Earth up to the Clouds and from thence down again to the Earth but that the moysture in the Air should be reputed Air transmuted into Water viz That which falls upon stone-walls in moyst seasons is so absurd as it 's enough to confute it to name it So that we may conclude that the moysture in the Air which settles it self upon the Walls and floors of Stone-buildings neither is nor ever was Air and that the transmutability of Air into Water in the bowels of the Earth is impossible and lastly that Springs viz. the fontes perennes have not their Original from Rain and Snow 36. Thus I have run through the most considerable things which the Doctor offers in order to the confirming his opinion of Rain and Snow Water to be the Original of Quick-springs and all along I think have probably if not demonstratively overturn'd his Opinion together with the grounds arguments and reasons thereof I might I confess multiply more words in prosecuting at large his whole discourse but studying brevity I have couch'd all he hath to say that is any way pertinent to his purpose saving the story he relates out of Dr. Heylin concerning the Island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea which without reflection on that worthy Author who as well as other Historians may probably take many things upon trust which I say as to the verity of matter of fact I should very much scruple viz. That a drought should continue so long as thirty six years so as all the Springs Torrents or Rivers were dried up and that in the dayes of Constantine the Great It 's very probable he had it by Tradition which many times to wing Fame makes large plumes That an Island so near the Mediterranean Sea should want rain for 36 years together would certainly put an ordinary credulity upon the Tenter-hooks and stretch a Thomas beyond his ordinary pitch for of all places Islands are the most frequented with Showers And that it should be done designedly by God upon a miraculous divine account I do not well understand because that has its ends and aims for the punishing the Natives where judgements are brought forth which done they frequently cease but here according to the story they were forc'd to forsake the Island and to seek for new habitations so that probably it may pass for a drought in Utopia 37. And lastly the two Rarities he mentions that are to be found upon the Castle-Hill in Scarborough viz. the deep Well which reacheth to the bottom of the rock which hath no water and the spring-Well which is within half a yard of the edge of the rock towards the Sea which never wants water which he saith doth somewhat illustrate the point in hand The first of which seems to me onely to be a Well digg'd within whose compass no Chanels have happened and therefore it is dry for so narrow a compass as a Well is may sometimes happen to miss of subterraneal Chanels And as for the other which is so neer the edge of the Rock towards the Sea which never wants Water I look upon it as supply'd from the same cause that other digg'd restagnant Wells are viz. from Land-springs which are feed from Rain or Snow-Water which yet makes nothing in reality towards the confirming his Thesis for it is no current Spring to the best of my remembrance which yet suppose it were it will not be uneasy to conceive the manner and way of its supply when I have propounded what I have to say in order to the establishing a new Thesis which will be positive to the point in hand 38. And that is as I hinted before from a circulation of Water in the Terraqueous Globe by the mediation of Subterraneal Channels along the Sabulum bulliens from Sea to Sea yea and from the Sea to the Heads of Springs and from them into Rivulets and those into Rivers and thence into the Ocean and so circulates round which also includes an other circle of Rain and Snow which first arising by exhalation from the Sea and Earth is carryed down again upon the Earth and Sea joyning Issue with rivulets from Springs swell Rivers which again discharge themselves into the Sea 39. So that a Circulation of water is as justly requisite according to the order and appointment of the primitive Cause for the upholding the Symmetry of parts and intirenes of the whole terraqueous Globe as the Cirulation of blood is necessary for the preservation of life and vital functions in the Microcosme or body of man The earth can no more produce Vegetables or Minerals without this connatural circulation of water replenish'd with Celestial influences than the blood in the body of man can produce Vital or Animal Spirits requisite for absolving the functions of life without its inbred circulation which concatenation of parts in the circulation thereof gave cause to some Philosophers of old to call the world a great Animal either because that animarum omnia plena viz. that the Seeds of all things are at hand and at the beck of the primitive Fiat alwayes at work or because of the great Symmetry of parts or coordinate circulations of the constituent Particles of the World whose proportions were so exact and actions upon each other in the circle of nature so uniform as if actuated by some Panspermion or universal operative Spirit Spiritus intus alit totumque infusa per orbem mens agitat molem 40. Not to say how Analogous the Sea and Hydrophylacia those great Cisterns of Water and Springs of the Deep that in Noah's Food joyn'd Issue with the Cataracts of Haven for drowning the World are to the heart of the Microcosme nor how Analogous the Channels of the Quellem or Sabulum bulliens which cary the Waters into the uttermost circle of the Earth for the supply of Mineral Glebes Minerals themselves and Vegetables upon the Green Carpet thereof are to the Arteries in the body of man by which the blood circulates from the Heart for the nourishment of the whole nor yet to determine the analogy of these circulating Waters further drawn up by Solar exhalations which clime up the slender Threds of Aereal Syphons into the Capitol of the Air to be impregnate there with Coelestial influences or Animal spirits if I may so call them which cohobated upon their own body promote vegetation yea and animation too by becoming that cibus occultus in aere of which the Cosmopolite and other Hermetical Philosophers discourse at large I say not to determine the Analogy of these Waters replenish'd in their circuit with Heavenly influences with those Animal spirits in the little World Man which in the Head receive a determination for obsolving the functions of sense and motion 41. Nor lastly to determine thoroughly the Analogy of water whilst circulating in the bowels of the Earth along the Channels of the Sabulum to the blood whilst circulating in the Veins and Arâ—â—ries of the humane body though
