Ocean is pregnant enough with it Some inland Lakes and Fountains are of the same taste viz. Three in Sicilia the Concanican Agrigentinian Lakes and another near Gela. There is another called Myrtuntius of the same relish between Leucades and the Ambracian Gulph The Taus in Phrygia Thopetis in Babylonia Asphaltites in Judaea Sputa in Media Atropacia Mantianus in Armenia one in Cyprus near Citium another between Laodicea and Apamia two in Bactria another near the Lake Moeotis and that of Yaogan Forrien besides many more are all of a saltish taste Touching Fountains there is one in Narbone exceeding the Sea in saltness There are six more of the same taste near the Adriatick gulph where it bends towards Aquileia besides several other salt pits in Italy Illyris Cappadocia c. II. Waters vary no less in their sent Some stinking as the Lake between Laodicea and Apamia the Fountain among the Phalisci another near Leuca in Calabria and those rivulets near the Lake Asphaltites c. Others give a sweet sent as the Fountain of Cabara in Mesopotamia The Pit Methone in Peloponesus smells like a Salve III. Next let me make address to the causes of these qualities A sharp taste is derived from those acute and Vitriolate particles immixt in the water A sweet taste is produced in water through an exact aerial mixtion or percoction with it The waters of Paphlagonia afford a vinous taste through the admixture of tartareous exhalations or such as are like to the mixture of Tartar of wine Bitterness flows from adust terrestrial particles admixt to waters Aluminous exhalations dispersed through water render it acerbous The saltness of the Sea and other Inland waters is communicated to them from the admixture of saltish particles exhaling out of the mud Touching the generation of salt and its mixtion I have inserted my opinion above I shall here only have a word or two with those that state the Sun the efficient cause of the said saltish particles broyling and aduring those exhalations contained with the body of the waters whence they assert the superficial parts of the Sea to be more saltish than the lower parts of it because the Suns heat is more vigorous there If the broyling Sun be the efficient whence is it then that some Lakes and Fountains are very salt where the Sun doth not cast its aduring beams 2. It is very improbable that so vast a number of saltish partiticles should be generated in the torrid Zone where the Sun doth only broyle as to infect the waters within the polars that are so remote thence How then is it that the waters prove as saltish there where the cold is as potent as the heat elsewhere as in Greenland Or absurdly supposing the Sea to be so far communicative of its savour why doth it not obtain a power of changing those sweet waters which it is constrained to harbour within it self As those which Columbus relates to have found in the American Sea near to the road of the Drakes head Moreover he attests to have sailed through fresh water a hundred and four Leagues far in the North Sea Pliny lib. 2. c. 103. affirms the same viz. to have discovered fresh water near Aradus in the Mediterranean and others by the Chaledonian Islands And in lib. 6. c. 17. he reports that Alexander Magnus had drank a draught of Sea water that was fresh and that Pompey when he was employed against Mithridates should have tasted of the same 3. The Ocean being alwaies in such an agitation cannot be a fit matrix to concrease or unite such mixtures 4. The broyling Sun doth rather render salt waters fresh as hath been experienced among Seamen by exposing pails of Sea water upon the deck to the torrid Sun under the Line which after a while standing do become much fresher An open heat doubtless sooner dissolves a mixture than it generates one for boyl Sea-water long upon the fire and it will grow fresh or distill it and you will find the same effect Beyond all scruple these saltish particles must be united into such mixtures out of earth proportioned to the other Elements in a close place or matrix yet not so close as to concrease them into a fixed subterraneous body or mineral whose coldness doth adact impact and bind the said Elements into an union and mixture which through defect of an entire closeness do soon exhale or transpire In a word the saltness of the Sea is generated within its mud whose closeness impacts and coagulates the exhalations of the earth into salin particles whence they are soon disturbed through the motion of the Sea and the attracting heat of the Sun Hence it is that old mud clay and such like bodies prove generally saltish so that the Sun adds little excepting in the stirring up of the said exhalations And touching the foregoing instance of the waters greater saltness atop than below it is fictitious for the Sea is much fuller of salt below than above because of its weight Nevertheless the Sea doth taste more saltish atop than below because the subtiller parts of the Salt are attracted or forced by the heat of the Sun towards the top which meeting there are apt to strike the tongue more piercing than otherwaies But whence these fresh waters do burst up into the Sea is worth our inquiry To resolve you you must know that the earth in many places under water is raised up into hills or shallows analogal to them whose earth atop lying very close doth hinder the water above it from passing especially in the Northern Climate where the Sea is somewhat thicker than under the Line but is nevertheless bursted through propulsion of the waters underneath which evacuated into the body of the Sea do cause that extent of fresh water without suffering themselves to be infected with the Saltness of the Sea because the Sea-water is so thick and closs that it excepts the fresh water from making an irruption into its continuity Hence it is that the River of the Amazons besides many others although irrupting into the Sea many Leagues far yet is maintained impolluted and fresh But why those salin particles should be generated near to those fresh springs and not close about them may seem strange It is because one ground is muddy and disposed to generate salt the other about the said spring is sandy dry as it were and close and not at all masht through as mud is The Sea-water deposeth its saltness in being percolated through the earth suffering the subtiller parts alone of the waters to pass but keeping back the grosser and
salin ones IV. Sents are materiated out of the subtiller parts of the matter effecting tastes wherefore all waters that are discernable by tastes emit their subtiller parts for sents but of this abundantly before whither I must direct my Reader V. Ice is water congealed or incrassated indurated or rather reduced to its natural state That which congeales the water or reduces it to its natural state is the absence or expulsion of those Elements that render it fluid viz. fire and air These are expelled by frosty minima's falling down from the Poles and compressing or squeezing them both out of the body of water whence it is also that all waters swell through the frost viz. through their repletion with the said minima's These are nothing but Unites or points of earth adunited to so many unites of water freed within their body from all air and fire and detruded from the Polars towards the earth whither they are vigorously forced down in a very close order into the Surface of the waters where arriving they press out the air and fire which being expelled the superficial parts of the water cleave naturally to one another about those frosty minima's The first beginning of a frost is taken from the first decidence of frosty minima's which in their passing cause a vehement compression and lighting upon our tact make us give them the name of cold because they compress our external parts with a smart continuous compression thence falling upon the water if in a smal quantity only do thicken it a little if in a greater do forcibly expel the air and fire which being expelled a concretion of the water near its Surface must naturally follow If now it grows no colder and that these minima's fall in no greater quantity the Ice continues at a stand but if otherwise then it proceeds to a greater induration and a larger concretion And the deeper the waters do thicken the more acute the cold must be or the greater quantity of acute and dense minima's must follow for to further and continuate the said concretion because unless they are acuter than the former they will not be minute enough to pass the small porosities remaining in the Surface of the Ice Ice swimmeth atop the water as long as it freezeth not because it is less weighty for it is heavier but because its continuity and concretion together with the support of the air tending from the ground of the waters towards its own Element do detain it When it thawes the Ice sinks down because it is somewhat discontinued and melted and by reason of the same proportion of air descending and bearing down upon it that was ascended before Notwithstanding the thaw people do oft complain of a great cold two or three daies after and especially in their feet which is nothing else but the same frosty minima's repassing out of the earth and water towards the Element of air for to give way to the melting entring air and fire The frosty minima's that begin to fall with a red Evening sky denoting the clearness of the air and passage do oft bring a furious cold with them because finding no obstruction they fall very densely and acutely upon us but those that fall through a cloudy air seldom cause violent colds because they are partly detained by the same clouds Hence it is that most Countries that are beset with water as Islands peninsuls c. and thence attain to a nebulous air are warmer than other Countries although the former be remoter from the Ecliptick than these because their clouds obstruct and detain a part of the frosty minima's and break the rest in their motion downwards Whence it is also that England is less cold in the Winter than most parts of France or Germany although both are of a less Northern declination than it The same clouds do likewise in the Summer break the violence of the fiery minima's descending whence it is also less hot here than in the forementioned places no wonder then if Geographers do so much extoll this Island for the temperature of its Climate VI. This language is supplied with a very apt distinction of frosts viz. a black frost a gray and a white frost The first of these is felt to be of the greatest fury insomuch that if it proveth for any time lasting it deads the roots of young plants and old trees kills all Vermine and penetrates through the very periostium of Animals and depth of Rivers It derives its violence from the extream number of the descending frosty minima's whose density makes the Skies even look black again A gray frost is between a black and white one consisting likewise of a dense proportion of descending minima's A white frost is the incrassation of vapours in the lowermost region of the air Among these a black frost is of the least continuance because the frosty minima's tumbling down in such vast quantities are soon purged out of the air Here may be inquired why a frost usually begins and ends with the change of the Moon For solving of this you must observe that the causes of the decidence are 1. Their great number 2. Their congregating or congress Touching the first unless their number is proportionable to bore and press through the clouds and resistance of the air they are uncapable of descension for to cause a congelation and although their number be great and dispersed they are nevertheless retained through the over-powering of the clouds Wherefore it is necessary a great quantity should be united into heaps and so make their way through To these principal causes add this adjuvant one viz. The compression of the Moon she at her changes driving the frosty minima's more forcibly towards the Poles through which impulsion they are withal thrusted one upon the other and united into a body whence it is that they at those times do oft take their beginning of decidence Again the Moon near the same terms impelling the clouds and thick air thither doth prove as frequent an occasion of dispersing those frosty minima's especially if much diminished of their body through preceding decidencies Moreover these frosty minima's although they are sometimes broken dispersed in their decidence through the said impulses yet sometimes they do recover a body and make a new irruption downwards And thence it is that oft times a frost holds for a day or two then thaws for as long and afterwards returns to freezing again VII In the next place I am to set down the original and rice of these frosty minima's You may easily apprehend that the Sun in the Torrid Zone and somewhat in the temperate one doth dayly raise a vast number and quantity of vapours consisting of most water then air next fire and earth which through the diurnal motion of the air are carried along from East to West And through daily successions of new vapours they are compelled to detrude their preceding ones towards the Poles whither they seem
