rise before Tempests 8. The weak subterraneal spirit which is breathed out scatteringly is not perceived upon the earth until it be gathered into wind by reason the earth is full of pores but when it issues from under the water it is presently perceived by reason of the waters continuity by some manner swelling 9. We resolved before that in Cavernous and Denny places there were attendant winds insomuch that those winds seem to have their local beginnings out of the earth 10. In great and rocky Hills winds are found to breath sooner namely before they be perceived in the Valleys and more frequently namely when it is calm weather in the valleys But all mountains and rocks are cavernous and hollow 11. In Wales in the County of Denbigh a mountainous and rocky Country out of certain Caves as Gilbertus relateth are such vehement eruptions of wind that cloaths or linnen laid out there upon any occasion are blown up and carried a great way up into the air 12. In Aber Barry near Severn in Wales in a rocky cliff are certain holes to which if you lay your ear you shall hear divers sounds and murmurs of winds under ground An Indirect Experiment Acosta hath observed that the Towns of Plata and Potosa in Peru are not far distant one from the other and both situated upon a high and hilly ground so that they differ not in that And yet Potosa hath a cold and winter-like air and Plata hath a mild and spring-like témperature which difference it seems may be attributed to the silver Mines which are near Potosa Which sheweth that there are breathing places of the earth as in relation to hot and cold 13. If the earth be the first cold thing according to Parmenides whose opinion is not contemptible seeing cold and density are knit together by a strict knot it is no less probable that there are hotter breaths sent out from the Central cold of the earth than are cast down from the cold of the higher air 14. There are certain Wells in Dalmatia and the Country of Cyrene as some of the Ancients record into which if you cast a stone there will presently arise tempests as if the stone had broken some covering of a place in which the force of the winds was inclosed An Indirect Experiment Aetna and divers other Mountains cast out fire therefore it is likely that air may likewise break forth especially being dilatated and set into motion by heat in subterraneal places 15. It hath been noted that both before and after Earth-quakes there hath blown certain noxious and forraign winds as there are certain little smothers usually before and after great firings and burnings Monition The Air shut up in the earth is forced to break out for several causes sometimes a mass of earth ill joined together falls into a hollow place of the earth sometimes waters do ingulf themselves sometimes the Air is extended by subterraneal heats and seeks for more room sometimes the earth which before was solid and vaulted being by fires turned into ashes no longer able to bear it self up falls And many such like causes And so these Inquisitions have been made concerning the first local beginning of winds Now followeth the second origine or beginning from above namely from that which they call the middle Region of the air Monition But let no man understand what hath been spoken so far amiss as if we should deny the rest of the winds also are brought forth of the earth by vapours But this first kind was of winds which come forth of the earth being already perfectly framed winds 16. It hath been observed that there is a murmuring of woods before we do plainly perceive the winds whereby it is conjectured that the wind descends from a higher place which is likewise observed in Hills as we said before but the cause is more ambiguous by reason of the concavity and hollowness of the hills 17. Wind follows darted or as we call them shooting stars and it come that way as the star hath shot whereby it appears that the air hath been moved above before the motion comes to us 18. The opening of the Firmament and dispersion of Clouds are Prognosticks of winds before they blow here on earth which also shews that the winds begin above 19. Small stars are not seen before the rising of winds though the night be clear and fair Because it should seem the Air grows thick and is less transparent by reason of that matter which afterward is turned into wind 20. There appears Circles about the body of the Moon the Sun looks sometimes blood red at its setting the Moon rises red at her fourth rising and there are many more Prognosticks of winds on high whereof we will speak in its proper place which shews that the matter of the winds is there begun and prepared 21. In these Experiments you must note that difference we spake of namely of the two-fold generation of winds on high that is to say before the gathering together of vapours into a Cloud and after For the Prognosticks of Circles about and colours of the Sun and Moon have something of the Cloud but that darting and occultation of the lesser stars is in fair and clear weather 22. When the wind comes out of a Cloud ready formed either the Cloud is totally dispersed and turned into wind or it is torn and rent in sunder and the wind breaks out as in a storm 23. There are many Indirect Experiments in the world concerning the repercussion by cold So that it being certain that there are most extream colds in the middle region of the Air it is likewise plain that vapours for the most part cannot break through that place without being joined and gathered together or darted according to the opinion of the Ancients which in this particular is true and sound The third local beginning of winds is of those which are ingendred here in the lower part of the air which we also call swellings or overburthenings of the Air. A thing very familiar and frequent yet passed over with silence A Commentation The generation of those winds which are made up in this lower part of the Air is a thing no more obscure than this namely that the Air newly composed and made up of water and attenuated and resolved vapours joined with the first Air cannot be contained within the same bounds as it was before but groweth out and is turned and takes up further room Yet there are in this two things to be granted First that one drop of water turned into air whatsoever they fabulously speak of the tenth proportion of the Elements requires at least a hundred times more room than it had before Secondly that a little new air and moved added to the old air shaketh the whole and sets it into motion as we may perceive by a little wind that comes forth of a pair of Bellows or in at a little crevise of a window or wall
diversity of the matter which feedeth them by which they are engendred as Sea Snow Marishes or the like Or by the tincture of the Countrys through which they pass Or by their original local beginnings on high under ground in the middle all which things the ensuing Articles will better declare and explain 38. All winds have a power to dry yea more than the Sun it self because the Sun draws out the vapours but if it be not very fervent it doth not disperse them but the wind both draws them out and carries them away But the south wind doth this least of any and both timber and stones sweat more when the South wind blows a little than when it is calm and lies still 39. March winds are far more drying than summer winds insomuch that such as make Musical Instruments will stay for March winds to dry their stuff they make their Instruments of to make it more porous and better sounding 40. All manner of winds purge the air and cleanse it from all putrifaction so that such years as are most windy are most healthful 41. The Sun is like to Princes who sometimes having appointed Deputies in some remote Countries the subjects there are more obsequious to those Deputies and yield them more respect than to the Prince himself And so the winds which have their power and origine from the Sun do govern the temperatures of the Countries and the disposition of the air as much or more than the Sun it self Insomuch that Peru which by reason of the nearness of the Ocean the vastness of Rivers and exceeding great and high hills hath abundance of winds and blasts blowing there may contend with Europe for a temperate and sweet air 42. It is no wonder if the force and power of winds be so great as it is found to be Vehement winds being as Inundations Torrents and Flowings of the spacious air Neither if we attentively heed it is their power any great matter They can throw down trees which with their tops like unto spread sails give them advantage to do it and are a burden to themselves Likewise they can blow down weak buildings strong and firm ones they cannot without Earthquakes join with them Sometimes they will blow all the snow off the tops of hills buryng the Valley that is below them with it as it befel Soliman in the Sultanian fields They will also sometimes drive in waters and cause great Inundations 43. Sometimes winds will dry up Rivers and leave the Channels bare For if after a great drought a strong wind blows with the Current for many days so that it as it were sweeps away the water of the River into the sea and keeps the Sea water from coming in the River will dry up in many places where it doth uot use to be so Monition Turn the Poles and withal turn the Observations as concerning the North and South For the presence and absence of the Sun being the cause it must vary according to the Poles But this may be a constant thing that there is more sea towards the south and more land towards the North which doth not a little help the winds Monition Winds are made or engendred a thousand ways as by the subsequent Inquisition it will appear so to fix that Observations in a thing so various is not very easie Yet those things which we have set down are for the most part most certain Local beginnings of Winds To the eighth Article Connexion TO know the local beginnings of winds is a thing which requires a deep search and Inquisition seeing that the Whence and Whither of winds are things noted even in Scripture to be abstruse and hidden Neither do we now speak of the Fountains or beginnings of particular winds of which more shall be said hereafter but of the matrixes of winds in general Some fetch them from above some search for them in the deep but in the middle where they are for the most part engendred no body hardly looks for them such is the custom of men to enquire after things which are obscure and omit those things which lie as it were in their way This is certain that winds are either in-bred or strangers For winds are as it were Merchants of vapors which being by them gathered into Clouds they carry out and bring in again into Countreys from whence winds are again returned as it were by exchange But let us now enquire concerning Native winds for those which coming from another place are strangers are in another place Natives There are three local beginnings of them They either breath or spring out of the ground or are cast down from above or are here made up in the body of the Air. Those which are cast down from above are of a double generation for they are either cast down before they be formed into Clouds or afterwards composed of rarified and dispersed Clouds Let us now see what is the History of these things 1. The Poets feigned Eolus his Kingdom to be placed under ground in Dens and Caves where the winds prison was out of which they were at times let forth 2. Some Philosophical Divines moved by those words of Scripture He brings forth the winds out of his Treasures think that the winds come out of some Treasuries namely places under ground amongst the Mines of Minerals But this is nothing for the Scripture speaketh likewise of the Treasures of Snow and Hail which doubtless are engendred above 3. Questionless in subterraneal places there is great store of Air which it is very likely sometimes breaths out by little and little and sometimes again upon urgent causes must needs come rushing forth together An Indirect Experiment In great droughts and in the middle of Summer when the ground is cleft and chopped there breaks out water many times in dry and sandy places Which if waters being a gross body do though it be but seldom it is probable that the air which is a subtile and tenuous body may often do it 4. If the Air breaths out of the earth by little and little and scatteringly it is little perceived at the first but when many of those small emanations or comings out are come together there is a wind produced as a River out of several Springs And this seems to be so because it hath been observed by the Ancients that many winds in those places where they begin do at first blow but softly which afterward grow stronger and increase in their progress like unto Rivers 5. There are some places in the Sea and some Lakes also which swell extreamly when there is no wind stirring which apparently proceeds from some subterraneal wind 6. There is great quantity of subterraneal spirit required to shake or cleave the earth less will serve turn for the raising of water Wherefore earthquakes come but seldom risings and swellings of waters are more frequent 7. Likewise it is every where taken notice of that waters do somewhat swell and