fastened to the sides of the tunicles of those vessels and the more the Heterogeneities are the stronger is the Nisus or endevour to separate them and consequently the greater is the sensible heat which thereby perverting the sense makes it irregular in its pressing after cold things 28. That the coveting of cold drink and cold things in Fevers is as I said a deception of the sense and a depravation of the appetite further appears because notwithstanding the inordinate desire of cold things yet if by any cold drink taken into the stomach or by any accidental uncovering of the body the Archeus or Regent Spirit of any part becomes offended at its antagonist the cold the Fever or other Distemper doth certainly encrease the spurious fermentation of the blood becomes stronger and consequently the Feverish heat which is the constant product thereof is more violent and all symptomes grow worse And all this because cold the great enemy of vital heat makes its onset upon the vital principles unawares through some incautious accident or designedly through the depravedness of the appetite which is bent to require that which is harmful to it yea of which even in the very taking it becomes convinc'd of its folly by finding it doth not answer its expectation viz. the quenchiing its thirst 29. That cold is a real positive quiddity something really existent in nature and not a meer negative of heat as some would suppose which if so would in effect be nothing but vital heat and mortal cold stand both positives counter one opposing another is I say demonstrable by matter of fact In cold Countries in New England Freezeland Swethland Russia where in the Winter time the cold is actually so intense as that if they do not by some artifice defend themselves from the rigour thereof it will freeze off their very Noses yea their fingers will become mortified if they are too much exposed to the injury of the cold But we need not go so far for we see in our own Country in the Winter time in strong Frosts that some parts become mortified for instance About three Years ago a man was drunk at a Country Town and in returning home his partner left him upon a Bridge where expos'd to the cold frost upon the hard stones he had his lodging that night the next morning he was found alive but his hands and feet the most remote parts from the fort of vital heat the heart were absolutely mortified grew black as Pitch and never reducible to life or vital heat again and therefore were cut off It 's very probable if the man had not been drunk the cold would absolutely have kill'd him but the Spirits of the Liquor fortified the vital Spirits against the total subversion thereof by cold 30. And not only upon Animals but also upon Vegetables Cold exerciseth its tyranny How are tender Plants in the Spring nipt with cold frost How do they flag and as it were hang the wing after a sharp cold morning Nay How actually are the blossoms of fruit-Trees mortified and kill'd by frosts the grass nipt and kept back from growing And all this by the mortal enemy Cold. That it is not a meer privation of heat appears further because though the Sun be got into Taurus or Gemini and thereby is in great force and very vigorous yet we see that frosts come in May and prove then mortal to many tender Plants yea as intense Cold will often happen in the latter end of May when the Sun is approching to the Tropick of Cancer as when he is depress'd as far below in the Tropick of Capricorn yea and more too it is sometimes warmer weather in December than in some parts of May So that the height and nearness of Sun is not always the cause of heat nor the lowness or remoteness thereof of cold 31. And though some suppose the cause of Cold and frosts in the Spring to happen from the approch of the Sun into the Northern Signes whereby the frozen Seas near the Pole become melted and the cold being driven away by those winds which comes over us give us the cold and frosty air at that season of the Year which suppose it were so yet would it nothing infringe our doctrine of the positive essence of cold but rather confirm it yet we cannot imagin that to be the cause of intense cold frosts in the Spring and because if it were so then when the Sun came to such a point as that its heat begun to resolve those frozen Northern Seas as the heat I say of the Sun would be continually resolving those frozen Seas so answerably the cold frosts which should thereby annoy us would prove as constant which we see to the contrary for in March April and May the frosts and cold weather are very uncertain some days and nights together very warm others again as cold then warm again c. 32 I rather think that Winds Heat and Cold Rain Snow and Drought are the Treasures of God in the deep and that they are committed to tutelary influences of the Stars which have keys to let them out upon the face of the Earth at their due seasons appointed by God and that by those Peroledi and secret sluces or chanels in the Air over which the Stars are placed as Vicegerents which whether they receive their influences immediately from God or from some intermediate intelligences or Angelical Powers which are deeper than themselves yet certainly this Divine Chain of coordinate and subordinate cause reacheth from the Earth as the Poets feign'd to Jupiter's Chair I mean from the ultimate product to the primitive original cause God himself Although indeed its far otherwise as to difference of weather in Islands than upon the Continent for upon the main Continent the temperature of the Air is much at a certainty according to the points of the Aphaelion or Perichaelion remoteness or neerness thereof to the Sun and that according to the several positions thereof in different Climates which as the reverberation of the beam of the Sun is more or less in the lowest part of the Atmosphere or along the surface of the Earth so is the heat or temperature of the Air answerable in those places Whereas in Islands it 's far different for those being environed with Seas on all hands and it may be some of them old thrown up as an Abortive Birth out of the Womb of the Earth by the great Demogorgon or Subterraneal Vulcan witness the Islands of Strongilo Vulcano c. As well as others have been swallowed up in the vast Caverns thereof and drowned in the Seas witness the Terra Atlantica which was reputed bigger than Asia and Africa was swallowed up by the Atlantick Ocean as the ingenuous Kircker relates out of Plato Of which great Island those called the Canary Islands and others in the Atlantick Ocean are suppos'd to be the highest and therefore left after that Deluge I say seeing many
