have one common matter whereof they are generated and if they have one what can be the cause of their different shapes and formes for we see the snow broad and soft contrarieways haile round and hard No question but one matter is common to all viz. Waters from which by vapours they are elevated to the aire and in which they are dissolved againe but the difference standeth here That the neerest matter to say so of snow is vapours congealed in a cloud which hath in it a great mixture of aire by which meanes being some way heated when the snow dissolveth you see it holdeth open and soft by reason of that aire whereas haile hath no airy substance in it and thus qualified by experience that we see haile fall downe on a suddaine and ofttimes with violence because of the terrestriall heavinesse of it whereas snow falleth but leasurely The reason why haile is round may be this because falling down from the middle region where it is congealed by the way it reencountereth with some circular and round drop of raine or water which accordingly by the rolling about of the haile it selfe becommeth hard likewise more especially as not having any hot place but the cold aire to fall through till it light on our lowest region which accidentally hot for the time you see maketh them immediately after their lighting upon the earth to dissolve quickly or at least not long after And as these two are formed in the highest of the middle regions and for the extreame cold which is there are congealed so on the other side because the clouds from whence raine issueth doe not ascend so high therefore they dissolve in drops before they can be congealed And so by degrees dew and Hoar-frost because they are not mounted so high as the matter and clouds of raine Therefore they fall sooner and softlyer then raine doth so one matter is common mother unto all of them but the degrees of their elevation in the aire maketh their differences the haile higher then the Snow the Snow then the Raine the Raine then the Hoar-frost mildew or dew is CHAP 10. Of Rivers Fountaines and Springs their sources and causes THere ariseth a question here not unworthy of our consideration Whether the Springs and Rivers in and on the earth have their originall from the waters of the Sea by subterranean conduits or from the waters on the superfice of the earth which is caused by raine or finally from the huge and unmeasurable caverns and hollow places of the earth in whose bowells are monstrous lakes pooles and other standing waters created of the ayre therein enclosed which not having any vent to ascend upward but being condensed there dissolveth it selfe into these waters Now before we enter into the solution of this question we must understand that when I speake of the vast and endlesse caves like valleys within the bowels of the earth wherein waters are that it is no invention of mine own for Seneca with him Aristotle in his Meteorologicks in the 19 booke of his naturall questions instanceth it saying Quid miraris saith he si distructos terra non sentiat cum adjectos mare non sentit And againe Quemad modum supra nos imbres it a infra nos fluvios aer facit supra autem nos diu segnis aer stare non potest qui aut sole atteâ—uatur aut vento expâ—nditur sub terra autem quod aerem in aquam vertit idem semper est scilicet umbra aeterna frigus perenne in excitato densitas quae semper materiam fontibus fluminibusque praebebunt and so forth all which hee confirmeth in that same place by authority of Theophrast whom hee bringeth in saying That since the Earth hath swallowed Townes Cities and houses who can doubt but that there are within her bowels Brookes Caves Dens and Valleyes which seeing they cannot be empty must of necessity bee full of waters Seeing then all things are composed of all the Elements as of their common causes For water is a thickned ayre and the Ayre againe a rarified water How then can these subterranean hollow places but be full of waters since the Earth doth dissolve in waters to fil them up For the earth being delved or digged but a very few footsteps downe water doth straight appeare earth and water being of as great affinity as ayre and waters are howbeit Zeno and others doe contradict this opinion saying That the Earth is a massie solid and homogenean body I say that absolutely the Sea as a common Mother to all waters is she from whence all Rivers and Springs have their source but yet not so wholly but that they may be augmented by raine and water as wee see by experience that after huge raines both Fountaines and rivers doe accreasse And if it bee asked how water being of its owne nature heavie can leave its owne element and centre and bee conveighed to the tops of Mountaines and high places as may bee daily seene almost every where To this first I say that the Sea being some way higher than the Earth most easily by its owne conduits and channels it may make passage unto it selfe as through so many veines Besides this the vapours which the Suns heat and the power of some other Planets raiseth from the waters even under the