History and experiments of arts he is gravelled or sticks in the mire it is not his intention he hath no time nor will not be at the charge yet we must not desire to have men cast off old things before they have gotten new But after a copious and faithful History of Nature and Arts is gathered and digested and as it were set and laid open before mens eyes there is no small hope that such great wits as we have before spoken of such as have been in ancient Philosophers and are at this day frequent enough having been heretofore of such efficacy that they could out of corke or a little shell namely by thin and frivilous experience build certain little boats for Philosophy gallant enough for Art and structure how much more gallant and solid structures will they make when they have found a whole wood and stuff enough and that though they had rather go on in the old way then make use of our Organons way which in our opinion is either the only or the best way So that the case stands thus our Organon though perfect could not profit much without the Natural History but our Natural History without the Organon might much advance Instauration or renewing of Sciences Wherefore we have thought it best and most advisedly to fall upon this before any thing else God the Maker Preserver and Renewer of the Universe guide and protect this Work both in its ascent to his own glory and in its descent to the good of man through his good-will towards man by his only begotten Son God with us The Rule of this present History THough we have set down towards the end of that part of our Organon which is come forth Precepts concerning the Natural and experimental History yet we have thought good to set down more exactly and brithly the form and rule of this History which we now take in hand To the Titles comprehended in the Catalogue which belong to the Concretes we have added the Titles of the Abstract Natures of which as of a reserved History we made mention in the same place These are the various Figurations of the matter or forms of the first Classis simple Motions sums of Motions measures of Motions and some other things of these we have made a new Alphabet and placed it at the end of this Volume We have taken Titles being no way able to take them all not according to order but by choice those namely the Inquisition of which either for use was most of weight or for abundance of Experiments most convenient or for the obscurity of the thing most difficult and noble or by reason of the discrepancy of Titles among themselves most open to examples In each Title after a kind of an entrance or Preface we presently propound certain particular Topicks or Articles of Inquisition as well to give light to the present Inquisition as to encourage a future For we are Masters of Questions but not of things yet we do not in the History precisely observe the order of Questions least that which is for an aid and assistance should prove a hinderance The Histories and Experiments always hold the first place and if they set forth any enumeration and Series of particular things they are made up in Tables or if other wise they are taken up severally Seeing that Histories and Experiments do oftentimes fail us especially those which give light and Instances of the Cross by which the understanding may be informed of the true causes of things we give Precepts of new Experiments as far as we can see them fitting in our mind for that as is to be enquired and these Precepts are designed like Histories For what other means is left to us who are the first that come into this way We unfold and make plain the manner of some Experiments that are more quaint and subtile that there may be no error and that we may stir up others to find out better and more exact ways We enterweave Monitions and Cautions of the Fallacies of things and of such Errors and Scruples as may be found in the Inquiry that all Fancies and as it were Apparitions may be frighted away as by an Exorcisme or spell We joyn thereunto our Observations upon History and experiments that the Interpretation of the Nature may be the readier We Interpose some Comments or as it were Rudiments of the Interpretations of Causes sparingly and rather supposing what may be than positively defining what is We prescribe and set down Rules but moveable ones and as it were inchoated Axiomes which offer themselves unto us as we enquire not as we decisorily pronounce for they are profitable though not altogether true Never forgetting the profit of man-kind though the light be more worthy than those things which be shewen by it we offer to mans attention and practise certain Essays of Practice knowing that mens stupidity is such and so unhappy that sometimes they see not and pass over things which lye just in their way We set down works and things impossible or at least which are not yet found out as they fall under each Title and withal those vvhich are already found out and are in mens povvers and vve added to those impossible and not yet found out things such as are next to them and have most affinity vvith them that vve may stir up and vvithall incourage humane industry It appears by the foresaid things that this present History doth not only supply the place of the third part of the Instauration but also is not despicable preparation to the fourth by reason of the Titles out of the Alphabet and Topicks and to the sixth by reason of the larger Observations Commentations and Rules The Titles of the Histories and Inquisitions destined for the first six Months THe History of Winds The History of Density and Rarity as likewise of Coition and Expansion of matter by spaces The History of Heavy and Light The History of the Sympathy and Antipathy of things The History of Sulphur Mercury and Salt The History of Life and Death In this Book are contained THe Natural and Experimental History of Winds The Natural and Experimental History of the form of Heat Of the several kinds of Motion or of the Active vertue The way to find out the causes of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea The Entry into the History of Winds THe Winds gave Wings to men for by their assistance men are carried up through the Air and flye not through the Air indeed but upon the Sea and a wide door is laid open to commerce and the World is made previous They are the besomes which sweep and make clean the earth which is the seat and habitation of mankind and they cleanse both it and the air But they make the Sea huriful which otherwise is harmless neither are they some other ways also free from doing hurt They are without help of man able to stir up great and zehement motions
and like Hirelings serve both to sail and grind and would be useful for many other things if humane care were not wanting Their Natures are reckoned amongst secret and bidden things Neither is that to be wondred at seeing the Nature and Power of the Air is unknown whom the Winds do serve and flatter as Eolus doth Juno in the Poets They are not primary Creatures nor any of the six days works no more than the rest of the Meteors actually but after born by the order of the Creation PARTICULAR TOPICKS OR Articles of Inquisition Concerning the Winds The Names of Winds DEscribe or set down the Winds according to the Sea-mans industry and give them Names either new or old so that you keep your self constant to them Winds are either general or precise either peculiar or free I call them general which always blow precise those which blow at certain times Attendants or Peculiar those which blow most commonly Free Winds those which blow indifferently or at any time General Winds 2. Whether there be any General Winds which are the very self motion of the Air and if there be any such in order to what motion and in what places they blow Precise or fixed Winds 3. What Winds are Aniversary or yearly winds returning by turns and in what Countrys Whether there be any Wind so precisely fixed that it returns regularly at certain days and hours like unto the flowing of the Sea Attending or Peculiar Winds 4. What Winds are peculiar and ordinary in Countrys which observe a certain time in the same Countrys which are Spring winds and which are Summer winds which Autumnal which Brumal which Equinoctial which Solstitial which are belonging to the Morning which to Noon which to the Evening and which to the Night 5. What winds are Sea winds and what winds blow from the Continent and mark and set down the differences of the Sea and Land winds carefully as well of those which blow at Land and Sea as of those which blow from Land and Sea Free Winds 6. Whether winds do not blow from all parts of Heaven Winds do not vary much more in the parts of Heaven from which they blow than in their own qualities Some are vehement some mild some constant some mutable some hot some cold some moistning and dissolving some drying and astringent some gather clouds and are rainy and peradventure Stormy some disperse the clouds and are clear Divers qualities of Winds 7. Enquire and give accompt which are the winds of all the forenamed sorts or kinds and how they vary according to the regions and places There are three local beginnings of Winds either they are thrown and cast down from above or they spring out of the Earth or they are made up of the very body of the Air. Local beginnings of Winds 8. According to these three beginnings enquire concerning winds Namely which are thrown down out of that which they call the middle Region of the Air which breath out of the concavities of the earth whether they break out together or whether they breath out of the Earth imperceiveably and scattering and afterwards gather together like rivolets into a River Finally which are scatteringly engendred from the swellings and dilatations of the neighbouring Air Neither are the generations of the winds original only for some there are also accidental namely by the compressions or restraints of the Air and by the percussions and repercussions of it Accidental Generations and Production of Winds 9. Enquire concerning these accidental Generations of winds They are not properly generations of winds for they rather increase and strengthen winds than produce and excite them Hitherto of the community of winds There are also certain rare and prodigious winds such as are called tempests whirle-winds and storms These are above ground There are likewise some that are subterraneal and under ground whereof some vaporous and Mercurial they are perceiveable in Mines Some are sulphurous they are sent out geting an issue by Earthquakes or do flame out of fiery Mountains Extraordinary Winds and sudden Blasts 10. Enquire concerning such rare and prodigious winds and of all miraculous and wonderful things done by winds From the several sorts of winds let the Inquisition pass to those things which contribute towards the winds for we will so express it because the word Efficient signifies more and the word concomitant less than we mean and to those things which seem to raise or to appease the winds Things contributing or making for the Winds and raising and appeasing them 11. Enquire sparingly concerning Astrological considerations of winds neither care thou for the over-curious Schemes of the heaven only do not neglect the more manifest Observations of winds rising about the rising of some stars or about the Eclipses of the Luminaries or Conjunctions of Planets nor much less on those which depend on the courses of the Sun and Moon 12. What Meteors of several sorts do contribute or make for winds what the earth-quakes what rain what the skirmishing of winds one with another for these things are linked together and one draws on the other 13. What the diversity of Vapours and exhalations contributes towards the winds and which of them do most engender winds and how far the Nature of winds doth follow these its materials 14. What those things which are here upon the earth or are there done do contribute towards the winds what the hills and the dissolutions of Snow upon them what those masses of Ice which swim upon the Sea and are carried to some place what the differences of soil and land so it be of some large extent what Ponds Sands Woods and Champion ground what those things which we men do here as burning of Heath and the like doth contribute to the manuring of Land the firing of Towns in time of War the drying up of Ponds and Lakes the continual shooting off of Guns the ringing of many Bells together in great Cities and the like These things and Acts of ours are but as small straws yet something they may do 15. Enquire concerning all manner of raisings or allayings of winds but be sparing in fabulous and superstitious causes From those things which make for the winds let the Inquisition proceed to enquire of the bounds of the winds of their Height Extention and Continuance The bounds of Winds 16. Enquire carefully of the Height or elevation of winds and whether there be any tops of mountains to which the winds do not reach or whether Clouds may be seen sometimes to stand still and not move when the winds at the same time blow strongly upon the earth 17. Enquire diligently of the spaces or rooms which the winds take up at once and within what bounds they blew As for example if the south wind blew in such a place whether it be known certainly that at the same time the North wind blew ten miles off And contrariwise into how narrow and straight bounds the winds may be reduced