are most vigorous and active for in the beginnings of Animals the Ferments are very languid especially I say in the Matrix and therefore the Transmutations they make are but very slender and tennious whence is the facil reduction of the minute Embryo into its first Spermatick Juyce or Elementary Liquor In Children the Ferments grow stronger but yet is very weak whence is their aptness to breed worms which proceed from a debilitude of the embalming Ferments as Children grow up in years the Ferments grow more strong and therefore they require stronger meat and the Transmutations of the Ferments are more vigorous whence the bones and flesh of young Men become more solid and firm and that increaseth till the body come to its full stature so that it is the vigour of the Ferments that gives flower and strength to the body and their defects give being to Diseases make the Spirits flag the sinews shrink and the flesh wast away by a lingring Tabes and that too oftentimes in the very spring of Youth even many times whilst we are upon the Meridian of our days occasionally from the assaults of many Diseases When we are once arrived to the Zenith of our Years that the florid strength of our bodies are demonstrable Indexes of the agil vigour of our Ferments and vital Functions we stay not long here but then begin to decline and to go down the hill our strength begins gradually to be impaired and that because our Ferments and Vital Powers when once mounted to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are labil and in continual Flux for so all mortal powers are they begin grow come to their full state decline and come to a Period either by a further transmutation or reduction into the first Hyle or primitive Chaos therefore they spontaneously decay and with them the Fabrick of the solid parts of the body so that old Men that live out the full number of days do but spin forth a longer consumptive thread than others they wear away with an insensible Tabes having their succulent parts dried up by the exiccating Blass of the Air and that through the deficiencies of the vital Ferments And thus Old Age performs that at the long run which a lingring Disease whose Seminals are deeply seated in any principal part as stomach lungs liver veins c. vitiating the Ferment thereof doth in a less time as perhaps in a year half a year three months or less viz. wear away the body by a continual wasting or Consumption until the parts are reduced to a Skeleton which being after entombed in the earth doth as all other bodies by the fracedinous odour thereof Fatiscere in succum suum primitivum legesque aquae subire turns into a sort of Leffas and that by a further reduction is nothing else but water not to say what a great quantity of effluvia or vapours which for the most part are materially water pass continually through the pores of our bodies perhaps if duly computed not much less than the one half of the weight of the food we take in and yet is nothing but water circulated in our bodies through various Fermentations and at length reduced to its primitive simplicity Thus we begin we grow we come to our full stature from the operation of Seed and Ferments upon water whose degrees of vigour upon the material stage thereof gives the various Stadiums of Life Then we bend to Diseases we decline we die when the vital Powers and formal Ferments march off the stage and have their exit into their primitive Hyle and the body then ultimately reducible into water by the Fracedo of the Grave Hence I conclude all bodies in the Mundane System whether Vegetable Animal or Mineral from water as the material Element and by Seed as the efficient Agent have not only the Beginning But THE END AN APPENDIX Concerning the ORIGINAL of SPRINGS 1. IT is not the least part of Dr. Wittie's Book to Discourse of the Original of Springs and therein to assert their original to be from Rain and Snow-water from the confluence of which two he supposeth all Springs to flow and that after this manner viz. the Snow and Rain falling from the Clouds in great abundance upon the Earth do by moistening the Superficies cause it to bring forth Vegetables which we grant viz. That the moisture exhal'd from the Sea and Earth carryed up into the Clouds becomes impregnated with an influential Nitrous Salt or Sal Hermeticum floting to and again in the Atmosphere And circulated or cohobated upon its Caput mortuum the Earth gives fertility to the ground and makes it apt to bring forth Vegetables 2. The remaining part saith he except what suddenly runs into Rivers sinks down by secret passages into the earth with which the Superficies doth abound and in rocky ground it runs through the clefts and by them is conveyed to the Subterraneal Chanels more or less deep in the earth where it is concocted by the earth and moves as blood in the veins c. We shall indeed admit thus far of what he saith viz. That Rain and Snow-water are the proximate cause of all Land-Springs and sudden Flouds silling the Porosities and Chanels of the Superficies of the Earth the remaining part restagnates till it find declive Currents out of Brooks and Ditches into other Rivulets and those again by further passages swell into Rivers and thereby cause inundations of low grounds till those Rivers empty themselves by other intermediate ones into the Sea it self But that the same should be the cause of the Fontes perennes viz. of Living Springs I altogether deny as shall afterwards be evinc'd more clearly 3. This Water saith he at length in its passage through the veins of the Earth finds vent and runs forth which place