most to tend through the disposition of water and earth contained within those vapours and the greater force of the heavens driving them towards the Poles as the weaker places for there motion is least observed where being arrived are by the privative coldness of that Region assisted to free themselves of the fire and air the water now cleaving to the earth and divided into millions upon millions of minima's make up a dense body whence through the depression of the air they are devolved down to the earth Waters that are least in motion less fiery and aerial are most disposed to concretion Hence fresh waters are aptest to be frozen Whereas the Sea is seldom reduced to concretion because of its continual motion expelling the frosty minima's as fast as they are received or precipating them to the bottom or by melting their body through the fiery salin and aerial particles contained within it Notwithstanding is the Sea reduced to concretion in some Climates viz. within the Polars where you have the Oceanus Glacialis or Icy Ocean whose Ice is in some places 60 or 80 fathom deep in others reaching from the bottom of the Sea to the top insomuch that the tops of many of those Icy mountains stick out as far above the Surface of the liquid Sea as the same Sea is deep underneath The properties of that Ice is to be clear and transparent like glass Herodotus doth likewise make mention of the freezing of the Bosphorus so Beda lib. de natur rer c. 9. writes that within a daies sail from the Isle Tyle towards the North the Sea is frozen Olans Magn. tells us of the Gothiek Sea being frozen But this hapneth because the Sea thereabout may be deprived of its saltness yea some assert that those mountains of Ice are most fresh water concreased which being precipitated to the bottom through the density of the frosty minima's constantly descending like showers under the Pole the remaining Surface of fresh water is soon congealed Before I close this Paragraph I shall only adde the cause of a strange passion befalling the Glacial Sea where sometimes of a sudden and in a moment a whole mountain of Ice is melted away causing a dangerous current subverting or carrying away many a ship and yet the frost continueth The cause of this is not the broyling and melting heat of the Sun for the Sun is never so kind there but the union of those fiery salin particles precipitated as we told you above by the frosty minims down into the mud whence working or bursting with an united condensed force upwards do occasion such sudden degelations VIII Lastly Waters in respect of wholsomness differ very much in excellency and choice Spring water and those of Rivers are commended above others of Pools Lakes and Pit waters because these latter through their standing still contract a muddiness and filth out of the earth and sometimes noxious particles co gulated out of exhalations transpiring out the said mud besides that they are disposed to putrefactions through the abundance of peregrin bodies protruding venomous herbs and generating Toads Frogs Leeches Snails Eeles and other filthy Insects Snow waters are no less noxious than the former because of their crudity nitrosity and thickness Waters gathered and kept in a Leaden Cistern through Leaden or Tin spouts are crude and windy because they descend out of the cold region of the air Moreover as Galen doth well except they contract a pernicious quality from the Lead Wherefore Fountain or River waters carry the bell before them all but which of these two excells the other we must next distinguish Fountain waters as they spring out of the mountains are yet filled with wind and earthy minima's and therefore must yield to River waters I mean such as are derived from a Fountain In these the waters through their rapid streams depose those earthy crude and windy bodies which they brought along with them out of the Fountains Cavern and are attenuated and clarified through the Sun beams and lastly depose their dregs into the earth through being strained through its dense and clear sands And among these there is a great difference those that take their rice from a standing water or a Lake and flow through a muddy ground are much inferiour to many fountain waters But others that stream rapidly from a bright fountain and take their course through a pure sandy or gravelly ground and meet the East Sun are the best River waters in hot Countries where the air is clear are preferred before others in cold Climats Hence Rivers of a Continent take place before those of an Iland because the latter is generally beset with a nubilous air filling the said waters with mud and keeping off the rayes of the Sun from concocting them Wherefore River waters in the Southeast parts of France are esteemed before any in England those of the Southeast parts of Spain before others of the same Continent where the River Tago is much extolled for its wholsomeness of water In Persia the Choaspis affords the best waters In India the Ganges c. The Rivers of Thames affords the best water in England but further up towards the Woodmongers Gallows Oxford not about London where the ground is muddy besides that it is infected by the Tides flowing out of the Sea with many saltish particles dirt dung carkasses c. There must also notice be taken of the rice of a River viz. That it do not spring out of a Mine and of the Countries through which it passeth whether Chalky Gravelly or Clayish Insumma waters that are the lightest thinnest clearest and most limpid of no strong tangue but of a sweet pleasing rellish are the best The weight of waters is known by weighing one with the other in Scales By letting them run through a small sieve or thick close linnen their tenuity is known by dropping them upon a Looking-glass whereof that which drops the least drops and makes the greatest splatch is the subtillest by distillation boyling dissolving Salt or Soape in them by their shaking smalness and number of streams by the swimming of a piece of wood in them viz. that wherein it smimmeth deepest is the lightest and thinnest c. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the air with the other Elements 1. How the air moves downwards What motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center Why the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. 3. An objection against the airs circular motion answered 4. The Poles of the Air. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities 1. AIr is a debtor for its name to aer in Latine which again to ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to lift up because it was lifted up as it were
from the Chaos How it was freed from the oppression of the weighty Elements I formerly declared The remainder is to treate briefly of its commerce with the neighbouring Elements viz. with Earth Water and Fire Daily observations make appear to us that a cavity is no sooner ready to open within the Earth or Water but the Air is as ready to strive to enter not only for to fill up that vacuity but out of an eagerness strife and necessity for to gain a Center for its whole body For how can any body enjoy rest without being sustained by a foundation That which is alone apt for such a work is the Center which is a Basis upon which all its parts do rest I prove it The parts of a body being met about the Center cannot use any force or violence against one another because they are of one nature and therefore agree in the same effect Which is of resting about a Center Hence it is That the air besides its own interest being streightned atop through the fires inclination also for to recover its Center doth so much infest pierce attenuate and divide all bodies that lye in the way to its Center and that so vast a proportion of air is entered into the body of water as from a solidity to reduce it to a perfect fluor And although the body of air as I have stated before is of that softness yet through succession of its parts and want of vacuities whereinto to convey it self it cannot yield to any compression into it self but being successively backt by its own parts and those of fire is capable of working the same effects which the hardest body can But now supposing the air to have accomplisht its aime let us inquire what motion it would then exercise Certainly of it self no other but it s continuous lightness whereby it would maintain its parts diffused from its own center into the greatest tenuity imaginable Likewise the other Elements would exercise no other action but the maintenance of their bodies in the greatest density crassitude or rarity and that through the use of their formal contiguous weight continuous weight contiguous levity and as the earth through her concentration would not leave the Circumference although tending hence thither so neither would the light Elements desert their Center although moving thence hither Wherefore let me advertize you in time not to mistake my former definitions of Levity or Gravity implying the former to move from its Center to the Circumference that to move here from the Center is not to leave it but to move thence as from a Basis But now the air being dispossest of its genuine Center is forced to make use of a violent Center situated about the extream parts of the earth and water and thence its parts do take their original to the circumference not leaving their force in the mean while of pressing violently downwards Here may be inquired why the air seeming so far powerful above the earth and water both in extent of compass and energy or activity of parts that its extream subtility should seem more than potent enough to pervade dispossess that small clot of water and earth doth not become victorious I resolve you The energy of the air is much refracted through having its Center upon which all its strength doth consist divided into that dimension which the Circumference of earth and water do make or otherwise it would soon toss that small footbal out of its place and make no more of it than the Heavens may seem to do of the Moon So fire although a great part is flaming and burning hath not the power of invading the earth as many do imagine it would do were the Heavens all a burning fire because it is much more refracted in its Center through the Surface of the air Do we not see that a Durgain is able to wrastle with a great Giant because his low stature doth put him in a capacity of taking the other about the middle where he easily lifts him from his Basis or Center But possibly it may seem strange to you that the air should exercise two contrary motions one upwards and another downwards 2. You may likewise demand how fire can apply any force to earth or water since it is extended into its greatest rarity and possesses a place full large enough to contain its body and consequently is not violently detained To the first I answer That naturally a thing cannot obtain two contrary motions but violently it may As to the second This violence is caused here below 1. Through the incrassation of the air that is water ascending and mingling with the body of air doth force so much of it to strive for another place as it hath taken up of the air which since it cannot procure upwards is forced to effect downwards upon the earth and water and make a violent irruption upon them 2. The air being essentially thin in the second Region as well as it is above must of necessity press down upon the incrassated air because all its parts being to take their suffulsion and Basis from somewhere which it doth from the hither extremity of the air and not proving strong enough to sustain such a force must necessarily depress into the water and earth where neither of these finding themselves strong enough about their surface do necessarily yield and give way to the air pressing downwards for a Basis. The same contrary motion is apparent in a man who is to lift some weight from the ground upwards First he must move all his strength towards his feet which is the Center whereupon this weight must be sustained and lifted up from then doth he reflect all his strength upon that Basis upwards where we observe his center to make a hole into the earth because it is not firm enough to sustain his pressure even so it is with the twofold motion of air which you may easily apply to this in every particular II. The airs innixe being shoved off or refracted through the repercussion of the weighty Elements chooses to turn round that is to bear to the sides rather than to retort into it self And that which irritates this with no obtuse spur is the fire forcing circularly upon the air 2. The universal waters flowing from East to West is no small cause of directing of the airs motion towards the same aime because the air reflecting against the waters flowing from underneath must needs be shoved off thither whither the water flowes I prove it cast a ball from the shore upon a piece of Timber driving down a rapid River its refracted motion will tend towards the drift of the said River 3. The fire moving from East to West and forcing upon the air must beyond all scruple prescribe the air a road in its motion In the next place I prove that the air is agitated in a circular motion 1. If waters that are thick are impelled to a circular
motion much more air whose fluidity and coherence is much more disposed to a circular motion 2. Fire is a contiguous body but that moves circularly ergo air much more because it is continuous 3. The uppermost clouds are alwaies observed to move circularly ergo the air that doth contain them 4. Comets whereof some are seated near to the extremity of the supream Region of the air do move circularly ergo the air must also move circularly III. Against the airs circular motion may be objected that the clouds swimming in the air like a ship in the water are carried about with the air but the said clouds do move variously sometimes Eastward Southward or Northward c. Ergo the air is also various in its motions I answer 1. That the clouds only near the Polars are various in their motion which variety is only befalling the inferiour clouds Herein it bears a resemblance to the motion of water near the Polars varying although but accidentally from the course of the Ocean Besides that there is a difference in motion between the superiour middle and inferiour clouds is manifest by the Moons light about her quarters disclosing the inferiour clouds to move one way and those above another way 2. The clouds do oft stream against the tide of the air as you shall read by and by 3. The clouds in the torrid Zone namely the superiour ones are very uniform in their motion constantly floating from East to West IV. The air taking its beginning of circular motion underneath about the Center the Globe constituted by the weighty Elements must needs be thought to be its Axletree whereupon it moves Its Poles must be corresponding to the North and South extremities of the said Globe which together with the Axis are doubtless immoveable and consequently must only be apprehended in the earth because that alone is immoveable Here observe that the air in the torrid Zone moves swiftest because it is equidistant from its Poles and hath the most space to accomplish Where it is near the Poles its motion is of the least vigour and nearest seems to be immoveable V. The proportion of the Element of air to the Element of fire is the same as water is to earth Because air is the same in its respective nature