earth are not ever exhaled and carried aloft to the Ayre but sometimes are even retained for a long time in solid places of the innermost parts of the earth where gathering themselves into the concavities thereof they boile upward by the force of the said agitation as a pot upon the fire by the force of an under heare so these waters bubling up through the earth cause our fountaines which running downeward againe to the Valleys and Plaines doe make our Brookes Rivers and Springs And of this opinion is venerable Albertus Coloniensis commenting Aristotle upon this question Dubio nono decimo Or it may be said that the caverns and concavities of the earth being filled up with waters which distill from the want of the caved earth above are procured by the grosse Ayre there inclosed and converted into waters which issuing out of the rarer or voider parts of the Earth above do occasion these Springs Rivers and Brookes If it be demanded if steepe Mountaines do not retribute and send downe waters to feed our Springs and Rivers there is no question for in their concavities of certaine there are treasures of waters which bursting out at their lower parts doe yeeld plenty enough to bedew the lower Countries not that these waters are gathered there by raines which fall for raine-waters penetrate not so deepe into the earth but rather that the Mountaines themselves being spongeous doe attract and draw together their whole dissolved waterish matter to the frontiers and concavities from whence surging and breaking-forth through orifices they grow into springs brooks and sometimes rivers
his trunck from the Pole Artick from the North and East to the Antartick South West stretching forth the left Arme to the Mediterranean the other to the West-Indian-Seas now the Ocean as the lungs of this imagined body worketh by Systole and Diastole on the neerer parts to it maketh a flux and reflux where its force faileth in the extremities the hands and feet the Mediterranean and Indian Seas Quest. How is that possible that you admit no flux nor reflux to the West-Indian-Seas seeing their Histories informe us that at Magellanes-strait that same West Sea doth glide through the firme land of America into the Mare Del Zur and that with such rapiditie and vertiginousnesse that no Ship is able with Wind or Art to returne from that South-Sea backward Answ. That must not be thought so much a flowing as the course of Nature whereby the Heavens Sun Moone and Stars yea and the Sea doe course from East to West as that Strait doth run I may joyne to this the Easterly-wind which of all others bloweth most commonly as elsewhere so there also which furthereth that violent course and of this opinion is Peter Martyr in his Decads upon the Historie of that Countrey Quest. Admit all be true you say but what have you to say to this that the Mare Del Zur hath flux and reflux and yet your West-Indian-Seas have little or none as you confesse how then can the Moone be the cause of the universall Seas ebbing and flowing seeing they two under one Moone both are neverthelesse so different in Nature and yet so neere in place Answ. Seeing Ferdinando Oviedes who was both Cosmographer Hydographer leaveth that question undilucidated as a thing rather to be admired than solved leaving to the Reader thereby in a manner to adore the great Maker in the variousnes of his works I thinke much more may I be excused not to pry too deepely in it Quest. What is the cause then seeing the Moone is alike in power over all waters that Lakes and Rivers flow not and ebbe not as well as the Sea doth Answ. Because these waters are neither large nor deepe enough for her to worke upon and so they receive but a small portion of her influence Quest. What is the reason why seeing the Sea is salt that the Rivers and Fountaines which flow from her for we all know that the Sea is the Mother of all other waters as to her they runne all back againe exinde fluere saith the Poet retro sublapsareferri are not salt likewise Answ. Because the Earth through whose veines and conduits these waters doe passe to burst forth thereafter in springs cleanseth and mundifieth all saltnesse from them as they passe It seemeth that your former discourse maketh way for answer to such as aske why the Sea doth never debord nor accreace a whit notwithstanding that all other waters doe degorge themselves into her bosome the reason being because there runneth ever as much out of her to subministrate water to springs and rivers as she affordeth them But is it possible which is reported that our late Navigators have found by experience that the Seas water so many fathomes below the superficies is fresh so that now they may draw up waters to their shippes by certaine woodden or rather yron vessells which ovally closed doe slyde thorough the first two or three fathomes of the salted superfice downe to the fresh waters where artificially it opens and being filled straight shutteth againe and so is drawne up which they report to have but small difference in tast from the waters of fresh Rivers which if it