of eruption we call a Spring or Fountain And this springing forth or eruption of the water I conceive saith he to be made from its own natural inclination and tendency towards its proper place assigned to it by the Creator which is the convex part of the earth it not resting till it meets with its natural correspondent the Air under which it must needs lie because of its greater gravity as above the Earth by reason of its levity And this I think saith he to be the natural reason of its ebullition out of the Earth 4. Here the Doctor hath at once conceiv'd and brought forth the causes as he supposeth of all manner of Springs and their manner of issuing out of the Earth viz. from rain and Snow-Water and their tendency in the Channels of the Earth to their proper place the convex part thereof For he having numbred three general Opinions concerning the Original of Springs viz. first by percolation of the Sea secondly by transmutation of Earth or Air into Water within the Bowels of the Earth Or lastly by Rain or Snow with the last of which he closeth As for the second viz. the Opinion of the
and such like Commodities Also before that time for divers days the Air is troubled being full of black and ponderous Clouds with a continual rumbling threatning as it were to drown the whole Country yet seldom so much as dropping but are carryed Southward by the Northern Winds which constantly blow at that Season 20. Now these Clouds being kept together by these Northern Winds and not suffered by the force thereof to be let down upon the Country of Aegypt in showers are upon the reversion of the Peroledi the soft Southern or South-East Winds wheeling from an other point make the hovering Clouds discharge themselve in great Rain for many days together which falling upon the Mountains of Aethiopia are partly washed down from the Mountains immediately into Nilus and partly running into intermediate Chanels and Rivulets amongst the hills are at length conveyed into Nilus which together make the River gradually to swell from the Seventeenth of June until the beginning of August at which time they cut the banks and let it overflow the whole Country for the enriching the Soyl thereof 21. Now that the overflowing of Nile is from Rain let down near the head thereof which is found to be in the Province of Agaos near the Kingdom of Goia in the Land called Sabala in the top of a Mountain whose Diameter is not past one Foot and an half is I say further apparent because the temperature of the Air all over the Country is the same at that time as it is in other places where Rain falls in moist Seasons For we see in our own Island of Great Britain where Rain happens frequently that for some days together the Air will be so cloudy and moist and yet kept off from showers by Winds that bear them up as that it moistens the walls and floors of Stone-buildings and make the stones look wet and moist as if it had actually rain'd upon them when not a shower has happened for many days together 22. In like manner I say the temperature of the Air in Aegypt at that Season is very moist yea so moist as though we suppose it did rain yet could it not be much more moist a Demonstration whereof is this following Experiment viz. Take of the earth of Aegypt adjoyning to the River preserve it carefully that it neither come to be wet nor wasted weigh it daily and you shall find it neither more nor less heavy until the Seventeenth of June at which day it beginneth to grow more ponderous and augmenteth with the augmentation of the River Whereby they have amongst themselves an infallible knowledge of the State of the Deluge 23. So that hence it clearly appears that great falls of Rain upon the Mountains near the head-Spring of Nilus at such a Season give increase to that River and that these Clouds which contain that great quantity of water which well nigh would threaten the drowning of the Country is carryed over the face of the Land by Northern Winds which meeting with other Winds from different quarters are there stay'd and let down in great abundance upon the Mountains of Aethiopia 24. And whereas Dr. Wittie saith That in Aegypt there are no Springs at all I am very much apt to suspect the truth thereof For how should the Inhabitants and Travellers in that Country be supplyed with water who Live and Travel at remote distances from Nile both for themselves and Cattle their Camels Asses c. The waters they find must needs be from Springs and those Quick-Springs too because no Rain falls on the Country to cause any Land-Springs or Rivulets therefrom 25. And although he seems to himself to give a solution to that objection made by Seneca viz. That the greatest Rain that can fall never sinks above Ten Foot into the ground by alleadging that though into the solid earth the Rain sinks not above Ten Foot yet What becomes saith he of that immense quantity of Rain which continues for many Weeks together nay oft times for some Moneths beside the infinite quantity of wet and Snow that is falling all Winter long causing inundations of water over all the Country round about Can it be suppos'd saith he that Ten Foot of earth will drink up all this water To which I answer 26. That in those great and long continued falls of Rain which cause inundations of water the greater part thereof falling upon hills champion and high grounds runs down into Rivulets and from thence is conveyed into Rivers which coming suddenly overflow their banks drown Marshes and adjacent low grounds but presently after are discharged into the Ocean Now that Rain which falls upon low Fenny grounds where the water has not that usual current into Rivers either restagnates upon the Superficies and causeth Marshes Lakes Ditches Bogs c. or sinks into the earth especially where the crust or course of earthy Clay is but thin before an other Fundus of Gravel or Sand appear for in some low moorish grounds the outward Fundus or crust is a bituminous spongy earth such are the Turf-Moors into which Rain-water sinks deep others are of a more stiff Clay or Marle and those both high and low grounds which cause Rain-water to restagnate or lye long upon them 27. So that It 's the difference of Soyls which makes Rain-water either sink or lye above where the Soyl is sandy the Rain sinks presently and therefore such High-ways are the best to