comparatively to fire that water is to earth for as water is a continuous heavy body immediately superadded to earth being of a contiguous weight so is air a continuous light substance annext to fire being of a contiguous levity wherefore then the same reason infers air to have the same proportion to fire that water hath to earth Hence we must conclude that the profundity of the tract of air is much larger than it is stated by vulgar Astronomists and the profundity of fire much less than it is computed by the same phantasticks Otherwise it would seem an improportion and disorder in the Elements not to be supposed The profundity of the air we may aptly distinguish into three equal Sections or Regions 1. The first or supream is constituted by air most infested by fire 2. The middle Region is where the air is lightest and thinnest and enjoys its greater purity 3. The third Region comprehends those thick visible clouds I will begin with the description of the first Region As far as the uppermost Region of water is attenuated by the air so far considering the diversity of proportion is the air also rarefied by fire and as the air doth press down to the bottom of the waters even so doth the fire in it strive for the Center to the extream depth of air but is much more in proportion in the supream Region The middle Region is purest in her own parts because of the equidistance from her neighbouring Elements but is nevertheless somewhat nubilous The lower Region is as much incrassated with clouds or vapours concreased and reduced from its extream tenuity as the waters are attenuated and reduced from their extream crassitude to that degree of Attenuation through air Because those parts of water whose places are replenisht with others of air must recede into the air for to place themselves somewhere Against this discourse Nonius lib. de crep Alhazen lib. 3. perspect Vitell. li. 10. Pr. 60. and others may seem to set themselves as appears by their demonstrations although obscure enough inferring the tract of air not to exceed 25 Leagues in profundity because Comets being generated in the air and keeping their station there do seldom or never clime up higher But on the contrary will they assert the Maculae or spots of the Moon which doubtless are aerial and near to the supream region of the air and other clouds that seem not to be far distant from the Moon to be no higher than 25 Leagues An absurdity Neither are Comets so near some appearing but little lower than the Moon some higher others in the same degree of Altitude so that Comets if any while durable are not seated in the air but in the Region of fire because they move from East to West with the same swiftness that other lucid bodies do that are contained in the fiery Region CHAP. XV. Of the production of Clouds 1. What a cloud is how generated its difference How a Rainbow is produced Whether there appeared any Rainbows before the Floud 2. The generation of Rain 3. How Snow and Hail are engendred 4. The manner of generation of Winds 5. The difference of winds Of Monzones Provincial winds general winds c. Of the kinds of storms and their causes What a mist and a dew are I. Nubes a cloud is derived from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and that from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to swim because a cloud seems to swim in the air A Cloud is an aerial body engendred out of air incrassated by water and somewhat condensed by earth Its kinds are very various differing in mixture magnitude equality colour situation and motion Some appear disrupted discontinuated others intire uniform Some are great others small some even flat hollow unequal others are black red blew brown luminous dark others of various colours reflecting Rainbows Some are situated in the North South c. Others move uniformly difformly swift slow Eastward Westward c. Their generation is thus the air and fire irrupting incessantly into the earth and water are after their arrival thither shut in and cut off from their bodies and being violently compressed from all sides are forced by the over-powring of the weighty Elements to return to their former region whereunto they after some contention do yield yet not without carrying away a measure of water and earth closely adhering to them These retroceding particles as they come out give entrance to other air attempting an irruption with its body whereby they are elevated continually untill they are arrived to that part of the Region of the air where it is least infested with the fiery Element Here the air finding it self strongest and least oppressed
it blows hard the vulgar renders it that there is a taring wind abroad That it is a puffing and disruption is sensibly perceived since the aerial Element is divided and being continuous it is subjected to no other violent separation of parts but to a disruption If so that which doth disrupt or puffe up certainly can be no other but a continuous body Because a contiguous one would pass with a single perforation of parts as the rain fire c. whereas a disruption and puffing is continuous What can this disrupting body be It is not water for that would be perceived by its weight Ergo it must be incrassated air 2. The air puffed is continuated unto the earth For we feel its puffing effects in that we perceive it to cause a light compression or a puffe upon our faces 3. That it is oft a disruption of the air our face and lips do testifie being subjected to be cut and cloven in windy weather 4. The causality of winds may not be imputed to exhalations as Aristotle and his Peripateticks did strangely imagine because those are never so cohering and continuous as to cause continuous disruptions or puffings throughout a whole Zone Besides exhalations according to the Philosopher are described to be sulphureous hot and dry whereas black cold winds in the Winter and wet winds in September are quite opposite and have no sign of sulphur or heat Winds according to the forementioned supposition should be most frequent and highest in the torrid Zone and that when the Sun is in the AEquinox which falls out quite contrary Lastly VVho would be so simple as to conceive that such a vast proportion of exhalations should be excited as to continuate wind a whole half year or longer together as Monzones provincial and Etesian winds c Neither are winds generated out of vapours as most do now adaies believe Because then all winds would be moist whereas most winds are drying Neither will the grosseness of vapours permit themselves to pass with such a fury violence and incomprehensible swiftness Ergo nothing but air a little incrassated can quadrate to the subtility fierceness swiftness and long continuation of winds The manner of their generation is thus In the clouds being as I said before water incorporated with air each Element striveth for the Center within them viz. The air by sinking down and water by pressing downwards Air having the advantage if inclosed in a great proportion through its tenuity recovers the central parts water unites in continuation all about the air now being slipt away but the air without sinking all about upon the besieging water especially from above because the whole Element of air sinks downwards adds no small force to its pressure whereby it is enabled to squeeze out the inclosed air being somewhat incrassated and thence rendred unlike to the ambient air for otherwaies they would unite and so its force would be stayed with a violence into the extrinsick air through which it taires it to some extent and aftervvards puffs it up further not unlike to the wind squeezed out of bellows or a bladder A Fan raises a wind by puffing the air An AEolipile doth evidently confirm to us the foresaid discourse of generation of winds I shall first describe it then subnect the manner of using of it An AEolipile is a hollovv ball made of Brass or any other matter that may resist the fire whereinto a little hole is pierced This laid to the fire and heated is cast into a bowl of water of which it draws in some part This done the hole is to be stopped very close and the ball afterwards laid to the fire untill it grows hot then unstop it and it will emit a durable wind considering the proportion of the water for a half quarter of a pint of water will suffice to maintain a wind for an hour long This instance tells us that wind is nothing else but air incrassated or a little water attenuated by much air squeezed out by the compression of the extrinsick air entring with the fire through the Pores of the Ball. The difference between the eruption of incrassated air detruding rain and that which causeth winds is that the former is much thicker than the latter less in proportion and more dispersed in particles between the thick and dense clouds the latter is less incrassated more in proportion and cohering Air incrassated and vapours differ in consistency Secundum magis minus V. The differences of winds are taken either from their duration and type whence they are said to continue long or short to be typical or erratick The former are again distinguisht into Trade winds Provincial winds Etesian winds Land winds and General winds Trade winds or Monzons are winds blowing one way for six months together and another way the other six months They are called Trade winds because they serve to carry Ships up to and fro the Indian Coasts for to trade or to make trading voyages as they are usually termed They ordinarily meet with them in the Channel of Mozambique in the month of August whence they make their voyage to Goa Cochin or other places of the East Indies in thirty daies In March and April the wind begins to serve them to return from the Indies to the said Channel Provincial winds are such as do particularly perstate a Country and do not exceed beyond the length of it Thus the West-North-west wind according to Seneca his relation lib. 5. nat quaest cap. 17. is proper to Calabria Tataegis to Pamphylia Atabulus to Apulia North Northwest to Narbone in France West Northwest to Athens a West wind to this Island for the greater part of the year an East wind to Portugal during the Summer c. To these common winds are opposites such as perslate a whole Zone or Climate at any time of the year Annual winds are such as do return at certain times of the year and last for a certain term of daies These are observed to be three 1. The Ornithean so called from birds or Chelidonian from Swallows or Rose winds are westerly winds which usually begin to blow but calmly at the first appearance of certain birds as Storkes or Swallows or the budding of Roses 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or forerunners are North Northwest winds blowing for the space of eight daies before the appearance of the Dog Star They are called forerunners because they precede the Etesian winds 3. The Etesian or annual winds derived from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a year are North Northwest winds blowing forty daies every year beginning two daies after the appearance of the Dog-Star They usually rise about three a clock in the day and are laid again at night Land winds are such as blow from the land at a certain season of the day or night and are opposite to those that blow from the Sea They are otherwise by the Portugeses named Terreinhos as those from the Seaward Viracons They
remoteness the air is aptest for concretion 2. Those winds blow stronger in the night than in the day Because the internal air of the clouds is then strongest squeezed and least dispersed through the Suns heat 3. The Monzones that blow from the South blow usually stronger and somewhat longer than the others because the Sun being then got into the arctick declination is now obliquely imminent upon the waters and therefore raises the greater quantity of vapours VVhereas on the other side a greater part of its oblique rayes are taken up by the Land 4. They are oft intended by the Moons demission of weighty minima's upon them The common winds are deprehended in the temperate and rigid Zones The East winds blow when a cloud opens at its VVest side in the East the North wind blows when it is vented at the South side in the North c. The winds if any thing durable must spout out of great long clouds otherwise they would soon be emptied besides clouds through the commotion of the air do succeed one another and are united when the former is suckt out as it vvere Sometimes the vvind seems to come dovvn from over our heads because a cloud is opened there More frequently from the finitor because clouds do most usually meet in union thereabout Sometimes the vvindes blovv from the North and South at once because tvvo clouds in those Regions are a venting Sometimes besides the continuation of a durable vvind there breaks out suddenly another vvind upon us by a blast because there is a cloud breaks out underneath those great ones that cause the durable vvind Provincial vvinds are occasioned through bursting out of those clouds that surround the respective Provinces For example If a Country is apt to be most beset vvith clouds on its North sides then Northerly winds vvill prove its Provincials Annual vvinds are caused through the particular aspects of the Sun at such a time of the year raising vapours tovvards such a plage or corner and rarefying their clouds at such a side Winds accidentally and violently are most of them coole and dry because bursting out with a force they must necessarily cause a compression upon objected bodies and through their tenuity must rub off the dampness from the same bodies Yet some winds prove more particularly very cold and dry because many earthy minims that are incorporated with the imprisoned air break forth along with them causing a strong punctual compression or acute cold Hence North winds happen to partake so much of coldness because they are incorporated with many terrestrial minima's transmitted from the Polars North Northeast winds in winter feel very pinching and nipping cold yea numming because of the commixture of frosty minims with their air South winds are moist because their production depends upon clouds transmitted from the Meridies whose body is very damp and waterish they are hot besides because they have been smitten with the Suns torrid rayes These are