bee true is a strange but a most happily discovered secret Answ. Yea it is possible for probably it may be thought that the Sunnes raies which before are granted to bee the cause of the Seas saltnesse penetrate no further than the first superfice like as on the contrary the coldnesse of the Northerne windes freezeth but the uppermost water congealing them into Ice or the reason may better be the perpetuall and constant running and disgolfing of Rivers brookes and springs from the earth into it And verily I could be induced to thinke the Mediterranean sea the Sound of Norwey and such like which lye low and are every where encompassed with the higher land except where they breake in from the greater Ocean that such Seas should be fresh low in regard of the incessant currents of large Rivers into them and in respect they doe not furnish water back again to the springs rivers and fountaines seeing they are low beneath the earth yea it hath troubled many braines to understand what becommeth of these waters which these Seas dayly receave but it cannot bee receaved for possible that the waters of the great Ocean are fresh at least drinkably fresh under the first two or three fathomes it being by God in natures decree made salt for portablenesse Sect. 7. That the Mountaines and valleys dispersed over the earth hindreth not the Compleatnesse of its roundnesse Of burning mountaines and Caves within the earth BVt leaving the Sea thus much may be demaunded concerning the earth why it is said to be round since there are so inaccessible high mountaines and such long tracts of plaine valleys scattered over it all Answ. These mountaines and valleys are no more in respect of the earth to hinder its roundnesse then a little flie is upon a round bowll or a naile upon a wheele to evince the rotunditie of it for the protuberances of such knobs deface not the exact roundnesse of the whole Globe as not having a comparable proportion with it But what signifie these burning mountaines so frightfull to men which may be seene in severall places of the earth as that of Island called Hecla in Sicilie called Aetna besides the burning hills of Naples which I have seene one in Mexico in our new found lands of America so formidable as is wonderfull If the earth be cold as you give it forth to be then how can these mountaines burne so excessively or if they bee chimneys of hell venting the fire which burneth there in the center of the earth or not Answ. No question but as there are waters of divers sorts some sweet others salt and others sulphureous according to the minerall veynes they run thorough right so there be some partes of the earth more combustible then others which once being enflamed and kindled either by the heate of the Sunnes beames or by some other accident and then fomented by a little water which rather redoubleth the heate then extinguisheth it as we see by experience in our farriers or smiths forges where to make their coales or charco ales burne the bolder they bedew or besprinkle them with water they hold stil burning the sulphureous ground ever subministrating fewell to the inflammation But they and the like do not hinder the earths being cold no more than one or
I may say and impious to be propounded And it is great presumption for mortall men to reduce under the precinct of humane sciences those things the knowledge of which GOD out of His infinite wisedome hath thought fit not to impart to mortalls For as God is above nature so worketh He after His owne will either supernaturally or else by some secret power of Nature unknowne to us To which point the most subtile of all the Ancient Philosophers some times were driven And yet these great spirits who could not content themselves but w th the speculation of such things as fell not under the reach and capacity of the weaker and meaner sort did sometimes in the meaner subjects stumble most miserably So while they ranne above the heavens roaving and tormenting themselves with their numbers matter force motions sounding depths and centre yea and turning the circumference of the earth overskimming the Seas saluting the Antipodes and bringing novells from their Courts and of their Caballs dreaming with themselves as Archimedes did that they might remove the Globe of the universe out of its owne place and turne it about if they had whereon and wherein to fixe their machins they in the end I say doe stumble and fall in grosse absurdities like those men who peradventure having sailed the better part of their lives upon the stormy Ocean and past her greatest dangers may neverthelesse at last be drowned in a little Brooke Medium tenuere Beati Section 10. An inducement to the studie and search of the secrets of Nature Of the Needle in the Sea compasse Of the inundations of the River of Nilus And from whence it hath its sourse and beginning Of the severall dispositions of men Why continuall burning hills and Mountaines doe not diminish c. BVt on what more fertill and spacious a field can curious Spirits extend and expatiate the wings of their fancies then