Travel in Summer or Winter-Now I say ten foot is deep enough to contain all that which remains after the greatest part is carryed away by Runnels and divers Currents into Rivers and those again into the Sea for I have observ'd that in two or three days Rain it hath scarce sunk a Graft-depth in our garden-Garden-earth But suppose we should say with Dr. Wittie That by some secret passages into the caverns of the earth it should sink much deeper than ten foot yet we shall meet with two difficulties the solving of which will prove Ominous to the Doctor 's Opinion of the Original of Springs The first is How shall rain-water sink into the earth by empty crevises or clefts which I imagine he supposeth to be at some distance from each other Now what is that that must bring the intermediate particles of water which fall between one crevise or cleft and another into the distant crevises He should have done well to have assigned those particular Conveyers before he had determin'd these crevises I am apt to think he hath grounded his supposition of these crevises and clefts from those chinks and clefts in the earth which he hath seen happen in a long drought as if those were not forc'd by the extream dryness of its Superficies and fill'd again upon the access of Rain when the earth being moistened comes together the Rain sinks no more down those clefts or crevises than down any other more solid part thereof 28. Why might not he rather and that more truly suppose the
earth to imbibe Rain-water as a sponge where it meeting with capillary veins as I may call them or small pores not clefts or crevises which are scarce to be found but amongst Rocks and Rocky Soyls sinks down by degrees into larger veins and those into Subterraneal Chanels where it makes Land-Springs which supply many Draw-wells yea and many of them run into Rivers too which help to keep Rivers high in Winter time above the ordinary pitch they are found to be upon droughts 29. The next difficulty that springs up which indeed is the most considerable is If Rain-water sink much deeper than ten foot into the caverns of the earth as he supposeth Then what shall fetch it up again to make it supply Springs that are upon Hills or high Heaths nay upon the very level of Plains themselves For it must be a retrograde motion of the same water which before descended into such low caverns of the earth Facilis descensus Averni Sed revocare gradum superasque ascendere ad auras Hic labor hoc opus 30. The next Objection he brings out of Seneca and his solution evince no more than what we grant viz. That there may be additional Land-Springs and that amongst Rocks which receive their supply from Rain and Snow-water which upon droughts are dryed up and therefore are not Quick-Springs whose Original I shall shortly hint to be otherwise besides he acknowledgeth that in solid Clay Soyls it is very rare to find any eruption of water because such are sad earth and have few or no caverns or chanels in them but our Springs Saith he break out ordinarily in rocky and gravelly ground especially the best and most lasting Springs such as we call Fontes perennes which indeed is most certainly true for they are not found but as accompanyed with a boyling gravel or sand called by Helmont Quellem or Sabulum Bulliens which makes nothing at all towards the proving his Assertion 31. The last Objection he brings out of Seneca is That in the dryest Soyl where they dig Pits two or three hundred foot deep there is often found great plenty of water which he calls Living-water as not coming from the Clouds Dr. Wittie's Solution of which Objection is thus From whence then should it come from the Sea Perhaps saith he the Sea is as many Miles from that water as the Superficies of the earth is feet from it Suppose it were say I What might hinder but that water might be carryed from the Sea by Subterraneal Chanels at far greater distances than so If Seas communicate with each other as we shall shortly endevour to prove it must be by Subterraneal Chanels many of which must be of far greater length 32. Perhaps it may come saith the Doctor from the Transmutation of Aer into Water for such a Transmutation I cannot saith he deny so that in short to me it seems as if he hovered between two whether to ascribe the Original of Spring-water to the Transmutation of Air into Water or to Snow and Rain-water Only he saith indeed It 's most probable to come from Rain so that That at the hardest and at the long run carries it yet that of the Transmutation of Air into water is not without its peradventure and that he thinks very well confirm'd too by an instance he brings in which is We see saith he Churches become wet before Rain falls from this cause Why What is the cause viz the transmutation of Air into Water and truely I am apt to believe that in moyst weather as sure as the Air is transmuted into water which moystens the Stone-Walls of buildings so sure is Air in the Bowels of the Earth transmuted into Water yea and so sure is the Original of Fountains from Rain and Snow Water 33. I wonder the Doctor 's Philosophy in his second Edition should not come forth more maturate then to adhere to this old and long since exploded transmutability of Elements which has no true solide Basis to be grounded upon For if the watryness we find in moyst weather upon stones of Walls and Floors of Buildings be from the transmutability of Air into Water and that he informs us before that reasons tells us that more then ten parts of Air will not serve for the making one of Water I think saith he twenty would be too little if so many parts I say of Air be too little to make one of water and yet so much water is made according to his own supposition as serves to moysten Stone-Walls and Floors in moyst weather before rain then what must supply the place and fall into the rear of so much transmuted Air The water thence made is but as onetoten or twenty which therefore cannot supply the necessary vacancy because one cannot make up nine much less nineteen Wherefore a horrible vacancy would if this Doctrine were true long ere this have surprised the body of Air. 34. Yea and suppose we should with him admit of the possibility of the transmutation of Air into Water in the bowels of the Earth for the furnishing of Springs for such Transmutation saith he I cannot