noxious and pernicious because through their warm moisture communicated to the ambient air they move relaxe swell and dissolve all the humours of the body whence there must necessarily arise an exestuation or fermentation of the bloud By the way let me tell you the reason why many clouds move against the stream of the air Because their winds bursting on the contrary side draw them like fire bursting out of a squib draweth the same after it Winds blow equally through their equal eruption high through their greater union and force directed outward and being augmented by the violent detention of the ambient cloud Some winds rise in the night because the internal breath of their clouds is now united through a privative and positive coldness Others are intended by the help of the dissolving Sun for the cloud being too close outwardly and the inward breath not very strong needed the rarefaction of the Sun Hence Northern winds are raised in the day because the faces of the clouds are objected directly against the heat of the Sun Whereas South winds are laid in the day because the Sun rarefying the back parts of their clouds attracts their breath backwards and disperseth it Tempestuous winds are distinguisht by five names 1. Ecnephias from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã out of the clouds or an Oricane which is a sudden and most impetuous wind bursting out directly from above out of the sky and breaking in upon the Sea and Ships cause it to rise into mountainous waves and these oft to be overset if their sails be up wherefore Mariners in the East and VVest Indian Ocean as soon as they spy a small cloud in the heavens seemingly not much bigger than the top of ones hat take in their Sails immediately or if at anchor they are forced to cut their Cables and expose themselves to the free waves of the Sea for to prevent foundring The cause of so sudden a fury is questionless a great quantity of incrassated air admitted to condensed fire pent in hard within the stiff clouds and so setting force against force the air and condensed fire are forced with one violence to break through the thick clouds which although strongly striving to keep themselves in continuation yet at last choose to give way and to suffer some parts of them to be gathered into a small cloud whereupon that furious AEolus soon puts the whole Climate into a commotion scattering withall a spout of hot water kindled through the great sight rotting whatever it touches especially wollen cloaths and breeding worms 2. Turbo Typhon from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to beat or a violent whirlwind is caused through the same condensed fire and incrassated air violently bursting out of several spouts whose circular refraction meeting upon the Surface of the water or land oft carries a Ship sheer out of the water or any other moveable bodies from the land I have oft been told of Ships that have been lifted out of the water and cast upon the shore by such winds as these but how true I know not although it seems probable enough 3. Praester from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I kindle is a surious wind caused through the violent eruption of exhalations or a condensed fire kindled within the clouds and incrassated air which doth not only ruinate houses and trees but oft burns them down to the ground and puts the Sea into a boyling heat 4. Exhydria is a vehement bursting out of wind attended with a great shower of rain and hail But none of these violent winds prove lasting because the flatuosity contained within the clouds erupting in so great a measure must soon be exhausted whereas were it evacuated in a less proportion they must necessarily prove more durable Among all the winds none delights more in the greatest and longest furies and storms than the South Southwest in the winter because it derives from the Meridies or torrid Zone where vapours are drawn up in very great measures and that constantly because of the
Suns continual torrid beams and the multitude of waters underneath It is reported that in the Northern Countries winds are sometimes so furious that they cast horse and man down to the ground and in Tartary the winds blow so violently though in the Summer that there is no travelling at such times Likewise about China and Japan tempests are out ragious beyond belief Tercera one of the Azores or Flemish Islands suffers such violences from winds that the bars of Iron that are fastned to the houses although of the thickness of an arm or two are grinded away to the smalness of wier and holes are eaten into the Rocks about the said Island of the bigness of a horse through such tempestuous winds 5. Statarian winds rage commonly every Fryday in the Indies insomuch that Ships are provided with an Anchor more on that day on the Sunday it groweth calm again It will not be amiss to add the cause of the variation of winds perceived by Ships that are in sight of one another and why the wind at Sea differs oft a point or two from the wind at Land viz. Because the wind bursting out low doth reflect against the tumour of the Sea interjected between the two ships or against the Promontories and Hills of the Lands reflecting the wind some larger others narrower The Seas grow oft very turbulent and incensed 1. Through the eruption of winds descending from above and piercing through their body which they raise into high waves by their swelling and strife of passing 2. The said winds do raise other winds and flatuosities within the body of waters partly out of their own substance and partly out of their mud The Sea is much more disposed to disturbations in some places than others As off the Cape of Good Hope likewise between China and Japan where Sea-men oft are forced to pawn their ships and lives to the Ocean CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their Effects and some strange instances of them 1. What an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The Coucomitants thereof 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes 4. Their Effects upon the air I. SInce we have lately discoursed upon eruptions of incrassated air out of the clouds we shall next insert a few words touching the eruption of incrassated air out of the Earth whose egress causeth that which we call an Earthquake and is nothing else but the trembling of the earth ordinarily following or preceding the bursting thereof through subterraneous winds vio ently breaking forth The manner of its production is thus A proportion of air and water being lodged in a Cavern underground is further attenuated into subterraneous clouds thence into vapours and thence into incrassated air through fiery minims entring and penetrating through the pores of the Earth whereupon the earth pressing strongly suffers a diruption in the same manner as we see a bottle filled with water being close stopt and exposed to the fire is broke through the force of incrassated air or attenuated and rarefied water within Whence we observe these concomitants to be necessary in an Earthquake 1. A strange great noise 2. A trembling of the Earth 3. A great blast 4. A spouting out of water 5. Sometimes an unequal discontinuation and excavation of the Earth 6. Sometimes a flame II. The kinds of Earthquakes are taken 1. from their effects and manner of motion some causing a shaking or quaking of the earth named by some an Inclination by Aristotle a Tremor through which houses walls or other buildings are weakened in their foundation and thence are occasioned to fall down thus many Cities of Asia in the fifth year of Tiberius of Bithynia near the extream passion of our Saviour the City Nyssena Bâle and particularly Ferrarae a City in Italy were demolished this last was surprized on Martins day in the year 1570 beginning about ten a clock at night with most terrible sounds as if the City had been battered with great pieces of Ordnance next a very horrible shaking or trembling followed raising all the Citizens out of their beds putting them to their beads pouring out their prayers thrice louder than ordinary and forcing them to quit the City and to behold the ruine of their houses in the fields The Palace of the Duke and other great buildings yielded to this violence many were frighted out of their lives others killed through these prodigious accidents not ceasing before the next day at night No less were the Citizens of Constantinople amazed by those most raging Earthquakes in nothing less terrible than the former described by Agath lib. 5. de la guerre Gothique The strange kinds of noises sounds thunder whistling howling cracking that were then perceived are incredible Campania in the time of the Consulship of L. Cornelius and Q. Minutius was infested with a trembling for many daies together Many do write of such Earthquakes as these that lasted a month a year some two years but by fits I suppose In Parthia above two thousand Villages have been demolished by Earthquakes besides many others in Sicily in the 16th year of Charles the fifth in the month of April In October of the 18th year of his Reign another hapned near Puteoli in Campania Others have been observed only to cause a single elevation or puffing up of the Earth afterwards sinking down again without the appearance of any other violence and are by Aristotle named Pulses By these the earth and houses upon it have been lifted up to a great height and sunke down again without the displacing of one single stone Thus the houses of a Town in Switzerland called Friburg were twice at several times lifted up in the year 1509 once in the night the other time in the day By the same accident some houses about Burdeaux in the year 1545 in the month of August were lifted up and sunke down again into their former places Others cause a bursting and excavation of the earth swallowing up its whole Surface where it bursted with the Houses Men and Cattle upon it as when a part of the Island Lango or Coos famous for being the Country of Hippocrates was swallowed up at which time the Inhabitants were not a little amazed by an incredible thunder and fury of its commotion Camden gives a relation of a very stupendious Earthquake that befel the east part of Herefordshire in the year 1575 in March where the earth and a rocky hill called Marcley hill was removed to a far distance thence with the Trees and all the Sheep that were upon it Some other Trees were cast out of the ground whereof many fell flat upon the ground others hapned to fall into the seams of the Hill and closed as fast as if they had taken their first root there The hole which this eruption made was at least 40 foot wide and 80 yards long lasting from Saturday in the Evening untill Munday at noon Likewise a whole Town was
swallowed up in the Island AEnaria another in Thrace one in Phaeuicia beyond Sidon and another in Eubaea Others protrude a great piece of earth and cast it up into a kind of mountain but a very uneven one as for instance the mount Modernus near the Lake Avernus This sort is called Egestion Some cast forth a flame withall as hapned in the Mount Vesevus alias the Mount of Somma in Campania and the Mongibell in Sicily Earthquakes have sometimes removed two opposite fields and placed them in one anothers room as those two fields in Italy where the Marrucini were seated in the Reign of Nero. For Rivers to burst out as the River Ladon in Arcadia did and others to be stopt up by earth cast into them by such accidents is very possible Oft times Earthquakes make way for Deluges which may be also incident upon the earth at the bottom of the Sea or near to the shore or may happen to the same places without a deluge whereby the waters have been swallowed up and Ships left dry upon the shore as that which hapned in the time of Theodosius or that vvhen M. Antonius and P. Dolabella vvere Consuls leaving great heaps of fish dry upon the sands In the Reign of Emanuel there vvas a very great Earthquake perceived about Lisbon Scalabis and other Tovvns of Portugal vvhereby the vvaters of the River Tajo vvere so much diffused that the bottom appeared dry There is another kind of Earthquake called Arietation vvhen tvvo subterraneous vvinds vibrate against one another Sometimes this hapned vvithout any dammage there being some earth betvveen to hinder their conflict other times meeting in cavernous places have subverted mountains and all that vvas upon them as those mountains near Modena vvhich Pliny lib. 2. Cap. 83. relates to have been bursted against one another vvith a very hideous noise subverting many Villages and swallowing up a number of Cattel yea whole Countries and Armies have been devoured by these kinds of accidents 2. From their duration some lasting a day a week a month c. 3. From their violence some inferring little or no dammage others being contented with nothing less than ruine 4. From the sounds that accompany them being various as I have related before 5. From their places Some more frequently infesting Islands others the Continent Thus Sicily AEnaria Lucara the Moluccas Islands Tyrus Eubaea Phrygia Caria Lydia Italy and many Countries in the West-Indies have very oft been molested by Earthquakes Cold Countries as the Septentrional ones or others that are very hot as AEgypt are very seldom invaded by them 6. From their efficient some being extraordinarily raised by the Almighty out of his wrath for to punish the sons of men for their sins an instance of this we have in 2 Kings 22. Likewise that which hapned about the time of the Passion of Christ supposed by many as Didymus and others to have been universall and to have shaken the whole Earth but since Ecclesiastick Historians make no mention of it none is bound to give credit to the foresaid Supposition However beyond all dispute it was a very great one if not the greatest that ever the earth underwent Neither is Paulus Oros to be thought more authentick relating lib. 7. hist. Cap. 32. an universal Earthquake in the time of Valentinianus since the holy Scripture and Reason do tell us that the Earth is altogether immoveable 7. From the consequents viz. Some after the earths eruptions are followed by vehement winds emptying out of her others by hot boyling waters others again by damps and stinking sents also by vomiting up of stones clots of earth