that will set all the air which is in a room in motion as appears by the blazing of the lights which are in the same room 24. As Dews and Mists are ingendred here in the lower air never coming to be Clouds nor penetrating to the middle region of the Air in the like manner are also many winds 25. A continual gale blows about the sea and other waters which is nothing but a small wind newly made up 26. The Rain-bow which is as it were the lowest of Meteors and nearest to us when it doth not appear whole but curtailed and as it were only some pieces of the horns of it is dissolved into winds as often or rather oftner than into rain 27. It hath been observed that there are some winds in Countrys which are divided and separated by hills which ordinarily blow on the one side of the hills and do not reach to the other Whereby it manifestly appears that they are engendred below the height of the said hills 28. There are an infinite sort of winds that blow in fair and clear days and also in Countrys where it never rains which are ingendred where they blow and never were Clouds nor did ever ascend into the middle region of the air Indirect Experiments Whosoever shall know how easily a Vapour is dissolved into air and how great a quantity of vapours there are and how much room a drop of water turned into air takes up more than it did before as we said already and how little the air will endure to be thrust up together will questionless affirm that of necessity winds must be every where ingendred from the very superficies of the earth even to the highest parts of the air For it cannot be that a great abundance of vapours when they begin to be dilatated and expanded can be lifted up to the middle region of the air without an over-burthening of the air and making a noise by the way Accidental generations of Winds To the Ninth Article Connexion WE call those Accidental generations of winds which do not make or beget the impulsive motion of winds but with compression do sharpen it by repercussion turn it by sinuation or winding do agitate and tumble it which is done by extrinsecal causes and the posture of the adjoining bodies 1. In places where there are hills which are not very high bordering upon Valleys and beyond them again higher hills there is a greater agitation of the air and sense of winds than there is in mountainous or plain places 2. In Cities if there be any place somewhat broader than ordinary and narrow goings out as Portals or Porches and Cross streets winds and fresh Gales are there to be perceived 3. In houses cool rooms are made by winds or happen to be so where the Air bloweth thorow and comes in on the one side and goeth out at the other But much more if the Air comes in several ways and meets in the corners and hath one common passage from thence the vaulting likewise and roundness doth contribute much to coolness because the air being moved is beaten back in every line Also the winding of Porches is better than if they were built straight out For a direct blast though it be not shut up but hath a free egress doth not make the air so unequal and voluminous and waving as the meeting at Angles and hollow places and windings round and the like 4. After great tempests at Sea an Accidental wind continues for a time after the original is laid which wind is made by the collision and percussion of the air through the curling of the waves 5. In gardens commonly there is a repercussion of wind from the walls and banks so that one would imagine the wind to come the contrary way from that whence it really comes 6. If Hills enclose a Country on the one side and the wind blows for some space of time from the plain against the Hill by the very repercussion of the Hill either the wind is turned into rain if it be a moist wind or into a contrary wind which will last but a little while 7. In the turnings of Promontory Mariners do often find changes and alterations of winds Extraordinary Winds and sudden Blasts To the tenth Article Connexion SOme men discourse of extraordinary winds and derive the causes of them of Clouds breaking or storms Vortice Typhone Prestere Or in English Whirl-winds But they do not relate the thing it self which must be taken out of Chronicles and several Histories 1. Sudden blasts never come in clear weather but always when the sky is cloudy and the weather rainy That it may justly be thought that there is a certain eruption made The blast driven out and the waters shaken 2. Storms which come with a Mist and a Fog and are called Belluae and bear up themselves like a Column are very vehement and dreadful to those who are at sea 3. The greater Typhones who will take up at some large distance and sup them as it were upward do happen but seldom but small whirl-winds come often 4. All storms and Typhones and great Whirlwinds have a manifest precipitous motion or darting downwards more than other winds so as they seem to fall like Torrents and run as it were in Channels and be afterward reverberated by the earth 5. In Meadows Haycocks are sometimes carryed on high and spread abroad there like Canopies Likewise in Fields Cocks of Pease reaped Wheat and cloaths laid out to drying are carried up by Whirl-winds as high as tops of Trees and Houses and these things are done without any extraordinary force or great vehemency of wind 6. Also sometimes there are very small whirl-winds and within a narrow compass which happen also in fair clear weather so that one that rides may see the dust or straws taken up and turned close by him yet he himself not feel the wind much which things are done questionless near unto us by contrary blasts driving one another back and causing a circulation of the air by concussion 7. It is certain that some winds do leave manifest signs of burning and scortching in Plants But Presterem which is a kind of dark Lightning and hot air without any flame we will put off to the Inquisition of Lightning Helps to Winds namely to Original Winds for of accidental ones we have enquired before To the 11 12 13 14 15 Articles Connexion THose things which have been spoken by the Ancients concerning Winds and their causes are meerly confused and uncertain and for the most part untrue and it is no marvel if they see not clear that look not near They speak as if wind were somewhat else or a thing several from moved air and as if exhalations did generate and make up the whole body of the winds and as if the matter of winds were only a dry and hot exhalation and as if the beginning of the motion of winds were but only a casting down and percussion
by the cold of the middle Region all fantastical and arbitrary opinions yet out of such threds they weave long pieces namely Cobwebs But all impulsion of the Air is wind and Exhalations mixed with the air contribute more to the motion than to the matter and moist vapours by a proportionate heat are easilier dissolved into wind than dry Exhalations and many winds are engendred in the lowest Region of the Air and breath out of the earth besides those which are thrown down and beaten back 1. The Natural wheeling of the air as we said in the Article of General Winds without any other external cause bringeth forth winds preceptible within the Tropicks where the Conversion is ingreater Circles 2. Next to the Natural Motion of the Air before we enquire of the Sun who is the chief begetter of winds let us see whether any thing ought to be attributed to the Moon and other Asters by clear experience 3. There arise many great and strong winds some hours before the Eclipse of the Moon so that if the Moon be Eclipsed in the middle of the night the winds blow the precedent evening if the Moon be Eclipsed towards the morning then the winds blow in the middle of the precedent night 4. In Peru which is a very windy Country Acosta observes that winds blow most when the Moon is at the full Injunction It were certainly a thing worthy to be observed what power the Ages and Motions of the Moon have upon the winds seeing they have some power over the waters As for example whether the winds be not in a greater commotion in full and new Moons than in her first and last Quarters as we find it to be in the flowings of waters For though some do conveniently feign the command of the Moon to be over the waters as the Sun and Planets over the air yet it is certain that the water and the air are very Homogeneal bodies and that the Moon next to the Sun hath most power over all things here below 5. It hath been observed by men that about the Conjunctions of Planets greater winds do blow 6. At the rising of Orion there rise commonly divers winds and storms But we must advise whether this be not because Orion rises in such a season of the year as is most effectual for the generation of winds so that it is rather a concomitant than causing thing Which may also very well be questioned concerning rain at the rising of the Hyades and the Pleiades and concerning storms at the rising of Arcturus And so much concerning the Moon and Stars 7. The Sun is questionless the primary efficient of many winds working by its heat on a twofold matter namely the body of the air and likewise vapours and exhalations 8. When the Sun is most powerful dilatates and extends the air though it be pure and without any commixion one third part which is no small matter so that by meer dilatation there must needs arise some small wind in the Suns ways and that rather two or three hours after its rising than at his first rise 9. In Europe the nights are hotter in Peru three hours in the morning and all for one cause namely by reason of winds and gales ceasing and lying still at those hours 10. In a Vitro Calendari dilatated or extended air beats down the water as it were with a breath but in a Vitro Pileato which is filled only with air the dilatated air swells the Bladder as a manifest and apparent wind 11. We have made trial of such a kind of wind in a round Tower every way closed up For we have placed a hearth or fire-place in the middest of it laying a fire of Charcoal throughly kindled upon it that there might be the less smoak and on the side of the hearth at a small distance hath been a thread hung up with a cross of Feathers to the end that it might easily be moved So after a little stay the heat increasing and the Air dilatating the thread and the Feather cross which hung upon it waved up and down in a various motion and having made a hole in the window of the Tower there came out a hot breath which was not continual but with intermission and waving 12. Also the reception of Air by cold after dilatation begets such a wind but weaker by reason of the lesser force of cold So that in Peru under every little shadow we find not only more coolness than here with us by Antiperistasis but a manifest kind of gale through the reception of air when it comes into the shade And so much concerning wind occasioned by meer dilatation or reception of Air. 13. Winds proceeding from the meer motion of the air without any commixion of vapours are but gentle and soft Let us see what may be said concerning Vaporary winds we mean such as are engendred by vapours which may be so much more vehement than the other as a dilatation of a drop of water turned into air exceeds any dilatation of Air already made which it doth by many degrees as we shewed before 14. The efficient cause of vapourary winds which are they that commonly blow is the Sun and its proportionate heat the matter is Vapors and Exhalations which are turned and resolved into Air. I say Air and not any thing but Air yet at the first not very pure 15. A small heat of the Sun doth not raise Vapours and consequently causes no wind 16. A mean or middle heat of the Sun raiseth and excites vapours but doth not presently dissipate them Therefore if there be any great store of them they gather together into rain either simply of it self or joined with wind if there be but small store of them they turn only to wind 17. The Suns heat in its increase inclines more to the generation of winds in its decrease of rains 18. The great and continued heat of the Sun attenuates and disperses vapours and sublimes them and withal equally mixes and incorporates them with the Air wherby the Air becomes calm and serene 19. The more equal and continuate heat of the Sun is less apt for the generation of winds that which is more unequal and intermitted is more apt Wherefore in sailing into Russia they are less troubled with winds than in the Brittish Sea because of the length of the days but in Peru under the Equinoctial are frequent winds by reason of the great inequality of heat taking turns night and day 20. In Vapours is to be considered both the quantity and quality A small quantity engenders weak winds a mean or middle store stronger great store engenders rain either calm or accompanied with wind 21. Vapours out of the Sea and Rivers and over-flown Marishes engender far greater quantity of winds than the exhalations of the earth But those winds which are engendred on the land and dry places are more obstinate and last longer and are for the most part such as are
cast down from above So that the opinion of the Ancients in this is not altogether unprofitable but only that it pleased them as in a manner dividing the inheritance to assign rain to Vapours and to winds exhalations only which things sound handsomly but are vain in effect and substance 22. Winds brought forth out of the resolutions of Snow lying upon Hills are of a mean condition between Water and Land winds but they incline more to water yet they are more sharp and moveable 23. The dissolution of Snow on Snowy Hills as we observed before always brings constant winds from that part 24. Also yearly Northern winds about the rising of the Dog-star are held to come from the frozen Ocean and those parts about the Artick Circle where the Dissolutions of Snow and Ice come late when the Summer is far spent 25. Those masses or mountains of Ice which are carried towards Canada and Greenland do rather breed cold Gales than moveable winds 26. Winds which arise from chalky and sandy grounds are few and dry and in hotter Countrys they are soultry smoaky and scorching 27. Winds made of Sea vapours do easilier turn back into rain the water re-demanding and claiming its right and if this be not granted them they presently mix with Air and so are quiet But terrestrial smoaky and unctuous vapours are both hardlier dissolved and ascend higher and are more provoked in their motion and oftentimes penetrate the middle Region of the Air and some of them are matter of fiery Meteors 28. It is reported here in England that in those days that Gascoine was under our jurisdiction there was a Petition offered to the King by his subjects of Burdeaux and the Confines thereof desiring him to forbid the burning of heath in the Counties of Sussex and Southampton which bred a wind towards the end of April which killed their Vines 29. The meeting of winds if they be strong bring forth vehement and whirling winds if they be soft and moist they produce rain and lay the wind 30. Winds are allayed and restrained five ways When the Air over-burthened and troubled is freed by the vapours contracting themselves into rain Or when vapours are dispersed and subtilized whereby they are mixed with the air and agree fairly with it and they live quietly Or when vapours or Fogs are exalted and carried upon high so that they cause no disturbance until they be thrown down from the middle Region of the Air or do penetrate it Or when vapours gathered into Clouds are carried away into other Countrys by other winds blowing on high so that for them there is peace