the discovery and searching out of the secrets of Nature as in those things which are obvious to our outward senses leaving those contemplative mysteries afore spoken of to the omniscious Author of them for when mans curiosity hath reached or rather dived into the depth of the secrets of the heavenly bodies and their changes then the Creator to checke as it were their curiosities and presumption altereth that orderly course that they presumed to have gathered thereby which made Dionysius Areopagita seeing the Sunne Ecclipsed at full Moone when our LORD and SAVIOUR suffered contrary to their Astronomicall position to cry out that either the God of Nature suffered at that time or the course of Nature was inverted or the Machine of the universe was to dissolve with other the like examples knowne to all that are versed in the Scripture Now to speake a little more of the incertainty of these curiosities Mercator and other more moderne Geographers hold that the needle in the compasse doth vary more or lesse from the Pole as the place of observation is more or lesse distant from the Azorick Meridian from whence it hath its longitude Whereas the more ancient tooke its longitude to be from the Canaries Meridian Some againe as Herodotus will the River of Nilus to take its source and beginning from the forked top of the Mountaine Sienna in Ethiopia from whence saith he doe surge two admirable Currents one towards the South and Ethiopia the other toward the North and Aegypt I call these currents admirable because the Whirlepooles and bublings in these waters are so great violent and absorping that though a Boate were there tyde with most strong Cables yet they would suck it in and ingurgitate it Others will have its inundations and Increment to issue from the hills of the Moone in Arabia A montibus lunae Arabia-Australis whereupon such abundance of Snow falleth that it liquifying and melting runneth so abundantly and violently downe that it procureth these wonderfull inundations Plinius againe if Sabell mistake not lib. 3. Eneid 1. maketh its source and deboarding to flow from Affrick crossing Media as the Danube doth Europe Or else from Mauritania the lesser instancing for possibility that the melted snow discending from thence causeth the overflowings in Aegypt from whence say they serpenting and gliding through a vast tract of ground in the bowels of the earth that striving as it were to be refreshed with new aire it bursteth out in Mauritania Caesariensi where it runneth the space of twenty dayes journey againe under ground from whence it issueth againe and plentifully stretcheth it selfe through Ethiopia with many meandres and turnings and separateth Aegypt from the rest of Africk where finally through most rockie Precipitious and Declivous Mountaines with most hideous rumbling and terrible noyse it casteth it selfe down where the Catadupae dwell and running through Aegypt disburdeneth it selfe into the Mediterranean Sea Others againe not without great contradiction doe variously picture out the severall dispositions of men according to their severall Countryes whereof read Bodinus in his sixth Chapter lib. 5. of his Republick where he saith that those who are borne towards the South are more humane ingenious and affable then those towards the North with severall other distinctions which hee setteth downe in that Chapter Some too give the reason why so many great hills in severall places of the earth doe incessantly burne without great diminution of the earth or their greatnesse to be because the Sea winding it selfe in by secret Conduits doth continually arrouse or water the Sulphureous vaine which subministrates fewell to their flame as the endlesnesse of the combustible matter is the cause of the not diminishing of the earth with many of the like as may bee read in severall authors Wherefore thus much for the contemplative and coniecturall curiosity Now to the Practick Section 11. Of Christopher Columbus his Practicall Curiosity in his discovery of the new World or America NOw lastly to conclude this treatise with Practicall curiosity instead of many I will onely touch that so fortunate and so much famed one of Columbus in the discovery of America He was an Italian borne in Genoa whose most pregnant curious and searching wit farre excelled all that ever were before him in the like attempts This worthy Columbus I say imagining that since the Globe of the universe the celestiall Spheares Aire Waters and all superior bodies were round concluded with himselfe that the earth could not bee triangular as in a manner it then was when hee knew no other lands but Europe Africk Asia but circular and round also as the rest of the Elements and so consequently that there behooved to be some vaste tract of land yet unknowne which should extend it selfe from South West to North West Which conception of his he thus fortified That seeing of three hundred and sixty degrees which the world containeth in longitude there being onely one hundred eighty filled up with land that the Almighty Creator would not have