deny and keep our proportion of twenty to one What a vast Vacuum long ere this had the Mundane Systeme groan'd under Which would have impos'd one of these two grand absurdities thereon viz. either the circulation of bodies one upon another requisite for the maintaining the unity and intirenes of the World would be intercepted by the great contiguous Vacuums which must follow wanting other bodies so to tear themselves in pieces as to supply the place of the deficient Air or else those who live in the last Ages or the longest might have cause to fear least the same mishap might fall to their lot as happens to those poor Animals that get into Squire Boyl's Air-pump viz. to dye of Spasmes and Convulsions through the thinness of the Air which would be so interspersed with contiguous Vacuums made wider yet by the frequent transmutation of Air into Water as that we should not be able to live therein or lastly we should constantly be expos'd to the same injury that those are who travail over the Mountains call'd Andes in America where the Air is so thin and rarified as they travayl not without danger of being stifled for want of Air and therefore usually they carry Sponges moystened with Water for the condensing the Air or the vapours therein which Air is so dispos'd there to Inflammations as that Travellers as the Ingenious Kircherus observes seeme to belch forth flames and being all in a sweat appear as if incircl'ed with Fire 35. I must needs indeed grant that the Air hath its Vacuolums or little Interstices its texture being like a net or spong by which it becomes the more capable of being as a vehicle for transmitting rarifyed Water and other vapours of the Atmosphere becoming thereby the better Subservient to the performing the great circulation of water from the Sea and
like the water of the Spaw it self or the solution of Allom which with addition of Spirit of Vitriol or aqua fortis becomes clear and with Oyl of Tartar becomes white which may be again restored to its pristine Clarity by adding Spirit of Vitriol or aqua fortis c. 4. The fame Solution having some drops of Spirit of Harts-horn mixed therewith gives a white separation and with Spirit of Salt becomes clear again answerable in every particular to the Spaw water it self 5. Some of this clear Solution I distill'd in a Glass retort until what remained was a bright styriate floscule increasing the fire somewhat more it came to be a dry white Salt of a stiptick allumenous taste 6. The water which was distill'd off from this Salt being saved in a glass Receiver whose joints was close stopped would not give any alteration of colour either with solution of Gauls or with lixivium of Tartar which argued that no heterogeneous volatile parts of the same nature with the Salts came over the helm 7. All which put together evince no less than a parity or likeness of Principles between that Mineral earth and the Spaw water for from a parity of Principles in an homogeneal process results a likeness of products so that the Spaw is nothing else but this Essurine acid Salt in its Mineral earth in toro suo Metallico being an allumenish terrestrial Globe dissolv'd in the current Spring of water 8. For the specifical difference of all Mineral Salts depend upon these three viz. a Sulphurious acid essurine spirit water and a Mineral Glebe from the various solutions and mixtures of which arise the variety of Mineral Salts in the bowels of the earth 9. Water impregnate with this acid sulphurious spirit diffus'd thorough the occult Meanders of the terraqueous Globe according to the nature of the Mineral Glebe it meets withal it becomes coagulated into such and such a salt for if this acidulated water find a salsuginous Glebe it becomes coagulated according to the property of that Glebe together with its connate salt in a sal marine which with greater dashes of water passing thorough the subterraneal channels becomes dissolv'd and carryed into the Ocean thence the saltness of the Sea which hath its Minera from fossile salt from which also some Springs are fatturate as the Sulphur Well at Knarsbrough c. 10. If the suphurious acidulate water meet with Nitrous Veins it coagulates into Nitre which being by other current streams of water dissolv'd very probably become the original of intensely cold springs viz. such as Magnus Well Cockroft Well c. which though to touch extremely cold yet by an intrinsick sulphurious warming property doth so notably open the pores of such as are bathed therein as that it resolves the congealed blood and latex settled about the joints and outward parts of the body thence becoming the cause of Pains Aches Stiffness Numbness and Lameness of the joints which by the penetrating opening virtue of those Nitrous springs are resolv'd and thence a redintegration of the glyssent ferments of the blood and humours which give warmth and motion to all the parts again 11. If the aforesaid essurine water find a Mineral Iron bed it becomes determin'd thereby either into a Vitriol or becomes the original of most acid Spaws called Fontes aciduli sharp springs such as Tunbridge Epsom Knarsbrough c. amongst which this of Scarbrough is not the least 12. The sweet Spaw of Knarsbrough is but languid of Mineral principles having but a very slight touch of the Minera of Iron and hath the essurine acidity but in a very remiss degree thence it is that great quantities must be gulped down before any sensible operation by purgation 13. As the Minera of Iron terminates the sulphurious acidity into vitrioline sharp springs so in like manner the Minera or primum ens of Copper coagulates this essurine salt into a cuprous Vitriol and that either fossile to be digged out of Mines or iâ— further dissolv'd in a water spring which by exhaling the moisture by the Sun or by boyling it up over a fire it shoots into Vitriol Or lastly this acidity is coagulated in Mineral cuprous stones which being expos'd to the air become resolv'd by the falling of Rain water thereon which after filtration and boyling up shoot in great troughs into common Vitriol 14. But if this essurine sulphurious water find an allumenish Glebe or Rock it becomes thereby coagulated into natural Allom receiving a specifical difference from that particular Mineral Glebe whereby it becomes different from the other coagulations of the same Mineral acidity which by further dissolution in the current of a water spring give being to this of Scarbrough and other the like Spaws SECT 5. 