in those Countrys which they flie beyond Or lastly when the winds blowing from their nurseries languish through a long voyage finding no new matter to feed on and so their vehemency forsakes them and they do as it were expire and dye 31. Rain for the most part allayeth winds especially those which are stormy as winds contrariwise oftentimes keep off rain 32. Winds do contract themselves into rain which is the first of the five and the chiefest means of allaying them either being burthened by the burthen it self when the vapours are copious or by the contrary motions of winds so they be calm and mild or by the opposition of mountains and Promontories which stop the violence of the winds and by little and little turn them against themselves or by extream colds whereby they are condensed and thickned 33. Smaller and lighter winds do commonly rise in the morning and go down with the Sun the condensation of the night Air being sufficient to receive them for Air will endure some kind of compression without stirring or tumult 34. It is thought that the sound of Bells will disperse Lightning and Thunder in winds it hath not been observed Monition Take advice from the place in Prognosticks of winds for there is some connexion of causes and signs 35. Pliny relates that the vehemence of a Whirl-wind may be allayed by sprinkling of Vinegar in the encounter of it The Bounds of VVinds. To the 16 17 18. Articles 1. IT is reported of Mount Athos likewise of Olimpus that the Priests would write in the ashes of the Sacrifices which lay upon the Altars built on the tops of those hills and when they returned the year following for the Offerings were Annual they found the same letters undisturbed and uncancelled though those Altars stood not in any Temple but in the open Air. Whereby it was manifest that in such a height there had neither fallen rain nor wind blown 2. They say that on the top of the Peak of Teneriff and on the Audes betwixt Peru and Chile snow lyeth upon the borders and sides of the hills but that on the tops of them there is nothing but a quiet and still Air hardly breathable by reason of its tenuity which also with a kind of Acrimony pricks the eyes and orifice of the stomack begetting in some a desire to vomit and in others a flushing and redness 3. Vaporary winds seem not in any great height though it be probable that some of them ascend higher than most clouds Hitherto of the height now we must consider of the Latitude 4. It is certain that those spaces which winds take up are very various sometimes they are very large sometimes little and narrow winds have been known to have taken up an hundred miles space with a few hours difference 5. Spacious winds if they be of the free kind are for the most part vehement and not soft and more lasting for they will last almost four and twenty hours They are likewise not so much inclined to rain Straight or narrow winds contrariwise are either soft or stormy and always short 6. Fixed and stayed winds are itinerary or travelling and take up very large spaces 7. Stormy winds do not extend themselves into any large spaces though they always go beyond the bounds of the storm it self 8. Sea winds always blow within narrower spaces than earth winds as may sometimes be seen at sea namely a pretty fresh gale in some part of the water which may be easily perceived by the crisping of it when there is a calm as smooth as Glass every where else 9. Small whirlwinds as we said before will sometimes play before men as they are riding almost like wind out of a pair of bellows So much of the Latitude now we must see concerning the lastingness 10. The vehement winds will last longer at Sea by reason of the sufficient quantity of vapours at land they will hardly last above a day and an half 11. Very soft winds will not blow constantly neither at sea nor upon the land above three days 12. The south wind is not only more lasting than the west which we set down in another place but likewise what wind soever it be that begins to blow in the morning useth to be more durable and lasting than that which begins to blow at night 13. It is
free noise for the most part signifies fair weather especial in winter 72. Birds pearching in trees if they flie to their nests and give over feeding betimes it presages tempest But the Hearn standing as it were sad and melancholy upon the sand or a Crow walking up and down do presage wind onely 73. Dolphins playing in a calm sea are thought to presage wind from that way they come and if they play and throw up water when the Sea is rough they presage fair weather And most kinds of fishes swimming on the top of the water and sometimes leaping do prognosticate wind 74. Upon the approach of wind Swine will be so terrified and disturbed and use such strange actions that Country people say that Creature onely can see the wind and perceive the horridness of it 75. A little before the wind spiders work and spin carefully as if they prudently forestall'd the time knowing that in windy weather they cannot work 76. Before rain the sound of Bels is heard further off but before wind it is heard more unequally drawing near and going further off as it doth when the wind blows really 77. Pliny affirms for a certain that three leaved grass creeps together and raises its leaves against a storm 78. He sayes likewise that vessels which food is put into will leave a kind of sweat in Cupboards which presage cruel storms Monition Seeing rain and wind have almost a common matter and seeing alwayes before rain there is a certain condensation of the air caused by the new air received into the old as it appears by the sounding of the shoars and the high flight of Hearns and other things and seeing the wind likewise thickens but afterward in rain the air is more drawn together and in winds contrariwise it is enlarged of necessity winds must have many Prognosticks common with the rain Whereof advise with the Prognosticks of rain under their own title Imitations of Winds To the three and thirtieth Article Connexion IF men could be perswaded not to fix their contemplations over-much upon a propounded subject and reject others as it it were by the bye and that they would not subtilize about that subject in infinitum and for the most part unprofitably they would not be seized with such a stupor as they are but transferring their thoughts and discoursing would find many things at a distance which near at hand are hidden So that as in the Civil Law so we must likewise in the Law of Nature we must carefully proceed to semblable things and such as have a conformity between them 1. Bellows with men are Aeolus his Bags out of which one may take as much as he needeth And likewise spaces between and openings of Hills and crooks of buildings are but as it were large bellows Bellows are most useful either to kindle fire or for Musical Organs The manner of the working of Bellows is by sucking in of the air to shun vacuity as they say and to send it out by compression 2. We also use Hand Fans to make a wind and to cool only by driving forward of the air softly 3. The cooling of Summer rooms we spake of in Answer to the ninth Article There may other more curious means be found especially if the air be drawn in somewhere after the manner of bellows and let out at another place But those which are now in use have relation only to meer compression 4. The breath in mans Microcosmos and in other Animals do very well agree with the winds in the greater world For they are engendred by humours and alter with moisture as wind and rain doth and are dispersed and blow freer by a greater heat And from them that observation is to be transferred to the winds namely that breaths are engendred of matter that yields a tenacious vapour not easie to be dissolved as Beans Pulse and Fruits which is so likewise in greater winds 5. In the distilling of Vitriol and other Minerals which are most windy they must have great and large receptacles otherwise they will break 6. Wind composed of Niter and Gun-powder breaking out and swelling the flame doth not only imitate but also exceed winds which blow abroad in the world unless they be such as are made by thunder 7. But the forces of it are pressed in as in humane Engines as Guns Mines and Powder-houses set on fire But it hath not yet been tried whether in open air a great heap of Gun-powder set on fire would raise a wind for certain hours by the commotion of the air 8. There lies hidden a flatuous and expansive spirit in Quick-silver so that it doth in some mens opinions imitate Gun-powder and a little of it mixed with Gun-powder will make the Powder stronger Likewise the Chymists speak the same of gold that being prepared some way it will break out dangerously like to Thunder but these things I never tried A greater Observation THe Motion of winds is for most things seen as it were in a Looking-glass in the motion of waters Great winds are Inundations of the air as we see Inundations of waters both through the augmentation of the quantity As waters either descend from above or spring out of the earth so some winds are cast down and some rise up As sometimes in Rivers there are contrary motions one of the flowing of the Sea the other of the Current of the River yet both become one motion by the prevailing of the flood so when contrary winds blow the greater subdues the lesser As in the Currents of the sea and of some rivers it sometimes falls out that the waves above go contrary to the waves below So in the air when contrary winds blow together one flyes over the other As there are Cataracts of Rain within a narrow space so there are Whirlwinds As waters however they go forward yet if they be troubled swell up into waves sometimes ascending grow up into heaps sometimes descending are as it were furrowed so the winds do the same but only want the Motion of Gravity There are also other similitudes which may be observed and gathered out of those things which have already been enquired about Moveable Rules concerning Winds Connexion RUles are either particular or general both with us are moveable for as yet we have not affirmed any thing positively Particular Rules may be taken and gathered almost out of every Article We will cull out some general ones and those but a few and adde thereunto 1. Wind is no other thing but moved air but the air it self moved either by a simple impulsion or by commixion of vapors 2. Winds by a simple Impulsion are caused four ways either by the natural Motion of the air or by expansion of the air in the Suns ways or by reception of air thorow a sudden cold or by the compression of the air by external bodies There may be also a fifth way by the agitation and concussion of the air by stars But let these
things be a while silent or be given ear unto with a sparing belief 3. Of winds which are made by immixion of vapours the chief cause is the over-burthening of the air by air newly made out of vapours whereby the mass of the air grows bigger and seeks new room 4. A small quantity of air added causeth a great tumor of the air round about it so that new air out of the resolution of vapours doth confer more to motion than to matter But the great body of wind consists in the former air neither doth the new air drive the old air before it as if they were several bodies but being both commixt they desire larger room 5. When any other beginning of Motion concurs besides the over-burthening of the air it is an accessory which strengthneth and encreaseth that Principal which is the reason that great and violent winds do seldom rise by the simple over-burthening of the air 6. Four things are accessory to the over-burthening of the air The breathing out of subterraneal places the casting down out of as it is called the middle region of the air Dissipation made out of a Cloud and the Mobility and Acrimony of the Exhalation it self 7. The Motion of the wind is for the most part lateral But that which is made by meer over-burthening is so from the beginning that which is made by the expiration of the earth or repercussion from above a little while after unless the Eruption or Precipitation or Reverberation be exceeding violent 8. Air will endure some compression before it be over-burthened and begins to thrust away the adjoyning air by reason whereof all winds are a little thicker than quiet and calm air 9. Winds are allayed five ways either by the conjunction of vapours or by their sublimation or by transporting them or by their being spent 10. Vapors are conjoyned and so the Air it self becomes water four ways either by abundance aggravating or by colds condensing or by contrary winds compelling or by obstacles reverberating 11. Both Vapours and Exhalations but wind very frequently from vapours But there is this difference that winds which are made of Vapours do more easily incorporate them selves into pure air are sooner allayed and are not so obstinate as those winds which are engendred of Exhalations 12. The manner and several conditions of heat have no less power in the generation of winds than the abundance or conditions of the matter 13. The heat of the Sun ought to be so proportioned in the generation of winds that it may raise them but not in such abundance as that they gather into rain nor in so small a quantity that they may be quite shaken off and dispersed 14. Winds blow from their Nurseries and the Nurseries being disposed several ways divers winds for the most part blow together but the strongest either quite overthrows or turns into its current the weakest 15. Winds are engendred every where from the very Superficies of the earth up into the middle Region of the air the more frequent below but the stronger above 16. The Countries which have retaining or trade-winds if they be warm have them warmer that according to the measure of their Climate if they be cold they have them colder A Humane Map or Optatives with such things as are next to them concerning Winds Optatives 1. TO frame and dispose sails of ships in such a manner that with less wind they might go a greater journey a thing very useful to shorten journeys by sea