and other strange bodies 8. From their extent some reaching farther others nearer Thus there hapned an Earthquake in the year 1577 on the 18th day of September that began from Colmar in Switzerland and reached as far as Bern being near upon 60 miles distant c. III. Now it is requisite I should proffer proof for the forementioned causes of Earthquakes 1. I prove that they are caused by winds because they alone are of a capable force to burst out suddenly through the earth 2. Because winds bursting out of the earth do alwaies precede and consecute Earthquakes whence we may certainly collect when waters in Pits and Rivers begin to be turgid and continually raised into a great number of bubbles that an Earthquake is near at hand as appeared by the swelling and bubling of the River Po a little before the before alledged harthquake of Ferrara 2. That these winds are principally raised out of peregrin water collected within a Cavern of the earth is evident by the great spouting out of water that doth follow the eruption 3. It is further made evident in a bottle half filled with water and exposed to the fire which doth also make good to us that the Sun through its fiery minims doth press in a great proportion of air into those subterraneous waters whereby they are attenuated whence those waters that are cast forth presently after the diruption are also rendred boyling hot so that Countries remote from the energy of the Sun are seated beyond danger of having winds generated within their bowels however subterraneous fires may supply the office of the Suns beams in attenuating the waters into winds by impelling air into them whence it is that near the mount Hecla in Iseland concussions and arietations happen frequently Earthquakes are disposed to eruption in the night season as much as in the day because as the erupting force of the internal winds is intended by the Suns rarefaction so is the compressing vertue of the Earth intensed by the more potent sinking down of the air in the night being freed from the discontinuating fiery minims and by the decidence of the weighty minims inherent in the Air. The Spring and Autumn are Seasons of the year qualified for the attenuating and rarefying of the peregrin waters whence also they prove most frequent near those times Why Hills and hilly Countries are subject to tremors and concussions and other moist ones as Holland and Zealand less may easily be understood from our discourse upon the generation of Hills IV. That Earthquakes portend Famine Pestilential Feavers and other contagious diseases is believed by most Grave Authors but whence such a putrefaction causing the said distempers should arrive to the air cannot vvell be deduced from their assigning exhalations to be the causes of Earthquakes since they hold them to be hot and dry being qualities according to the Peripateticks resisting and expelling putrefaction beyond any wherefore it will be most agreeable to hold with us that it is derived from those moist damps and vapours that are the material causes of the disrupting winds CHAP. XVII Of fiery Meteors in the Air. 1. Of the generation of a Fools fire a Licking fire Helens fire Pollux and Castor a Flying Drake a burning Candle a perpendicular fire a skipping Goat flying sparks and a burning flame 2. Of the generation
a bason filled with ashes will scarce contain four fifths of the water that it will do when it is empty As for the water that is imbibed by the ashes it possesses the spaces left by the air contained before between the particles of the said ashes and now thence expelled 2. Warm water stopt close in a bottle doth possess more room than when being set in a cold place it is concreased into an Ice Ergo there must be some void space left within the bottle I answer That the supposed vacuity is filled up with frosty minims whose presence expelling the air and fire from between the Pores of the water doth withall reduce it to a smaller body as being before insufflated with air and fire But when the same frosty minims do return then the air and fire do fill up their vacuities again by insufflating the body of water through their succession 3. An AEolipile being filled up with water and air doth notwithstanding slow as much fire as will cause its wind to blaze a whole hour or longer according to the bigness of it Ergo there must have been a Vacuum contained within the wind bale or else we must admit a penetration of bodies by condensation I answer That neither is necessary for the advenient fire expels so much of the contained air as its presence doth take up diducts the body of the AEolipile somwhat into a larger continent wherein a greater part of fire may be contained than there is air expelled Pecquet in his Exper. Nov. Anat. hath endeavoured to borrow all experiments possible for to divide the Universe with a Vacuum and so to abolish the Natures of the Elements I shall only propose the first which he hath from Monsieur Roberval Professor of the Mathematicks at Paris and is alone performed by a glass blown in the form of a bolts head open below and atop at its capacity where it contains an empty bladder that is usually taken out of a Carpes belly being tied close with a thread as likewise the top of the capacity with a Sows bladder This done it is filled up to the brim of the orifice of the neck with Mercury which being close stopped with ones finger is immitted into a vessel half filled with Mercury and thrust deep into it where the finger is to be withdrawn Hereupon follows the descent of the Mercury as low as half way the Pipe and the bladder is puft up Hence he deduces a Vacuum between the rarefied parts of the air blowing up the bladder contained within the empty capacity What a gross mistake is this First He must know as I shall prove by and by that it is the air that presseth the Mercury down for whatever is moved Locally is moved by an extrinsick agent Secondly He doth against reason and experience state the rarefaction of some air But whence came that air There was none whilst it was filled up with the Mercury ergo it must have pierced through the pores of the Glass If so what needs he admit only a smal quantity which he supposeth to be rarefied after its ingress by an elaterick vertue since a greater may as easily pass and why then a Vacuum Wherefore I say he must necessarily grant some air to pass the pores for to blow up the bladder besides I prove that it is easie for the air to pass through the pores of Glass because we see light doth easily pass the thickest Glass but light is the air illuminated or obtended as I have proved before ergo That Glass is pierced through with subtil pores is evident a little before it beginneth to concrease or indurate after its melting Moreover we see that the liquor it self of Aquà Fort. being poured upon the filing of Brass penetrates through the pores of a thick precipitating Glass The same is observed about the Glass at the âffusion of oyl of Vitriol to oyl of Tartar but air is much more subtil than these Liquors Do we not observe the air to press by the spurring of fire through glasses of the greatest thickness For expose a thick glass of water to the fire and you may observe it to be raised into millions of bubbles when it begins to siethe which is nothing else but the air forced through the pores of the Glass by the fire In fine there is nothing that is imperforated by pores except water and air in their absolute state I omit the rest of his borrowed experiments and shall only insert two words touching the conclusion inferred from the pomping of the air out of a large round Glass Receiver in that manner as you have it proposed by Casper Scott which they conclude must afterwards remain void on the contrary it is rather more filled by air attracted from without and impacted so closs that the pores of the glass seem to be filled and insufflated with it as appears by the venting of the Receiver so pomped into a vessel of cold water where it causeth a very great commotion and siething by the air bursting out certainly this is different from pomping the Receiver empty or thus they may pretend a Vacuum because there is more air attracted into the Receiver than it contained before ergo there must either a penetration of bodies be allowed or a Vacuum To this I need propose no other answer for solution than what I gave for the solution of the eruption of air out of an AEolipile How or in what manner air is attracted into the said Receiver by this Magdenburg experiment you shall read in the next Chapter As for other Arguments they being as vacuous as Vacuum it self I shall neglect the mentioning of them IV. But the Jesuitical Philosophers do further propose to themselves whether a Vacuum could not be effected by an Angelical power or if not by Angels whether by the Divine Power This is as like them as if it were spit out of their mouths Those vile Impostors and the devils Saints will name God Almighty and notwithstanding to his face doubt of his power in so mean a thing as a Vacuum is what if God can destroy the Elements intirely cannot he displace them partially Angels I confess cannot effect it naturally and ordinarily although extraordinarily being virtuated with an extraordinary power from God they may V. Next they rommage whether Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum and if it be whether it must not happen in an instant I shall not weary my self to produce their opinions but only appose what reason doth direct me But let us first state the question right The Problem may be understood in a threefold sense 1. Whether a Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum as through a Medium through which a body being locally moved passeth taking its beginning of progress from without the said Vacuum 2. Whether a body can take its beginning of motion outwards from a Vacuum 3. Whether a spiritual substance obtains the power of moving it self locally in a Vacuum
are disposed to be moved downwards because they cannot move themselves thither but concur to that motion only by their disposition V. This disposition is nothing else but the renitency or stubbornness of the weighty mixt body discontinuating the air or fire and resisting their motion to the center-wards the intension and remission of the said renitency depends upon the greater or lesser density or crassitude whence it is also that some bodies are moved swifter downwards because they consist of a greater density sustaining a more violent impulse of the air which were they less dense would be moved slower because of a less renitency 2. Or thus the air being discontinuated by an interposed weighty mixt body doth primarily strive from all parts to a reunion by its expansive vertue especially from above because of its greater strength there as being less discontinuated and weakened by exhalations and vapours whence the greatest force descending doth also direct the impulsion downwards Wherefore a weighty body as Mercury or any other Mineral is moved much swifter downwards or according to the ordinary Ideom of speech weighs much heavier on the top of high hills than below But you shall read more in the next Chapt. VI. All light bodies being seated in a weighty Element are disposed to be moved upwards whence it is that subterraneous air is oft forced upwards by the earths compressing vertue Likewise a piece of Cork depressed under water is by the waters gravity closing underneath in the same manner as we have explained it in the 2. Part. the 1. Book Chap. 16. 2. Par. squeezed upwards without any intrinsick propensity for otherwise the same Cork being also disposed to be pressed downwards in the air must be supposed to have two internal propensities which is absurd A flame burning in the ayry Regions is forced upwards by its disposition of levity tenuity and rarity Thus The air sinding it self injured by the discontinuating flame presses upon her and strives from all sides to squeeze her away The flame being over-powered is forced to slip or slide away whether its disposition may best yield downwards it cannot tend because there it is resisted by the courser air infested with weighty peregrin Elements Ergo upwards because there it finds the way most open to give free passage to its light rarity and tenuity On the contrary a weighty body because of its density and crassitude finds the passage clearer downwards by reason it is most driven from the tenuity of the air atop but supposing the air to enjoy its center doubtless those weighty bodies would be cast forth upwards to the Circumference VII Ayry bodies that are seated in a fiery Element are moved downwards because the rarity of the fire sinking downwards for a center doth impell them also thither whose disposition being continuous and thin are the better disposed to slide away from the fire compressing them all about downwards because upwards the said bodies striving to maintain their particular Centers would be more discontinuated where the force of fire must also be strongest Whence you may observe that weighty bodies and light bodies are both moved to one terminus ad quem in the fiery regions Touching the causes of refraction and reflection you shall read them in the next Chapter Hence a great part of the first Book of the second Part will be rendred much plainer which I did forbear to illustrate further because of avoiding needless repetitions intending to treat of these by themselves viz. why water or any other weighty body being violently detained is much intended in its strength or why water is more depressing atop or when it is most remote from her Center than underneath namely because of the depression of the air adding much to the drowning of a man as we have mentioned in 12th and 16th Chapters and so many other passages CHAP. XX. Of Attraction Expulsion Projection Disruption Undulation and Recurrent Motion 1. How air is attracted by a water-spout or Siphon 2. The manner of another kind of Attraction by a sucking Leather 3. How two flat Marble stones clapt close together draw one another up 4. How a Wine-Coopers Pipe attracts Wine out of a Cask 5. How sucking with ones mouth attracts water 6. How a Sucker attracts the water 7. The manner of Attraction by Filtration 8. The manner of Electrical attraction 9. How fire and fiery bodies are said