1. NOw whence the great variety of Mineral glebes should proceed is a Philosophical query worthy our most choice consideration especially seeing that from the multiplicity hereof the sulphurious acid spirit becomes determined to this or that particular specifical salt of sal marine Nitre Vitriol and Allom. 2. For in these the Metals are in solutis principiis in their primitive juyces their Mercuries though volatile crude and undigested yet are spermatical and as such are the radical moisture of Metals not to say the Mercury of Philosophers these are apt to be coagulated and maturated into Metals by the embryonate Sulphurs which lurk in intimis Thalamis glebarum metallicarum which according to the purity or impurity of the terrestrial Matrix and degrees of the graduation of the Sulphurs are determined and specificated in imperfect and perfect Metals to the completing the septenary of the Metallick order besides their middle Minerals which are in the Road to Metalization 3. That all Metals and Minerals have their innate seeds shut up in themselves we shall not need to spend time to confirm in auro semina sunt auri quamvis abstrusas recedunt longius seeing that their spermatick principles become prolifick suo more whose seed operating in a volatile crude Mercury and an embrionate Sulphur become deducible after the manner of a natural genesis unto their state of maturation accord to the process of their concretes in the Vegetable kingdom 4. We may therefore consider that as God the original Founder of all beings hath implanted in the superficies of the earth that great variety of vegetable seeds whence the diversity of Plants not only sprung up at first but by their seminal beginings or somewhat analogous thereto have continued to propagate themselves in their species 5. Every Vegetable at its proper season by the instigation of the heavenly influences having its seminals set at work in which it hath its own specifick faber or if I may so call it Archeus which by its innate plastick power begins to hew forth it self a body out of the elementary principle of water shaping it self in stalk branches leaves flowers seeds and fruits according to the platform laid in the seminal beginings
thereof every Plant in its kind to the great and wonderful variety which we see upon the face of the earth so that presentem refert qualibet herba Deum 6. So in like manner the invisible Divine Power hath according to his own beneplacit dispersed variety of Mineral and Metaline seeds in hidden places of the opake body of the earth whence indeed the great and manifold difference of Mineral Glebes or Earths which Mineral seeds as well as all others whether vegetable or animal are indemonstrable a priori taking at first their immediate beginings from the very bosom of the Eternal Being 7. And therefore only demonstrable to us à posteriori viz. to our common sense by appearing in a visible garb upon the Stage of the World Now these dispersed Mineral Seminaries wherewith several parcels of earth become impregnate being set at work by the primitive fiat which is the same to this day as ever in their begining to shape bodies for their ideal essences to become manifest in form to themselves a Mercurial volatile juyce and an embrionate Sulphur as the materia proxima prima to Metalization 8. With these two proximate principles the Mineral Archeal faber operates ripens the elemental crudities and in a linear process puts on a tincture and weight and at length terminates in the coagulation of a perfect Metal specificated according to the form of the innate seed for the ripening coagulating fire of the embrionate Sulphur is as the Solterrae id quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius which kills the Python viz. exiccates and maturates the radical Mercurial moisture and terminates it in a Metalick species But I digress this being more fit for a Philosophick discourse upon another subject 9. We say therefore that these Mineral Glebes have for the mostpart a Mercury and a Sulphur in solutis principiis and both dissolvable in an essurine salt for salts are the keys that unlock the Mineral Kingdom These are those Menstrual Salts which teach Minerals and Metals how to dissolve in water by breaking them in minima and thereby how to communicate their medicinal virtues for the health of mans body 10. Here the Chymistry of nature is most admirable which by its own peculiar Menstruums extracts the essential innate virtues of Mineral Glebes and that by an intrinsick invisible fire in the digesting vessels of the earth yea and by the help of Art supplying the difficulties of Nature by frequent solutions and coagulations may yet further graduate these mineral virtues into more noble Arcana's whose essential tinctures may the better penetrate the vital ferments of the Microcosm 11. But how this Sulphurious essurine Salt becomes determined and specificated according to the difference of the Mineral Glebes it meets with into this or that fossile Salt or Mineral mixture may perhaps not unaptly be represented by this following instance as suppose several colours and salts placed at a distance one from another upon a large Marble and common simple water is convey'd to each of these this water though the same to all yet as it comes to every of them it becomes differently tincted and tasted according to the colour and taste of those parcels it meets with 12. So this essurine Sulphurous Spirit meeting with variety of Mineral Earths though the same in it self to every one yet becomes altered and tinctured according to the different property of the Mineral Earth and that according to the degree of Sulphur maturating the crude Mercurial juyce Now to confirm this our Thesis we must assume these two considerations first that all the various specificated Mineral Salts as Allom Vicriol Nitre c. have aliquid commune something in common amongst themselves and secondly that thereby all these Salts become transmutable one into another 13. For the first that they have something in common among themselves besides confirmation by our previous discourse is yet further demonstrable by matter of fact upon our second consideration viz. the transmutability of one salt into another by the Chymical Art we can out of sal marine or the spirit thereof make a Vitriol of Iron or Copper and by dissolving Quicksilver in Oyl of Vitriol according to what is done in making turbith Mineral as suppose four Ounces of Oyl of Vitriol to one of Mercury after the phlegm is evaporated and distilled that there remains a white precipitate which edulcorated by washing gives a Citrine powder and being revived as by distilling it from pot-ashes it may gives the same weight of current Quicksilver as it was at first This water which is impregnate with the Vitrioline Salts by being boyled up gives a true Allom here Vitriol salts are transmuted into an allumenish salt and that without the addition of any thing but Quicksilver which is again totally separable and yet salts by the very odour of the Mercury is turn'd into an Allom. 