and save charges Next The next invention precisely in practice I have not as yet found yet concerning that look upon our greater observations upon the six and twentieth Article 2. Optative That we could make Wind-mills and their sails in such manner that they may grind more with less wind A thing very useful for gain Next Look concerning this upon our Experiments in the answer to the seven and twentieth Article where the thing seems to be as it were done Optative To foreknow when winds will rise and allay A thing useful for Navigation and for Husbandy especially for the chusing of times for Sea-fights Next To this belong many of those things which are observed in the Inquisition and especially in the Answer to the two and thirtieth Article But a more careful observation hereafter if any shall apply their mind to it will give far more exact Prognosticks the cause of the winds being already laid open 4. Optative To give judgment and make Prognosticks by winds of other things as first whether they be Continents or Islands in the Sea in any place or rather a free open sea a thing very useful for new and unknown voyages Next The next is the observation concerning constant and trade-winds that which Columbus seemed to make use of 5. Optative Likewise of the plenty or scarcity of corn every year A thing useful for gain and buying before-hand and fore-stalling as it is reported of Thales concerning a Monopoly of Olives Next To this belong some things specified in the Inquisition of winds gither hurtful or shaking winds and the times when they do hurt to the nine and twentieth Article 6. Optative Likewise concerning Diseases and Plagues every year A thing useful for the credit of Physicians if they can fore-tel them also for the causes and cures of Diseases and some other civil considerations Next To this likewise belong some things set down in the Inquisition to the thirtieth Article Monition Of Predictions by wind concerning corn fruits and diseases look upon Histories of Husbandry and Physick Optative 7. How to raise winds and to allay them Next Concerning these things there are some superstitious opinions which do not seem worthy to be inserted into a serious and severe Natural History Nor can I think of any thing that is near in this kind The design may be this to look throughly into and enquire about the Nature of the air whether any thing may be found whereof a small quantity put into air may raise and multiply the motion to dilatation or contraction in the body of the air For out of this if it might be done would follow the raisings and allayings of winds Such as that Experiment of Pliny is concerning Vinegar thrown against the Whirlwinds if it were true Another design might be by letting forth of winds out of subterraneal places if so be they should gather together any where in great abundance as it is a common and approved opinion of the Well in Dalmatia but to know such places of prisons is very hard and difficult 8. Optative To work many fine pleasant and wonderful conceits by the motion of winds Next We have not leisure to enter into consideration touching these things Next to it is that common report of the Duels of winds Questionless many such pleasant things might very well be found out both for Motions and Sounds of Winds An Entrance to the Titles appointed for the next five Months The History of Density and
Vertues whereby men awake no more nor look after the finding and searching out of true causes but acquiesce and lie still in these idle ways Then it insinuates an innumerable company of fictions like unto Dreams And vain men hope to know the Nature by the outward shape and shew and by extrinsecal similitudes to discover inward Properties Their Practise also is very like unto their Enquiry For the Precepts of Natural Magick are such as if men should be confident that they could subdue the earth and eat their bread without the sweat of their Brow and to have power over things by idle and easie applications of bodies and still they have in their mouths and like undertakers or Sureties they call upon the Loadstone and the consent which is between Gold and Quicksilver and some few things of this kind they alledge for to prove other things which are not bound by any such like contract But God hath appointed the best of things to be enquired out and be wrought by labours and endeavours We will be a little more carefull in searching out the law of Nature and the mutual Contracts of things neither favouring Miracles nor making too lowly and straightned an Inquisition The History of Sulphur Mercury and Salt The Entrance THis triple of Principles hath been introduced by the Chymists and as concerning Speculatives is of them which they bring the best Invention The most subtile and acute of these and those who are most Philosophical will have the Elements to be Earth Water Air and the skie And those they will not have to be the Matter of things but the Matrixes in which the Specifical seeds of things do engender in the nature of a Matrix But for the Materia prima or primary matter which Scholars do lay down as it were naked and indifferent they substitute those three Sulphur Mercury and Salt out of whith all bodies are gathered together and mixed We do accept of their words but their opinions are not very sound Yet that doth not ill agree with their opinion namely that we hold two of them to wit Sulphur and Mercury taken according to our sence to be very first and prime natures and most inward figurations of matter and almost chief amongst the forms of the first Classis But we may vary the words of Sulphur and Mercury and name them otherwise Oyly Waterish Fat Crude Inflamable not Inflamable or the like For these seem to be two very great things of the three and which possess and penetrate the Universe for amongst subterraneal things they are Sulphur and Mercury as they are called in the Vegetable and Animal kind they are Oyl and Water in the inferior spiritual things they are Air and Flame in the heavenly the body of a Star and the pure skie but of this last Duality we yet say nothing though it seem to be a probable decyphering For if they mean by Salt the fixed part of the body which is not resolved either into flame or smoak this belongeth to the Inquisition of fluid and determinate things But if we take Salt according to the Letter without any Parabolical meaning Salt is no third thing from Sulphur and Mercury but mixed of both connexed into one by an acrimonious and sharp spirit For all manner of Salt hath inflamable parts and other parts also which not only will not take fire but do also abhor it and flie from it Yet the Inquisition of Salt being somewhat allyed to the Inquisition of the other two and exceeding useful as being a tye and band of both Natures Sulphurous and Salt and the very Rudiment of life it self we have thought fitting to comprehend it also within this History and Inquisition But in the mean time we give you notice that those spiritual things Air Water Stars and Skie we do as they very well deserve it reserve them for proper and peculiar Inquisitions and here in this place to set down the History only of tangible that is to say Mineral or Vegetable Sulphur and Mercury The History of Life and Death The Entrance THere is an old complaint of the shortness of life and tediousness of Art Therefore it seems very fitting to us who strive to the uttermost of our powers to make Arts perfect to take care also of prolonging the Life of man the Author of Life and Truth assisting us therein For although mens lives be nothing else but an increase and accumulation of sins and miseries and that life is but of small advantage to those who aspire to Eternity Yet we who are Christians should not contemn or despise a continuation of works of Charity And the beloved Disciple lived longer than any of the rest and many of the Fathers especially the holy Monks and Hermites were long lived And there was less taken away from this blessing so often made mention of in the old Law than from any other earthly blessing after the coming of our Savior But it is plain manifest enough that this is held for a great good but how to attain thereunto is a high and mysterious question and so much the more because it hath been abused both by false opinions and false Praeconiums For those things which are commonly spoken of by the Rabble of Physicians concerning the Radical Humour and Natural Heat are deceitful And the immoderate praises of Chymical Medicines first swell men up with hopes and then forsake them and leave them in the mire Neither is our Inquisition now of that death which proceeds from suffocation putrifaction and divers other Diseases for that belongs to a Physical or Medicinal Historie but of that Death only which comes by the Resolution and consumption of old age Yet to enquire of the last passage or step to death and the very extinction or putting out of life which may be done by many both internal and external ways which notwithstanding have as it were one and the self same place of habitation before we come unto the very pangs of death I believe hath some affinity with our present Inquisition but we will set that in the last place That which may be repaired by degrees and without destruction the primary entire thing that in potentia is eternal as the Vestal fire Wherefore when the Philosophers and Physicians saw that creatures were nourished and that their bodies were repaired and made up again yet that it could not last long but that a while after they grew old and dyed they sought for death in some thing which properly could not be repaired thinking that some Radical and first engendred Humor is not totally repaired but that there is even from the infancy some degenerate addition and not a precise solid and just reparation which by degrees is depraved with age and at last brings that which is depraved to nothing These unskilful and erroneous opinions they hold For all things in youth and young age are fully and wholly repaired and for a time increase in quantity and are bettered
Northern winds sharp penetrating cold burneth c. 28. Other things also which I omit for brevity This we use to call the Table of Essence and presence The second Aphorism SEcondly there is manifestation to be made to the understanding of instances which are deprived of their nature which was first given them For the Forme as we said before ought as well to be absent where the primary Nature is absent as be present where it is present But this would be infinite in all things Wherefore Negatives are to be added to the Affirmatives and Privations are onely to be looked upon in those subjects which are nearly allyed to those others in which the Primary Nature is and appears And this we use to call the Table of Declination or Absence in proximo or the next degree The nearest Instances which are deprived of the Nature of Heat A Negative or Subjunctive Instance to the first Affirmative Instance The Moon and the stars and the Comets Beams are not found hot by the sence of feeling yea one may observe extreame cold seasons at full Moons But the greater fixed Stars when the Sun comes under them or nigh unto them are thought to increase and exasperate the heat of the Sun as it is when the Sun is in Leo and in the Dog-days Six Negatives to the second Instance 1. The Sun-beams give not any heat in that which they call the middle Region of the air for which is commonly given a tolerable reason For that Region or part of the air is neither near unto the body of the Sun from which issue the beams nor yet unto the earth by which the said beams are reflected And this appears by the tops of those Hills which are of a great height where the Snow lyeth continually But on the contrary it hath been noted by some that on the top of the Peak of Tenariff and also of some Hills of Peru the tops of the hils have no snow upon them the snow lying lower upon the ascent of the Hill and besides the air is not cold upon the tops of those Hils but very piercing and sharp so that upon those hils of Peru it pricks and hurts the eyes with its too much acrimony and pricks the Orifice of the Ventricle and causeth vomiting And it was noted by the Ancients that on the top of Olympus there was such a tenuity of air that they who ascended thither were fain to carry with them spunges steeped in Water and Vinegar and hold them to their mouths and nostrils lest the tenuity or subtilness of the Air should hinder their breathing Upon the top of which montain it was also said the air was so clear and free from Winds and Rain that if the Priests had written upon the Ashes which remained upon Jupiters Altar after the Sacrifices had been there offered unto him the Letters would remain there and not be blown away or blotted out until the next year And to this hour those which ascend to the top of Tenariff which they do by night and not by day are called upon and hastned to descend presently after Sun-rising For fear as it should seem lest the tenuity of the air should dissolve their spirits and suffocate them 2. The reflexion of the Sun-beams in those Countries which are nigh unto the Polar Circles is very weak and ineffectual in its heat so that the Dutch who wintred in Nova Zembla when they expected their ship should be freed from the great heaps and mountains of Ice which were grown about it in the beginning of the Month of July were frustrated of their hopes and forced to come away in their ship boat So that the Beams of the Sun seem to be of small strength when they are direct even upon plain ground nor yet when they are reflected unless they be multiplyed and united which happeneth when the Sun grows to be more perpendicular for the incidence of the beams makes more acute Angles so that the lines of the beams are more near whereas contrariwise in great obliquities of the Sun the Angles are very obtuse and consequently the lines of the beams more distant But in the mean time we must note that there may be many operations of the Sun-beams and in the nature of heat which are not proportioned to our touch or feeling so that in respect of us they do