to attract 10. What Projection is and the manner of it 11. What Disruption Undulation and Recurrent motion are 1. I Thought fit to subject these remaining kinds of motion to the preceding and to treat of them in a distinct Chapter viz. Attraction Expulsion Projection Disruption Undulation and Recurrent motion I shall only insist upon some particular kinds of attraction What Attraction is the name doth explain How air is attracted by water and water properly by air hath been proposed in the foregoing Chapters Attraction is further evident 1. In a Siphon or water-spout wherewith they usually cast up water for to quench a fire Here the water is attracted by the drawing up of the Sucker not through a bending for to avoid a Vacuum but through the natural cohesion in continuancy of the air to the Sucker or aerial parts contained within the Sucker Now the air doth cohere more strongly because there is no body to discontinue it within the Siphon but is rather assisted in a continuated cohesion by the continuity of the sides of the Siphon and of the Sucker Or otherwise if the air did strive to separate how could it For suppose it should be discontinuated from the Sucker then through that discontinuation there must be some certain void space effected if so then that air which did before fill up that void space must have been withdrawn into some other place or else it must through penetration have sunk into its own substance besides the air that was expelled up vards must have penetrated into its own body by condensation or into the body of the water all which is impossible since a penetration of bodies is an annihilation But here inquiry may be made whether it is the continuated cohesion of the air with the water causes the succession of the water upon the air or whether the air which through haling up of the Sucker is expelled upwards out of the Siphon doth for to procure a place protrude the air cohering about the external sides of the Siphon downwards into the water through whose insufflation the water is propelled upwards into the Siphon I answer both waies for it is impossible that such a great weight of water should ascend so easily with so little a force as the attraction of the Sucker unless it were assisted by the strong force of the air pomped out out of a necessity and impossibility of shrinking pressing down and protruding the water upwards That this is so the external circular pressure and dent which we see about the outsides of the water about the lower end
the first smart impulse The truth of the foresaid reason and manner is apparent in shooting a pole through the water where we may see the water at the farther end raised into a tumor which running about the sides to the other end causeth its propulsion Whence it is also that when there appears no more of the tumor of the water before the pole its motion doth instantly cease XI Disruption or bursting is a sudden separation of the parts of a body through a violent force moving from within This we see happens oft in Canons when over-charged or in bottels filled with water being frozen in the Winter o. Wine in the Summer being close stopt The cause of these latter must be imputed to frosty or fiery minims entring through the pores of the bottels in greater quantity than their capacity can take in and disrupting them for to avoid a penetration of bodies Bodies are oft said to burst through driness as Instruments c. but very improperly since it is the fiery or frosty minims entring their pores and filling their capacities and afterwards disrupting them because of avoiding a penetration of bodies So Instrument-strings are apt to break in moist weather because their continuation is disrupted through penetration of moist bodies into their pores Undulation is a motion whereby a body is moved to and fro like to water shaken in a basin or to the motion of a Bell. The cause is likewise adscribed to the first motion of the Impulsor which being terminated at the end of its return is beat back through the direct descent of the air impelling it by reason it lieth athwart Recurrent motion being but little different from this I shall therefore say no more of it The cause of reflection is the return of the impulse impressed upon the air or water both being media deferentia perpendicularly or obliquely upwards from a hard and plane reflecting body Of refraction the cause is the shuving off of the impulse downwards by the shelving sides of an angular hard body CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated 3. How the other Planets were generated 4. How the fixed Stars were generated 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated I. THe ground of the fires tending downwards you may easily collect from what I have set down touching the waters and airs commerce with the other Elements It s profundity we may likewise divide into three Regions The first whereof containing the Planetary bodies the next the fixed Stars and the third consisting most of purefire II. The inferiour Region through its nearer approximation to the air and its immersion into it is cast into a subtil flame whose subtility doth effuge our sight and Tact. The Sun is a great body generated out of the peregrin Elements contained in the inferiour igneous Region consisting most of condensed fire and incrassated air extended and blown up into the greatest flame and conglomerated within the greatest fiery cloud These igneous clouds are like to the windy clouds of the air which as they do daily blast down wind upon the earth so do these cast fiery rayes among which that which surrounds the Sun doth vendicate the greatest power to it selfe The manner of casting of its fiery rayes is the same with that of winds viz. The Region of fire forceth up every day or continually a great quantity of air somewhat incrassated and condensed into its own sphere through its descending force striving for a Center This incrassated and condensed air is impelled violently into the body of the Stars by other subtil flames as being more forcible to drive the said adventitious matter from them because their parts are so closely ingaged that they can scarce slow a minim without a penetration Wherefore they must necessarily be impelled gradually into the bodies of the Stars because these are mixt bodies that give way so much in themselves by expelling fiery or torrid minima's down into the air as to be capacious enough of receiving so many airy particles as the Elementary fire doth force up every moment But before I proceed in unfolding the manner of the Celestial mixt bodies their ventilations I must insist somewhat further upon their constitution III. The Celestial mixt bodies are not only like to clouds in their daily and minutely ventilations but also in their constitutions viz. The inferiour ones as the Planets are constituted out of the courser and more mixt matter of the finer cloudy air in the inferiour Region of the Element of fire like the clouds of the inferiour Region of air are constituted out of the courser part of vapours Their coagulation is effected through the force of the fiery Element crushing their matter from below upwards and again is repelled back from the superiour parts of the said fiery Elements because through its being pressed up are scanted of room and therefore do press downwards not only for room but also because of reuniting where they are divided by the said coagulated bodies Now it may easily appear to you 1. Whence that rotundity or rather globosity doth arrive to them viz. because they are circularly crusht 2. Because the air and fire of the said Planets do naturally spread themselves equally from the Center to the Circumference whence a circular figure must needs follow Also 3. That Stars are nothing else but the thicker and denser part of the Heavens coagulated into fiery mixt bodies to wit flames 3. That as they do decrease by Ventilation every day so they do also increase by the introsusception of new aerial particles 4. That they must necessarily be very durable because of the duration of their causes For as the great force of the inferiour parts of the igneous Heavens never desist from striving for the Center and do every day cast up great proportions of aerial matter so do the superiour parts never cease from compressing them into the bodies of the other condensed flames being disposed as I said before through their ventilation to receive them 2. Because the aerial parts being got into the Center of the flames cease from all external Local motion striving only to maintain their Center in rest IV. Fixed Stars are generated out of the subtiler parts of the forementioned aerial evaporations being through their less resisting gravity redounding from water earth in them rendred capable of being screwed up higher to the second Region where they are coagulated through the same motions of the Heavens that Planetary clouds are These are responding to the permanent clouds of the second Region of the air which as they are spread into more large
extended bodies wherein many knobs seem to be unequally coagulated through the unequal proportion of the mixture of the vapours even so are these evaporations coagulated into long large bodies within which again other coagulations are effected of unequal proportions rising like so many knobs of various magnitudes which constitute the fixed Stars well deserving the Epithete of being fixed or fastned in those vast igneous clouds We diduct hence 1. That the fixed Stars are smaller than the Planets because their matter is the overplus of the Planets 2. That they were formed after the Planets because their matter must be arrived to the first Region before the subtiler parts could appel to the second Region for the matter of others 3. That the difference between the loose and fixed Stars is no other than that these latter consist of a more compact flame than the others and thence we may also collect them to be more durable V. But to make pursuit of the manner of ventilation of the Stars The fiery minims striking down vehemently upon them because they are screwed up more and more by the continual access of new coagulations impelled into the said Stars must necessarily be intended in their force upon them for to recover their place and continuation These then striking from all sides through those Celestial mixt bodies do expell shake down and effuse continually great showers of those torrid minims consisting of condensed fire which are accelerated likewise in their descent through the depression of the air These as they pass do heat the air especially in the lower Region because of the density of the clouds and air staying their beams And 2. Because of their reflection from the earth These fiery showers do scarce reach any farther than the temperate Zones Where they rain down perpendicularly there they leave marks of their heat where obliquely there of warmth only but the air within the Polars is not sensible of so much as their warmth These showers do fall down sometimes in a greater confluence than others whence they cast a greater heat which happens through their meeting and being united with more aerial matter or igneous clouds or else through want of shelter under dense clouds in the air or thirdly by uniting their showers with those of other Planets Hence we may observe That the Sun is the hottest body in the Heavens and therefore the loosest and the softest 2. That the Moon and the other Stars consist of a less soft consistency 3. That the fixed Stars as they do heat but little so they dissolve but little and therefore must be of a yet less soft consistency 4. That the fiery clouds being supposed globous and therefore profound do harbour many invisible lights whereof some do happen sometimes to be detruded out of their seat downwards that is towards the earth through the continuated and exuperant force of the superiour parts of the Element of fire This is seldom observed but in the lower Region of the fire because that Element doth use its greatest force there as being near to the place of strife for its Center and most pincht there by the obtruded igneous clouds These new appearing Lights do sometimes keep within sight for eight or ten Months some longer others shorter and afterwards disappear again whence they come under the notion of Comets agreeing in nothing with them except in their disappearing after a certain times lustre The cause of their disappearance I impute to the bearing up of the air upwards by the inferiour fiery rayes and carrying those dislocated Stars out of sight again where they are included within a dense igneous cloud 5. New Stars are oft generated within the bulk of the foresaid clouds whose smalness and close inclusion doth render them invisible Others again are dissolved through being over-powered by the force of the fiery Element 6. The Galaxia or milky-way is nothing but a great number of small dusky lights or inequalities coagulated out of the grosser part of the peregrin Elements of the lower igneous Region VI. Lastly Like as you see that the Element of water which naturally consisteth of the greatest thickness is reduced to that tenuity through such a great proportion of air and that the air is from the greatest tenuity incrassated through such a quantity of water and earth into clouds throughout its whole body even the same we must imagine of fire viz. that it is reduced from the greatest rarity to a condensation and attenuation into large igneous clouds throughout its body through the vast admixture of air somewhat incrassated and condensed These clouds in the lower Region are diducted and separated into many thick and profound ones in the second Region into those of a great tenuity but more cohering Thus we have briefly exposed to your view the commerce of fire with the other Elements and for your better understanding have caused this Scheme to be inserted where you have the universal flames striking downwards for a Center whereas after the first knock it flamed upwards in the Chaos because it moved from its own Center The proportions of fire and air to both the other Elements although not very exactly cut according to my Copy yet comes near to it The Stars are there represented according to their several Regions wherein they are seated The motion of the heavens is likewise there exhibited as we have demonstrated it in the preceding Paragraphs All which with many others insisted upon in this and the subsequent Chapter you have here plainly proposed CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of fire 1. Where the Poles of the Heavens are 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Mediety and slower through the Boreal How the Sun happens to measure a larger fiery Tract at some seasons in the same time than at others 8. Whence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens 9. An undoubted and exact way of Calculating the natural end of the World The manner of the Worlds dissolution The same proved also by the holy Scriptures The prevention of a Calumny I. I have formerly discoursed upon the motion of the Heavens from East to West assigning the violent detention from their Center for the cause of it I shall repeat nothing more of it than put you in mind that nothing can move circularly except upon two immoveable points which are therefore named the Poles from sustaining their body The immobility which we observe in this our Hemisphere near the Bear Stars perswades us to take it for the North or Arctick Pole to which the South