not operate so far as calefaction or heating but in respect of some other bodies they may execute the Operations and Functions of heat 3. Let us try such an experiment as this Let there be a Glass made and framed of a contrary quality to a burning-Glass and let this glass be held between the Sun and our hand and let us observe whether that will diminish the heat of the Sun as a burning-Glass doth increase it For it is manifest in the Optick beams that as the Glass is of an unequal thickness in the middle and on the sides so the things which are seen thorow them are either more diffused or more contracted So the same should be in the matter of heat 4. Let it be carefully tryed whether the strongest and best made Burning-Glasses can gather up the beams of the Moon in such sort as the least degree of warmness or tepidity may proceed from them And if that degree of tepidity should be too weak and subtile to be perceived by the sense of feeling let recourse be had to those kinds of Weather-Glasses that shew the Constitution of the air whether it be hot or cold and let the Moon-beams fall thorow a burning-Glass into the Orifice of this Weather-Glass and observe whether the tepidity do cause any fall or abatement of the water that is in the said Weather-Glass 5. Let the Burning-Glass be used over some hot thing that is not radious or luminous as a hot Iron or stone which is not red or fire hot or boyling water or the like and let it be observed whether there be any increase or augmentation of heat as there is in the Sun-beams 6. Let a Burning-Glass also be tried with a common flame One Negative to the third Affirmative Instance There is no manifest or constant effect found in Comets if so be they also may be reckoned amongst Meteors for the increasing the heat of the Weather according to the season of the year though drought have commonly been observed to follow Also bright beams and columns openings of the Element and the like are more commonly seen in Winter than in Summer especially in extream cold weather so it be joyned with Drought But Thunders and flashes of Lightning do seldome happen in Winter but onely in time of great heat But those which we call falling or shooting stars are commonly thought to consist rather of some bright visions or slimie matter set on fire than of any stronger fiery Nature But of this we will enquire further To the fourth one There are some Coruscations which yield light but do not burn And those are always
without Thunder To the fifth one Eructations and breakings out of flames happen in cold Countries as well as in hot in Island and Greenland as also trees growing in cold Countries are sometimes more apt to take fire and have more Pitch and Rozen in them than those which grow in hot Countries as Fir and Pinetrees and the like But in what situation and nature of soil such breakings out use to be that we might adde a Negative to the Affirmative is not yet sufficiently enquired To the sixth one All manner of flame is perpetually hot either more or less neither can there any Negative be added And yet it is reported that which they call Ignis Fatuus which also sometimes hits against a wall hath not much heat in it peradventure like the flame of spirit of Wine or Aqua-vitae which is not fierce or scorching Yet that seems to be yet a milder flame which we read of in some grave and credible Histories that hath been seen to appear about the heads and hair of young boys and maidens which fire no way burned their hair but softly seemed to flame and play about it And it is certain that in a night horses have been seen when they swet with travail to have a certain kind of lightning flashes upon them without any manifest scorching heat And not many years since was seen and held for a kind of Miracle a childs Apron which being a little stirred and rubbed flashed out with fire and sparkles flew out of it which might happen peradventure by reason of the Salt or Allom wherewith the Apron was Dyed which might stick upon the Apron in Scales which with violent rubbing might be broken And it is most certain that all manner of Sugar either Candid or otherwise so it be hard broken or scraped in the dark will shine and sparkle Likewise sea-water violently stirred up with Oars will give a light and seem to burn which kind of burning or light the Spaniards call the Sea-lungs But what kind of heat that fire or flame yields which sea-men in ancient times were wont to call Castor and Pollux and now in our days is called St. Anthonies fire is not yet certainly found out To the seventh one Whatsoever is fiery and turned into red heat though it be without flame yet it is perpetually hot neither can there be any negative added to this affirmative Yet there are some things which seem to be somewhat near thereunto as rotten wood which shines in the night and yet doth not feel hot and the scales of rotten fish which also glister in the dark yet seem not hot if you feel them neither can there be any heat perceived in handling a Glow-worm which shineth so bright in the dark To the eighth one It is not yet throughly enquired concerning hot Baths in what situation and kind of Soil they spring out therefore there is no Negative added To the ninth one To liquid boiling or hot things is added a Negative of the liquid thing it self in its own Nature For there is not any tangible liquid thing which in its own nature is and constantly endures and remains hot but heat is only caused in it as an additional and acquired nature and those things which in power and operation are very hot as the spirits of Wine Chymical Aromatick Oils Oils of Vitriol and Sulphur and the like which after a little continuance will burn yet at the first touching they are cold The Water of hot Natural Baths taken up in Vessels and severed from its springs will grow cold as well as water heated at the fire Oily bodies indeed are not altogether so cold to be touched as watry bodies are and silk is not so cold as linnen But these things belong to the Table of Degrees of cold To the Tenth one 1. To a hot or fervent vapour is added the Negative of the Nature of the Vapour it self such as we find it For Exnalations out of Oily things though they be easily inflamed yet they are not found to be hot unless they be newly exhaled from a hot body 2. Likewise to a hot fervent Air is added a Negative of the Nature of the Air it self For we do not find any air to be hot unless it be shut up or chafed or palpably heated by the Sun or by fire or some other hot body To the eleventh one There is a Negative added of weather which is colder than it should be at that season of the year which happeneth upon a South-East or North-East winds blowing as also contrary weathers happen when a South or West South-West wind bloweth There is likewise an inclination to rain especially in Winter when it is mild weather and to frost in sharp cold weather To the Twelfth one There is a Negative added concerning Air inclosed in Caves in the summer time But there must be a more diligent Inquisition made of inclosed Air. For first it is a Question and that not without cause what the Nature of the Air is of it self concerng in heat and cold For the Air doth manifestly receive heat from Celestial Impressions and cold peradventure by the expiration of the earth and again in that which is called the middle Region of the Air from cold vapours and snow so that no judgement can be given of the Nature of the Air by that air which lies open and abroad but a truer judgment may be given by that which is inclosed and shut up And again that air should be inclosed and shut up in such a vessel or substance which may not of it self qualifie the air either with heat or cold nor easily admit the force of the air which is without it Let trial therefore be made with an earthen Pitcher covered all over with double Leather to safegard it from the outward air keeping in the included air in such a vessel well closed for the space of three or four dayes and the trial thereof after the opening of the vessel may be made either by the feeling it with the hand or by a Glass of Degrees called a Weather glass well and orderly applyed To the thirteenth one It is likewise a Question whether tepidity or lukewarmness in wool skins feathers and the like be by reason of some small inherent heat because they are taken off from living creatures or by reason of a certain fitness and oiliness which is of a Nature agreeing with tepidity or meerly by reason of the conclusion and fraction of the Air as was spoken in the precedent Article for all Air which is cut off from the continuation of the outward air seems to have some tepidity or luke-warm ness in it Let therefore trial of this be made in thready Stuffs which are made of Linnen and not of Feathers Wool or Silk which are taken from living Creatures It is also to be noted that all manner of Dusts or Pulverized things in which Air is manifestly included are less cold than the bodies of them as
Discontinuation is very strong so in Liquors where this kind of motion seems to cease or at the least languish yet there is not an absolute pivation of it but it plainly remains in them as in the lowest degree and shews it self in and by many experiences as in Bubbles and the roundness of drops in the smallest threads of running Gutters and in the holding together and drawing out as it were in threads of glutinous bodies and the like But this desire is most plainly apparant if we attempt a discontinuation by lesser fractions For in Morters after Contusion is made to a certain degree the Pestel operates no more Water will not get in at the smallest chinks or crevises and Air it self notwithstanding the subtileness of its body cannot suddenly pass thorow the pores of solid Vessels but by a long insinuation Let the sixt Motion be the motion which we call a Motion to Lucre or Gain Or the motion of Indigency or Want Which is that by which bodies when they converse amongst others which are meerly Heterogeneal and as it were enemies if they can but get a conveniency or means to avoid those Heterogeneals and apply themselves to such as have more affinity with them though even they do not thorowly agree with them they presently embrace them and make choice of them and seem to make some gain thereby from whence we have taken the word as being in want and Indigency of such bodies As for example Gold or any other metal beaten out to leaf delights not in having Air about it therefore if it can come at some thick and tangible body as a finger paper or the like it sticks presently and can hardly be gotten off Likewise Paper and Cloth and the like do not well agree with the air which is inserted and commixed in their Pores wherefore they willingly drink in water and drive out the Air. Likewise Sugar or a Spung put into Water or Wine though part of them stand up and be far above the Water or Wine yet by little and little and by degrees they draw the Water or Wine upwards From whence is taken an excellent rule for the opening and solution of bodies for laying aside Corrosives and strong waters which open a way for themselves if there might be found a proportionate and more agreeing and consenting solid body than that wherewith it is as it were through necessity mixed presently the body slacks and opens it self and receives the other within it excluding and putting away the first Neither doth this Motion to Lucre onely operate or hath power upon the feeling For the Operation of Amber of which Gilbertus and others since him have raised such Fables is no other but the Appetite of the body raised and excited by some light frication or rubbing which doth not very well tolerate the Air but had rather have some other tangible thing if so be there be any near unto it Let the seventh Motion be the Motion which we call of greater Congregation by which bodies are carried to the masses of the Connaturals as ponderous things to the Globe of the earth light things towards the circumference of the heavens This the Schools upon slight contemplation have specified by the name of Natural Motion Because there was nothing of ab extra or externally to be seen which should cause that Motion therefore they thought in-bred and placed firmly in it Or peradventure because it doth not cease Which is no marvail for the heaven and the earth are always ready and at hand whereas contrariwise the causes and beginnings of most of the other Motions are sometimes absent sometimes present Therefore because this doth intermit but always meets the other when they intermit they made this perpetual and proper and the rest as it were but acquired But this Motion is indeed weak and dull enough as succumbing and yielding unless there be a greater mass of body to other Motions as long as they are in operation And though this Motion hath so filled mens thoughts that it hath almost hidden all other Motions yet it is but little that men know of it but are plunged in many errors about it Let the eight Motion be the Motion of the lesser Congregation by which the Homogeneal parts in any body separate themselves from the Heterogeneal and come together amongst themselves by which also whole bodies through similitude of substance embrace and nourish one another and sometimes are congregated and drawn together from some distance as when the cream after some pause of time swims upon the top of the Milk the Lees and Tartar settle at the bottom of the Wine For these things are not done by the motion of Gravity and Levity that some parts swim at the top and others go to the bottom but through the desire of the Homogeneals of comming together and uniting themselves And this motion differs from the motion of Indigency in two things The first that in the Motion of Indigency there is a greater provocation of the Malignant and contrary nature but in this motion if there be no obstacles or tyes the parts are united by friendship though the Alien Nature be absent which moveth strife The second thing wherein they differ is that the union is more strict and as it were with more delight For in the other so that the adverse body be shunned those bodies which have no great affinity one with the other do notwithstanding concur But in this substances come together which are knit one to another as it were by a twin-like substance and are in a manner made up into one And this motion is in all compounded bodies and would easily be seen in each one of them if it were not tyed up and restrained by other appetites and necessities of bodies which disturb this Coition and going together And this motion is most commonly tyed and bound up three ways By the numness of bodies The curb of the predominant body And the external motion As for the numness of Bodies it is most certain that there is in all Tangible bodies a kind of sloth either more or less and a kind of aversion from local Motion so that unless they be excited and stirred up thereunto they had rather remain in that state wherein they are than seek after a better And this Numness or Dulness or Sloth is to be shaken off by a threefold help Either by heat or by an eminent Vertue of some allyed body or by a lively and powerful motion And first as concerning the assistance of heat from thence it proceeds that heat is defined to be that separates Heterogeneals and brings Homogeneals together Which definition of the Peripateticks Gilbertus did most deservingly deride saying that it is as if a man should define a man to be it which soweth Corn and planteth Vineyards which is but only a Definition by effects and those also particular ones And this Definition is yet further to be blamed For those effects whatsoever
be only an accidental Motion or by consequence in respect of the motion of the lesser Congregation because Homogeneals cannot come together but the Heterogeneals must be excluded and removed Yet this motion must be placed by it self and be made one several kind or species because in many things the desire of Flight is less principal than the appetite or desire of Coition or coming together And this Motion is most eminent in the Excrements of living Creatures and likewise in the hateful objects of some senses especially those of smelling and tasting For a stinking smell is so hateful to the sence of smelling that it brings the motion of expulsion into the Orifice of the stomack by consent a bitter and horrid savour is so rejected by the Palate or the throat that it causeth a shaking and horror of the head by consent But this Motion doth likewise take place in other things for it may be perceived in some Antiperistases as in the middle Region of the Air whose coldness seems to be the rejection of Natural coldness from the heavenly confines as likewise those great heats and Inflammations which are found in subterraneal places are rejections of the hot Nature from the Bowels of the Earth for heat and cold if they be in a Minor or lesser quantity do destroy each other but if they be in greater Masses and as it were in equal Armies they thrust one another out of place It is reported also that Cinamon and other fragrant and odoriferous Plants being set by Privies and stinking places will retain their own fragrancy the longer as refusing to come forth and mix themselves with the stinking smels And truly Quick-silver which would otherwise reunite it self into an entire body is hindred from it by mans spittle or Barrows-grease or Turpentine and the like and cannot gather its parts together by reason of their dissent with such bodies from which being circumfused round about them they withdraw themselves So that their flight from these interjacent things is of more force than the desire of reuniting themselves with those parts which are of the same kind and this is called mortifying or killing of Quick-silver Also that Oyl will not mix with water is not onely by reason of the difference of levity or lightness but by reason of their evill agreement for the spirit of Wine which is lighter than Oyl will mix with water But this motion of Flight is most notable in Niter and such like crude bodies which do abhor fire as Gunne-powder Quick-silver Gold and the like But the Flight of Iron from the other Magnetick Pole is by Gilbertus very well observed to be not properly a Flight but a Conformity and Coition to a more convenient situation Let the eleventh Motion be the Motion of Assembling or Multiplying of its self or of simple Generation And we call simple Generation not of whole or Integral bodies as in Plants and living things but of simular or like bodies That is to say that by this Motion bodies which are alike do turn other bodies which have some affinity with them or at least are well disposed or prepared into their own substance or Nature As flame which multiplies it self upon breaths and oylie things and ingenders a new Flame Air which upon water and watery things multiplyes it self and ingenders a new Air The Vegitable spirit which multiplies it self in its nourishments upon the most subtile and thin parts as well of watery as oylie things and ingenders a new spirit the solid parts of Plants and living Creatures as Leaves Flowers Flesh Bone and the like each of which out of the juyces of nourishments do assimilate and ingender a successive substance and excretion For we would not have any man dote with Paracelsus who blinded with his Distillations would have Nutrition made by separation only and that in bread or food there lyeth hidden the Eye Nose Brain Liver c. in the moisture of the earth the Root the Leaf the Flower For as a Carver or Sculpter out of a rude Mass of wood or stone will bring forth a Leaf a Flower an Eye a Nose a Hand a Foot or the like by separating and putting away what is superfluous so that chief internal workman saith he will by separation and rejection out of food bring forth several members and parts But laying such trifles and toys aside it is most certain that each several parts as well Similar as Organical in Vegitables and Animals do first with some delight attract then assimilate and turn into their own Nature the juyces of their several foods almost common or at least not much unlike Neither is this assimilation or simple Generation in animate bodies only but the Inanimate also participate thereof as we have said of Flame and Air. And also the dead spirit which is contained in every tangible animate thing doth always work to digest and turn the thicker parts into spirit which may afterwards go forth whence comes the diminution of weight and the drying up as we said elsewhere Neither is that accretion or growing together which they commonly reject in alimentation be rejected in assimilation as when Mud grows together amongst small stones and is turned into a stony substance Scales about the Teeth turn into a substance as hard as the Teeth themselves c. For we are of that opinion that there is in all bodies a desire of assimilation or making alike as great as that of Homogeneals to come together but this vertue is bound up as well as the other but not by the same means But we must with our greatest care inquire out those means and the way of getting loose from them because they belong to the comforting of old age Lastly it is worthy to be noted that in nine of those motions whereof we have spoken bodies do only desire their own preservation but in this eleventh they desire to have it propagated Let the twelfth Motion be the motion of Excitation which motion seems to be of the same kind as assimilation and sometimes it is so by us promiscuously called For it is a Diffusive Communicative Transitive and multiplicative motion as well as the other and they agree for the most part in their effects though they differ in the manner and subject of effecting For the motion of assimilation proceeds as it were with command and power for it commands and constrains the assimilated thing to turn and chang it self into the assimilant But the motion of Excitation proceeds as it were with Art and Insituation and by stealth for it doth only invite and dispose the thing excited to the nature of the exciting thing also the motion of assimilation doth multiply and transform bodies and substances as for example there is more flame more air more spirit more flesh made But in the Motion of Excitation the vertues only are multiplyed and transported and there is made more heat more Magnetick power more rottenness And this Motion is most
eminent in heat and cold For heat doth not diffuse it self in heating by the communication of the first heat but only by Excitation of the parts of the body to that Motion which is the form of heat of which we spake in the first Vindemiation of heat so that heat is far more slowly and difficulty excited in a stone or Metal than it is in Air by reason of the Inability and unreadiness of those bodies to that Motion so that it is likely that there may be such matters within the Bowels of the earth as do utterly refuse to be heated by reason that through their greater condensation they are destitute of that spirit from which this Motion of Excitation first begins So the Load-stone doth endure Iron with a new disposition of parts yet it loseth nothing of its vertue so the Leaven of Bread the Flower or Yeast of Drink and the runnet which coagulates milk and likewise some poisons do excite and invite Motion in a quantity of Meal or Beer or Cheese successively and continuately not so much by the power of the excitor as by the predisposition and easie yeelding of the excited Let the thirteenth Motion be the Motion of Impression which motion is likewise of the same kind as the motion of assimilation and is the most subtile of all Diffusive motions Yet we thought good to place it in a proper species because of the notable difference which is between it and the former two For the plain and simple Motion of assimilation doth transform the bodies themselves so that if you take away the first mover it nothing concerns those which follow for the first kindling into Flame or the first turning into air doth nothing concern the flame or the air which succeeds in Generation Likewise the Motion of Excitation remains for a very long time the first mover being taken away as in a heated body the first heater being laid away in Iron excited the Load-stone being taken away in the heap of Meal the Leaven being laid aside But the motion of Impression though it be Diffusive and Transitive yet it seems to depend upon the first mover so that it ever being taken away or ceasing it presently fails or perishes so that it is ended in a moment or in a very little time Wherefore we useto call those motions of Assimilation and Excitation the motion of Jupiters Generation because the Generation remains and this motion of Impression the motion of the Generation of Saturn because that as soon as it is born it is devoured and swallowed up And this motion manifests it self in three things in the beams or glimpses of light in the stroak of sounds and magnetick forces as concerning communication For the light being taken away the colours presently perish together with the other Images of it The first stroak and shaking of the body caused thereby being ended presently after the sound perisheth For sounds are tossed up and down by Winds as it were by Waters yet you must more diligently observe that the sound doth not last so long as there is a resounding For the Bell being Rung the sound seems to continue for a long time whereby a man may easily fall into an error if he think or imagine that sound doth stick or as it were swim in the air all that while which is most false For that resounding is not the same sound in Number but is only renewed and this is made manifest by the stopping or cohibition of the stricken or smitten body for if the Bell be strongly stayed or withheld and kept immoveable presently the sound perisheth and it sounds no more as in strings if after the first stroak the string be touched with the finger as in the Harp or with the quill as in Virginals presently the resounding ceaseth The Load-stone being taken away the Iron presently falls But the Moon cannot be removed from the Sea nor the earth from any thing that is ponderous when it falls therefore there can be no trial made of them but howsoever the reason is alike Let the fourteenth Motion be the motion of Configuration or Situation by which bodies seem to desire not any Coition nor separation but a Situation Collocation and Configuration with others But this is a most abstruse and hidden motion neither hath it been well enquired about and in some things it seems as it were to be incausable though indeed as we believe it be not so For if one should ask why the heaven turneth and wheeleth from East to West rather than from West to East or why it turns about those Poles which are set about the Ursas or Bears rather than about Orion or any other part of the Heaven This Question seems to be as it were some Extasis seeing that such things should rather through experience be received as positive and there are indeed in Nature some ultimate and incausable things but this is none of them For we hold this to be done by a certain harmony and consent of the world which is not yet come into observation but if the Motion of the earth be admitted to be from West to East the same Questions do remain for it also moves upon some Poles and why at last should these Poles be placed where they are rather than any where else Also the verticity and direction and Declination of the Loadstone are referred to this motion Likewise there are found as well in Natural as Artificial bodies especially those which are consistent and not fluid a certain collocation and posture of parts and as it were wooll and threads which must be diligently searched out and enquired after as being such that without the finding of them those bodies cannot be easily touched nor guided but those Circulations in liquid things by which they while they are pressed before they can free themselves do relieve each other that they may bear that compression equally we do more truely assign to the motion of Liberty Let the fifteenth Motion be the motion of Pertransition or the motion according to the issues or holes by which the vertues of bodies are more or less hindred or forwarded by their mediums or means according to the Nature of the operating bodies or vertues and also of the means For one medium or means is convenient for the light another for the sound another for heat and cold another for magnetick Vertues and for other things respectively Let the sixteenth motion be the Regal or Politick motion for so we call it By which the predominant and commanding parts do bridle tame subdue and order the rest of the parts and force them to be gathered together and separated to stop move and be placed not according to their own desires but as it is in order and expedient for the well being of that commanding part so that it is as it were a kind of Government and Policy which the ruling part exerciseth over the subjected parts And this Motion is most eminent in the spirits of