Surface VIII Why doth the Herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysantemum Peruvianum or Crowfoot of Peru because its Leaves and Flowers resemble those of our Crowfoot turn the faces of its Leaves and Flowers about with the Sun Answ. Because the Sun through its igneous Beames doth rarefie that side of the Leaves and Flowers which is obverted to it whereby he doth expel their continuous streames whose egress doth attract or incline them that way whither they are expelled in the same manner as we have explained the Attraction of the Loadstone IX Why is the Laurel seldom or never struck by Lightning Answ. Because it is circumvested with a thick slimy Moysture which doth easily shove or slide off the Glance of a Lightning CHAP. II. Containing Problemes relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region 3. How Glass is made 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yields to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire I. VVHy is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water Answ. Because the water doth suddenly pierce into the Pores of iron being now open and violently expel the fire and air both which as we have shewed in B. 1. Part 2. are the sole Causes of the softness of a body and being expelled leave the same indurated by the weighty Elements pressing more forcibly and harder to their Center II. Whence is it that there fals a kind of small Rain every day from 11 or 12 of the Clock to 2 or 3 in the Afternoon under the AEquinoctial Region Answ. The Sun at his Rising and Descending doth through his oblique Rayes excite a multitude of small vapours which through the privative coldness of the air in the night are concreased into small clouds but reduced into drops of rain through the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims when he is perpendicularly imminent upon them III. How is Glass made Answ. The matter of ordinary Glass is generally known to be Ashes or Chalck burnt out of stones or both The Venice Glasses differing from others in clearness and transparency are made out of chalck burnt out of stones which they fetch from Pavia by the River Ficinum and the ashes of the weed Kall growing in the deserts of Arabia between Alexandria and Rossetta which the Arabians make use of for fuell In the first Book second Part I have told you how a body was reduced into ashes through the expulsion of its thinner glutinous moisture by the vibrating fiery minims The same fire being intended doth through its greater violence enter mollifie diduct and thence melt and equallize the courser thick remaining glutinous moisture by its own presence together with the air which it imports along with it whereby the Terrestial minims that were before clotted are exactly and equally spread throughout the foresaid thick glutinous moisture The fire and air being only admitted from without not incorporated with the said bodies through want of a matrix because they being in that extream overpowring quantity that they may as easily free themselves from the said body as they entered are expelled again as soon as they are exposed to the cold ambient air and so desert the body leaving it glib smooth continuously hard friable rigid and transparent So that it appears hence that Glass is nothing but water reduced nearer to its absolute nature which we have shewed is hard and clear by freeing it from the thin glutinous moisture or air and fire incorporated with a small proportion of water through barning its first subject into ashes and afterwards by uniting diducting and equallizing its own parts contained in the ashes By the forementioned thick or course glutinous moisture I intend a mixture of much water incorporated with a little earth and least air and fire That Glass is water nearer reduced to its absolute nature I shall prove by its properties 1. That glib smoothness of Glass depends upon the continuity of the parts of water necessarily accompanied by a glib smoothness because it doth not consist of any contiguous rough minims 2. It is continuously hard because water of her absolute nature is continuously hard 3. It is friable because the water is throughout divided by the minims of earth which render it so brittle and rigid whereas were it all water it would be harder than any stone It is transparent because it is but little condensed by earth whose condensation renders all bodies obscure 2. Because it is luminous that is apt to receive the lumen from any lucid body as being throughout porous through which it is rendred capable of harbouring the obtended air Glass is distinguisht from Crystallin hardness and transparency because this latter appropriates more of water in her absolute state and less of earth IV. Whence is it that so great a mole as a Ship yields so readily in turning or winding to so small a thing as a Rudder This Problem will make plain that an impulse is intended by a medium or deferens A Ship swimming in the water and being impelled by the wind or a board-hook raiseth the water into a tumour before at her bowes which is violently impelled what by the air lifted up by the tumour what by her own bent to recover that place behind at the stern whence it was first propelled and where you shall alwaies observe a hollowness in the water proportionable to her rising before and therefore as you may see runs swiftly about both the sides and meeting in both the streams abaft doth propel the Ship forward by a reflection and this you may also perceive in taking notice of that most eager meeting of the streams of water from both sides behind at the Rudder which being removed to either side viz. To Star-boord or Lar-boord side directs the Ship towards the sides because the force of the water in returning doth beat hard against that side of the Rudder which is obverted to her as resisting most and collecting her force is shoved towards the opposite side of the Stern whereby her head comes too to the other side whence we may plainly observe that a Ship doth not begin to turn before but alwaies abaft This I prove A Ship hitting her breech against the ground at Sea usually striketh abaft because she draweth more water there than before now the shoving of the Helm to the other side brings her off immediately and brings her head too which is a certain sign that a Ship is moved from abaft and begins first to turn there If it is so it is beyond doubting that the force of the water is forcible behind beyond imagination and thence adding that intention to the impulse V. What is the cause of the swimming of
intermediate as bitter acerbe acid and salt p. 196. l. 12. r. assimilation p. 197. l. 1 3. r. Lynx l. 12. r. very near p. 198. l. 5. r. Fish l. 9. r. do l. 20. r. A Cat is delighted p. 230. l. 21. r. An Opale p. 238. l. 19. r. White Chalck p. 330. l. 6 9. r. rise p. 331 l. 36. r. Perinaean p. 343. l. 31. r. within p. 350. l. 16. r. River p. 363. l. 23. r. 28. p. 398. l. 34. r. doth Hence Ovid Ingenuas didicisse sideliter artes Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros * Take form in a large sense as it doth imply an Essence or entire Being * By really understand effectively properly * So a possible being which is a non ens reale may be concelved to be an ens rationis By Figure understand the Habit of Modes in one essence Aver Met. 7. c. 3. Tho. A. p. 1. q. 77. 1. Art c. 1. Herv qual 1. q 9. Apol. de an q 7. Thom. p. 1. q. 77. Art 6. That is a parte actus * That is by a formal reality or such as any other operation of the mind might adjudge to be formally real or to respond from without to that distinct formality which it conceiveth from within * Chap. 3. v. 17. and Chap. 1. v. 5. Lib. 1. cap. 1. Ethie * Luc. 8. None is good but God alone * L a. Ty. * Namely from Theology that is from its neerest end or Summum Bonum * Mark that practick here imports practick strictly so called and poetick * For even then he is assisted with God's ordinary power * Not as we are like unto men but rather unto beasts * Take Attributes here in a large sense Col. 1. 12 13. Col. 1. 26 27. * A description of the second Paradise you may also read in Isa. 65. 17 18 19 c. and in the next ensuing Chapter 2 Pet. 3. 13 and in the 21 and 22 Chapter of the Revelat Stob. Serm. 109. Xen. Mem. 1 4. Plat. dc Repub. l. 6. Lib. de Relig c. 9. Phaed. Just. Mart. or at Paraenet ad Gent. Plat. Phaed. Cicer. do amic Plat. Phaed. Lactant. l. 1. c. 5. Arist. l. de par animal c. 5. Arist. Met. b. 6. c. 1. Text. 1. * That is intirely separated existences That is beyond its points it is nothing * That is an actual vertue or continuated act Hence ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã fundo sive consundo * That is an inequality of the elements in respect to parts or the whole whereby the central parts are perfused with more hear or spirits then the circumferential ones but notwithstanding the mixture is equal in particles * That is in the whole yet in parts or if not in parts they are in particles * Or rather is expressed by the overpowering gravity of the weighty clements as you may read below in the Chap. of Vacuum * Or rather are the easier expelled by the down presâing earth * Hereby the earthy waterish parts are divided from the light ones and cast aside hence it is that we spy such a clodding together of waterish earthy particles and their separation from the light humours in bloud drawn from a feaverish patient * By taking advice from our sense * That is the spirits dispersed through the optick ayr * That is lucid * That is equal in proportion * To wit extrinsecally by peregrin water * That is homogeneously continuous * Compare the quoted place other wise you will scarce apprehend the sense of these consequences * Because it is represented without being terminated by any mixt colour * By pinching here do not understand a greater obtension but rather a relaxing or withdrawing from or a contraction of the light and drawing of it from the sight by being relaxed drowned deaded by a dense weighty body * Or rather by coagulating the white salt of the Aq. Fort. * Or a reflection continuated * Namely of an opake body * That is inheres in the air like an accident in its substance â Whereas an accident and its substance are not really different as hath been proved in my Metaph * That is fire not converted into a flame * viz. The pallate and gills * Or a perspective-Glass first invented some 40 or 50 years ago by Jacobus Metius of Alcmaer although accidentally by holding one piece of glass before another to his eye whereof the nearest was somewhat thicker theÌ the other * To wit from the extreme circumference of the second region to the circumference of the first * Because of its depressing weight * viz. To operate presently from the stomack upon the heart as soon as the medicament is swallowed down * The beast it self wherin it is found they call Pazan * And in the Island Vacquas near the mouth of the Gulph of cambain likewise in the Country of Pan near Malacca * I have wittingly omitted the inferring the Draconite as being dubious whether any such be in nature * In the iense ex pressed in the Chapt. of temp * Suppose them to be transversly contorted inclining from East to West most to terminate obliquely into the poles especially the North Pole in its North Hemisphere â That is in the North Hemisphere * To wit most in its lower region * To wit the Sun * Namely of the Needle * To wit the latent fire into which the extinguisht flame was dissolved * Except where it is condensed * Or by incision * Of each dissimilar part in particular * From the Buleares Ilands to wit Majorca Minorca * From Baltheus a Belt because it environeth Sconen like a Belt * These should have have been inserted in the preceding Chap. * Or 30 single periods * Hence you may collect the cause of the retardation of the tide every day * Namely at the bottom underneath ergo the waters must also begin to move from underneath * viz. The east west grove * Namely the west grove * Take notice by the way that by Grove I do not intend any thing like to a Grove of trees as the word is derived from growing but a cavern as the same word is derived from Groven or to grave into the earth * For one drop of water in an AEolipile is attenuated into a great blast of wind or air as the vulgar may call it Ergo c. * That is underneath some what what remote from the reach of the water atop * Or rather to be boâed or prâfied through * And likewise the air about the Poles irrupting into the water as you may read in the next Chapter * To wit by the crushing of the air tending downwards * Add hereunto the rarefying beams of the Sun intending the force of the internal air towards the circumference in the same manner as you shall read it to be intended within the Earth in the next Chapter * These are very frequent off the Cape de bona Esper. where Sailers term them Travadas * Namely off the short of Cuba and Hispaniola * Or rather is detruded * Like Gun powder suddenly taking fire causing a violent noise when discharged out of a gun or any other close hollow body * Except they be descended so low as to find themselves seated within the upper erratick clouds * Besides it appears plainly in a Thermometer * To wit externally * Besides acutenesse as we have observed in the 1 B. 2 Par. as a concomitant of Density whereby a weighty body is also the better disposed to cut through the inferiour part of the air when pressed from the superiour * As in fountains that are led over a mountain or in Machins that raise the water higher than its source * To wit impressed upon the air by the Projector * Namely for to recover its place and to avoid a penetration of bodies * In the same manner as we have described the air to force up water in vapours * To wit being incorporated with fire * Compare the generation of winds hereunto for the manner is the same of both * That is is bound up by the continuous tenuity of the air * Witness the ââ¦sones * viz. the adventitious matter * Otherwise if held near to it it is conical * viz. as there are restant deg from 346 deg 49 min. c. to 360 degr * That is remoter â But accidentally by expelling those vapours that incrassate it * To wit from the knee
compress its parts any more then it was compressed before but a stone or other mixt heavy body lying upon the ground presseth a hole into the ground yet if as much more earth as there is contained in such a stone were cast upon the same place it would not make any sensible cavity or Impression the reason is because in a stone or mixt body the earth is violently detained and therefore useth the greater force or compression to the Center but earth being in its natural seat doth not This quality may be called coldness supposing it to be a passion wrought upon the tact by the earth punctually pressing to the Center In this sense coldness is an absolute quality in another it may be taken for a privation of heat because it seizeth upon the tact only in the absence of heat According to the former sense doth the Poet elegantly explain the nature of Cold. Nam penetrabile frigus adurit For the penetrating cold doth burn By penetrating its compression is intended That the cold is penetrating and pressing none that ever hath been in Greenland will deny wherefore in that it is an absolute quality In the latter sense it may be taken for a privation for it is the absence of heat which effecteth Coldness yet not per se but per accidens because as long as the heat is in a body it doth through its motion ad extra balance and temper the motion of cold ad iutra but the heat being departed then coldness doth through its compression punctually divide the continuous parts of the body as the ayry and waterish parts of it and so coldness is reduced to action through the defect of heat to balance it This we are sensible of in the Winter at which time there being a detraction of the ambient heat the earthy parts contained in the Ayr do then through their weight press down upon us and being arrived to our skin they repel the heat which being repelled they joyn with the earthy parts of our Body and so cause a greater punctual compression whence we soon feel a dense acuteness thence an asperity and thence a hardness or rigidity When again we approach the fire then its heat joynes with our internal heat and expelling the extrinsick cold parts it doth force the intrinsick ones back to the Circumference and so we grow hot again VIII There is also a Compression observeable in water but much different from that caused by earth water compressing the tact with a continuation and not punctually and therefore the compression made by water is equal thick and obtuse whence it is that when we have newly washt our hands with cold water we feel a thick levor upon them caused by the continuous pressure of the water The division which produceth this cold passion in our tact is not by separating or disjoyning its continuous parts but by squeezing the Ayr contained within its pores which being squeezed impelleth also the fiery spirits seated about these Pores from which impulsion we feel a punctual and acute division so that the passion raised by water doth per se only compress obtusely the continuous parts of our tact through a squeezing and per accidens it disuniteth them punctually by impelling the fiery spirits effentially inhering in the said tangent parts besides water containing some earthy points doth by reason of them excite withal a small acute compression Arist. Lib. 2. de ort anim Cap. 4. and in Lib. 1. de Meteor Cap. 4. seemes to assert that coldness is nothing else but a privation of heat For saith he the two Elements implying water and earth remain cold by reason of the defect of circular motion making heat Zabarel Lib. 2. de qual Elem. cap. 3. makes good my Opinion although by guess or at least we must say that coldness is really in it self a positive quality but wherein this positive quality consisteth he knoweth not but that it ariseth from a privation of heat and in respect of heat it may take place among privations This tends to the same purpose as I have stated before namely that coldness cannot act unless heat be absent in such a proportion as that it may have power over it The same is appliable to heat and the other qualities viz. that they are privations in regard they cannot act without the absence of their Opposites but that they are positive because they act sensibly in the absence of the said opposites But what shall I think of Aristotle who hath soon altered his opinion in Lib. 2. de Ort. Inter. Text. 9. Cold is that doth equally conjoyn and congregate bodies that are of the same Gender as well as those of a differing Gender A plain Contradiction for that which doth conjoyn and congregate bodies by condensation must be positive according to his own words yet nevertheless above he asserted it to be a Privation I wave this and proceed in making disquisition upon his Definition Broath as long as it remaines boyling hot the fat of it is contained within it being exactly mixed with the water but assoon as it cooles it is separated and cast forth to the top ergo cold doth segregate heterogenea from homogenea Earth separates her self from water and water segregates her parts from fire and ayr but water and earth are cold and yet do not congregate their own parts with others of another gender Ergo. 2. This is no more but the mentioning of one of its remote effects for they themselves grant that it produceth this effect through condensation ergo cold is not formally defined but described through one of its effects It now proves easie to us to decide that inveterated dispute concerning the primum frigidum That which doth most divide the tact by compression is the primum frigidum or the coldest but the earth doth most compress our tact or tangent parts for it doth compress the tact acutely and water obtusely only ergo it is the coldest 2. According to their own Tenents that which doth most condense is the coldest but earth condenses most for it condensates her own parts into Metals and Stones but water although it incrassates yet it cannot condense bodies into that consistence which earth doth ergo 3. That which is heaviest is the coldest for condensation is an effect of weight but earth is heaviest ergo Lastly If it be your pleasure to name Earth a frigidum in summo and Water a frigidum in remisso Fire a calidum in summo sive intenso and Ayr calidum in remisso you may without Offence CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualities of the Elements 1. The Second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The State of the Controversie 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilst he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning then a
a most excellent Uterin Vegetable comforting the complexion of the Matrix reserating its greatest obstructions expelling all excrementitious humours through facilitating the menstrua producing withal a swift and easie Labour in Women and is admirable in forcing a dead Child out of the Matrix Besides it is much conducing in all Hysterick suffocations being very hot and dry and penetrating 2. Mugwort is hot and dry aperitive and discutient cleanseth the Matrix and excels in the same vertue that Dittany doth 3. Fetherfew is very hot dry penetrating and aperitive yielding to neither of the precedents in vertues It is most efficacious in June XII The Arthriticks are 1. Sassafras If there be ever a Neuritick under the Canopy of the Heavens it is the Bark of the root of this tree strengthning weak joynts and relaxt sinews drying up Catarrhs beyond all belief and in the Gout it is miraculous being hot dry aromatick sudorifick discutient and aperitive 2. Ground Pine is a certain and most efficacious Neuritick and admirable in curing the Gout It is very dry and hot aperitive and cutting 3. Germander although the last of the three is not therefore inferiour to the first but agreeing in the same vertues and qualities with it Both these latter are in their greatest strength in July XIII Lastly to please all parties I shall beyond my purpose recommend three of the most approved Vegetables to help the languor of the parts destined for the preservation of the species The first is Dog stones being of a moist and hot temperament comforting those parts to admiration and rendring either Sex very lusty The second is Green Ginger which is only fit to be eaten by those that are of a frigid temperature whom it will soon put into a contrary passion The third is Rocket an herb whose seed is potent enough to change the coldest temperament into a Satyrs lasciviousness If now your mind tends to the contempt of this beastiality then certainly spirit or sugar of Saturn will put you into another kind of devotion and better sute with your temper Here I have proposed to you a select number of Simples sufficient to cure most internal diseases that are incident to the body of man whereby you may be guided out of those dangers accompanying the making choice of them out of that infinite number of Vegetables whose vertues you must be forced to take upon other mens words oft disagreeing with the expected effects Wherefore know that each of these excepting the latter four I have experienced many and many times upon several bodies not only so but have had them formerly in my travels recommended to me by the eminentest of Physitians abroad as the greatest and most certain vegetable specificks XIV For a Corollary take the description of some rare Plants The Parisatico alias Singady or the mournful tree groweth only at Goa Malacca and some few other places in shape it resembles a Pium-tree it doth within half an hour after the Suns going down shew it self white all over with most pleasant and fragrant flowers Like to those of an Orange tree whereas at the Suns going down there was not one to be seen upon it These flowers stick fast all night untill the rising of the Sun and then they do all fall off but towards the Evening others are spread forth again and so this continues all the year long Arvore de Rays or the root tree is an East-Indian shrub growing up to a certain height and spreading it self into branches from whose top roots do grow down into the earth whence they spring out again into other shrubs of the former height which again at their top emit other roots downwards in a manner that in some space of time this shrub spreading it self near half an English mile round becomes an intire Forâest formed as it were out of one continuous Tree The herb Sentida or sensitive Plant may be a pattern of chastity to all the which if you do only touch or cast a little sand upon it its leaves do immediately retract and shut themselves up and do open no sooner again than your finger or what you have cast upon them is withdrawn The she Palm-trees it is observed do not yield any fruit unless planted near to a male Palm tree to which they seem all to incline having their boughs more extended towards it at that side than at any other whence the AEthiopians do usually plant them so that the wind may carry steams from the Male to the Female but in case the male tree be taken away from between the others they become barren and give over bringing forth fruit The fruits of the Indian Palm tree are called Coquos being filled within with water the wight within is very tender and soft and tastes like to an Artichoke but after a longer maturation groweth harder and eats like a Haselhut The water which each of them contains in the measure of a pint or two is very clear and pleasant to drink This tree contains materials for a whole Ship Its wood being light and spongy they cut into planck which they tie together with cords that are drawn off from the said Coquos The sails are made out of the leaves which the Indians call Olas It is reported that there is a tree in Java Major whose innermost marrow is Iron being very thin and running through the whole length of the tree Its fruit is likewise as hard as Iron In the Island of Tylos there are Cotten trees whose gourds being of the bigness of Quinces are found to be full of Cotten when they break through over-ripeness There is a tree in the Island Cimbubon whose twigs being fallen down to the ground do move themselves forwards as if they crept having two small legs of each side and if they be toucht they creep back CHAP. VI. Of Water in order to her Commerce with the other Elements 1. The Etymology of Water That Water naturally is hard and consistent and not fluid 2. The Division of Water 3. What a Lake is The strange vertues of some Lakes 4. What a Fountain is The wonderful properties of some Fountains 5. Of Physical Wells 6. Of Baths 7. Of Rivers and their rare properties 8. Of the chief Straits of the Sea 1. VVAter seems to be derived from washing from its use because people make use of it to wash their foul things with So leau in French from Laver to wash and Wasser in High Dutch from Waschen denoting the same Aqua in the Latine was imposed upon it for to express its excellency and its absolute necessity for the preservation of humane life Aqua dieitur quasi a qua vivamus nutriamur a qua nobis plurima supersint commoda Pisces nobis alit navium vehiculo inservit quibus non pauca nobis afferuntur necessaria ignisque est pardomitrix terram foecundans aeremque spirabilem nobis reddens Formerly we have discoursed of Water and its form absolutely considered now