living things which Motion doth temper together all the Motions of the rest of the parts as long as it self is in vigor and force It is likewise to be found in other bodies in a certain inferiour degree as hath been said of blood and urines which are not dissolved till the spirit which restrained and mixed their parts was let forth or suffocated Neither is this Motion altogether proper to Spirits though Spirits are predominant in most bodies by reason of their quick and penetrating Motion But in bodies which are more condensed and are not filled with a lively and vigorous spirit such as is in Quick-silver and Vitriol the thicker parts are predominant so that unless this curb and yoke be some way shaken off we must not hope for any new transformation of such bodies Let the seventeenth Motion be the Spontaneal or Willing Motion of Rotation or wheeling by which bodies that delight in Motion and are well placed do enjoy themselves and follow one another and not any thing else seeking as it were their own embraces For bodies seem either to move without any term or to stand quite still or to be carried to that term where through their own Nature they must either wheel or stand still And those things that are well placed if they enjoy Motion do move circularly namely with an Eternal an Infinite motion Those things which are well placed and are averse from motion do stand quite still Those which are not well placed do move in a direct line as by the shortest path to the company of their connaturals And this motion of Rotation or wheeling admits of seven differences The first of its Center about which the bodies move The second of their Poles upon which they move The third of its circumference or compass according as they are distant from the Center The fourth of their Incitation according as they move either more slowly or more swiftly The fifth of the consecution of their Motion as from East to West or from West to East The sixt of the Declination from the perfect Circle by threads or lines nearer to or further from the Center The seventh of its declination from the perfect circle by the Lines nearer to or further from their Poles The eighth of the further or nearer distance of their Lines one from the other The ninth and last of the variations of the Poles themselves if they be moveable the which doth not belong to Rotation or wheeling unless it be done circularly And this Motion by the common and inveterate opinion is held to be the proper Motion of the Heavens Yet there is a great Question amongst some as well ancient as modern concerning that Motion who have attributed this Rotation or wheeling to the earth But it would be a far more just question or controversie if the thing be not without question namely whether this Motion granted that the Earth doth stand still be contained within the bounds of the heaven or rather descends and communicates it self to the Air and to the Waters But the motion of Rotation in darted things as in Arrows Darts Bullets for Guns and the like we remit altogether to the motion of Liberty Let the eighteenth motion be the motion of Trepidation to which as it is understood by Astronomers we give no great credit But to us who seriously seek out every where the Appetites and Desires of Natural bodies this motion comes in our way and seems it ought to be placed in specie as of a several kind And this motion is as it were of a certain perpetual captivity or bondage namely in which bodies being not altogether well placed according to their Nature nor yet finding themselves altogether ill do trepidate or agitate continually taking no rest as not contented with the state they are in nor yet daring to proceed any further And such a motion is found in the heart and pulses of living Creatures and must of necessity be in all bodies which are in an anxious and doubtful case between commodities and discommodities that being distracted do trie to free themselves and still receive a repulse yet still go on trying Let the nineteenth and last motion be that to which the name of motion scarce belongeth and yet is a meer motion Which motion we may call the motion of lying down or the motion of abhorring of motion By this motion the earth stands in its own frame the extreams of it moving themselves into the middle not to the imaginative Center but to Union By this appetite also all things which are condensed or grown thick in a high degree do abhor motion and all their appetite is not to move and though they be provoked infinitely to move yet as far as they can they preserve their own Nature And if they be forced to motion yet they seem always to endeavour to recover their own estate and rest to move no more And indeed about this they are active enough and do strive swiftly and speedily enough as being impatient of any delay But the Image of this appetite can but partly be discerned because with us by the subagitation and concoction of the Celestials every tangible thing is not only not condensed to the height but is also mixed with some spirit We have therefore now proposed the species or simple Elements of Motions Appetites and Active Vertues which are most universal in Nature neither is there a small part of Natural Knowledg shadowed under these Yet we do not deny but that other species may peradventure be added and that these very Divisions may be transported according to the truer veins of things and be reduced into a smaller number Yet we do not mean this of any abstracted Divisions As who should say that bodies desire either the Preservation or Exaltation or Propagation or Fruition of their own Nature or as if one should say that the motions of things do tend to the Preservation and good either of the Universal as Antitypie or Connexion or of great Universalities as the motion of the greater Congregation or of Rotation and wheeling or of the abhorring of motion or of special Forms as the rest of motions For though these things be true yet unless they be terminated in Matter and Fabrick according to the true lines they are speculative and less profitable In the mean time they will be sufficient and of good use to weigh the Predominances of Virtues and enquire out the Instances of strife For of these motions whereof we have spoken some are altogether invincible some are stronger and bind curb and dispose them Some do shoot out and dart further some do prevent others in time and swiftness some do nourish strengthen enlarge and hasten the other The Motion of Antitypie is altogether Adamantive and Invincible But whether the Motion of Connexion be so or no we yet doubt of For we will not for a certainty affirm whether there be a Vacuity or Coacervation and heaping up or a Permixion
enquired Nature ought to be attributed and assigned by reason of the frequent and ordinary concourse of divers Natures the instances of the Cross do shew the faithful and indissoluble agreement concerning the Nature which is enquired of of one of the Natures and the variable and separable agreement of the other whereby the question is determined and the former Nature is received for the cause the other being rejected and laid aside And that is such a one if we find of a certainty that when it flows on the opposite shoars as well of Florida and Spain in the Atlantick sea it flows also upon the shoars of Peru and the back-side of China in the south sea then by this Decisorie Instance this Assertion must be confirmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea which we enquire after must be done by a Progressive Motion For there is no other sea or other place left where there can be a Regress or ebb made at the same time And this may most easily be known if one could enquire of the Inhabitants of Panama and Lima where the Atlantick and Southern Ocean are severed only by a small Isthmus whether the ebbing and flowing be at the same time on both sides of the Isthmus or no. But this Decision seems to be certain if it be granted that the Earth stand immoveable For if the Earth turns round it may be that by unequal turning of it as touching the celerity swiftness of it and of the water of the sea there may be a violent driving of waters up into a heap which may be the flowing and a Re-laxation of the same when they can be heaped up no more which may be the ebbing But of this there must be an Inquisition severally But this being also supposed that still remaineth stedfast that there must be somewhere an ebbing of waters when there is a flowing in other places Likewise let the latter motion of those two which we supposed be the enquired Nature namely the motion of the Sea raising it self and sinking down again if it so happen that after the matter is diligently examined the other Progressive motion which we have spoken of be rejected Then there will be such a threefold way concerning this Nature and of Necessity this motion by which waters in ebbings and flowings rise and fall again without any addition of waters coming to them must be one of these three ways Either that this abundance of waters comes out of the Entrails of the earth and returns again into them Or that there be no greater mass of waters but that the same waters without any increasing of Quantity are extended or rarified so that they spread themselves into a larger dimension and take up more room and then restrain and contract themselves again Or that there is neither more quantity nor larger extension but that the same waters as they are both in Quantity or Rarity and Density do raise themselves and so fall again by and through some Magnetick power drawing them from above and so by consent rise and fall again So now if you please let the Inquisition be reduced laying aside the two first Motions to this last and let us enquire whether there be any such sublation or raising made by consent or Magnetick power But in the first place it is manifest that all the whole waters as they are laid in the hollow or concave place of the Sea cannot be raised altogether for then there would want some thing to succeed and be in the bottome so that if there were any such appetite or desire in the waters of raising themselves yet that would be broken and cohibited by the connexion of things or as they commonly call it by the Nonentity or not being of any vacuity It remains therefore that the waters must rise on the one side or part and thereby diminish and fall on the other For again it will of necessity follow that the Magnetick power seeing it cannot operate upon the whole must needs operate most strongly about the middle so that raising the water in the middle it must needs successively abandon and forsake the shoars So thus at last this subject is come to the Instance of the Cross which is this That if it be found that in the ebbings of the sea the superficies of the waters in the sea is more arched and round namely the waters rising in the middle of the sea and failing about the sides which are the shoars and in the Flouds or Flowings the same superficies is more plain and even by reason of the waters returning to their first posture Then truly by this Decisory Instance the raising by Magnetick power may be admitted of otherwise it must be absolutely rejected But this may easily be tried in Arms of the sea by sea lines namely whether in ebbs towards the middle of the sea the sea be not deeper than in flouds But we must note that if this be so waters do contrary to what is commonly believed rise in their ebbings and fall only in flowings whereby they fill and overflow the banks An Index of the most remarkable things contained in this Book ABer Barry a rockie cliff in Wales wherein is heard a continual murmure of Winds Pag. 18 Accidental generations of Winds 20 Acosta reprehended 11 His observation touching Plata and Potosa 18 Acrimonius liquors operate hotly in the divulsion of bodies 61 Aetna and other hils cast out flames 18 Aeolus his Kingdome 17 Air in hooded glasses swels the bladder 23. inclosed in caves in summer 58. is forced to break out 18. being moved it cools rather then heats 60 Andes betwixt Peru and Chile 26. some hils there 55 Animals inwards hot 60 dead ones have no warm part in them 63 Anniversary winds 57. those that are Northerly about the beginning of dog days are thought to come from the frozen Sea 24 St Anthonies fire 57 Anvils heat with hammering upon them 65 Approaching to hot things causeth heat 66 Aqua regis dissolves gold 61 Aqua fortis silver ibid. Arcturus his rising followed with tempests 23 Aselli certain stars 39 Athos 26 Attending winds 58. are not the same at Sea as at Land 11. ought not to be confounded with staied winds 12 Attrition of bodies heats them 59 B. BEllows Aeolus his bags 42 Bels are heard furthest against wind 42. their sound is thought to disperse thunder 25 Belluae what they are 21 Binding of the major and minor congregation in motion 79 80 Bird Winds 10 Birds perching what they presage 41 Bounds of Winds 3 Breath in the Microcosmos parallel to Winds which blow 43 Breze a wind 7. blows plentifully between the Tropicks 8. without them it is hardly perceiveable ibid. it is not a full East but a Northwest wind 8 Burdelois Petition to the King of England 25 Butterflies revived by heat 15 C. CAlmness at sea 12 Castor Pollux and Hellen what they presage to Mariners 40. how hot and what manner of heat