14. And not only Oyl of Vitriol with Mercury but also Oyl of Vitriol with common sal marine gives Alumen for if you put Oyl of Vitriol as we sometimes have done upon common salt and distil it in a glass body or retort with a gentle heat you will find a very volatile spirit of salt will come over the helm which will fume exceedingly the caput mort ' or remaining salt being dissolved gives a salt exactly resembling Allom. 15. Also Allom in its Minera exposed to the air is as a Magnet to Nitre attracting and centring it upon it self and common salt is in the body of Nitre Thus you see a relation or circulation of salts one into another and all this because they have in their Centre that one common Essurine spirit of salt which according to various alterations in Mineral beds admits of different coagulations 16. In short by way of recapitulation it is thus the Essurine acid salt having in its solution got a slight touch of a Vein or Minera of Iron and passing through a Rocky Mineral Glebe of Allom of which along the shore of Scarbrough and Whithy is found great plenty becomes more specificated in an allumenous than any other salt with which the water of the Quick-spring which breaks forth at the foot of the Rock is impregnate which makes that Fountain viz. the Spaw we discourse of SECT 7. 1. HAving thus run through the essential principles of this spring which make up this body of Mineral water which is so frequently and that for the most part not without the expected success drunk for the health of mens bodies I think it not impertinent to speak somewhat of its virtues and that the rather because Dr. Wittie gave forth as I was inform'd that I endevoured to defame the Spaw in that I held it to be an allumenous Spring 2. Let him therefore and the World know that in the Essurine salt of Allom as noble medicinal virtues are to be found as in any other Mineral specificated salt whatever for this salt in its primum ens is volatile and
volatile as not the least of it discernable in any body of Sulphur or otherwise nay though one should distil it with never so much curiosity of exactly fitting and joynting Receivers yet would nothing of a Sulphur become apparent but would be gone insensibly as happened to a solution of above a pound of thrice calcined Salt which upon the affusion of water did exactly resemble the Sulphur Well as I said which filtred and placed over the fire to evaporate before one half was gone it had lost all its embryonative Sulphur being so volatile as it took wings by the assistance of so much heat and left no footsteps of its presence 8. Thirdly I conclude that such a solution of the Sal Marine together with its embryonated Sulphur in a sabulous Spring having received that previous digestion in the intrails of the Earth as to make apparent its Embryo Sulphur may be nearer the Primum Ens Salium then a coagulated Salt and may be better taken in order to the preparation of that great Solvent the Sal circulatum And my reason is partly grounded upon a sentence of the grave and long experienced Helmont where he saith In Sulphure sunt fermenta fracedines odores sapores specifici seminum ad quasvis transmutationes that is In Sulphur are ferments hogo's smells specifick tasts of seeds fit for all transmutations so that in the bosom of Sulphurs lyeth the main wheel of all transmutation the beginnings to which are also putrefactions which those Embryo-Sulphurs may much promote For all bodies that are capable of resolution into Heterogeneities their texture is subverted by the working of ferments upon the Sulphurs of such bodies whereby they may be readily analyz'd or taken in pieces 9. Lastly That Spirits such I call the Primum Ens salium before they are coagulated upon Minerals or other bodies are but in Embryo or in their infancy as I may call it or nonage and therefore coagulable upon bodies to the impairing of their own activity by locking themselves up in the textures of bodies and so require a resolution from their coagulation before they can be brought to that purity and simplicity they were in when they found bodies to dwell in viz. before incorporation 10. Hence it is that Paracelsus giving an hint concerning the preparation of his grand Liquor Alkahest which I do not remember he calls by that name in all his Writings save De Viribus Membrorum Cap. De Hepate but by Sal circulatum Primum Ens salium c. saith à coagulatione resolvatur iterum coaguletur in formam transmutatam that is as I apprehend That seeing we can scarcely find the Primum Ens salium in its pure spirituality and naked simplicity but as it is infolded in the arms of a Mineral body and so coagulated into many shapes of Salts as Marine Vitriol Allom Nitre c. which are several bodies wherein this hidden Spirit or universal embryonative Solvent appears to our view in divers corporeal dresses putting on Proteus like new shapes according to the Mineral vestment wherewith he is cloathed requires therefore if we would have him appear unmasked to be resolv'd from his coagulation till then we cannot expect him capable of performing much in the way of a penetrating Master-Solvent but acts according to the freedom of his keepers 11. And though this Spirit or Primum Ens salium while it is in its infancy or embryo be so weak as to clasp hold of every body that comes near it and prostitute it self to every woer in many strange Mineral bodies so as to dibilitate it self before it arrive to those more mature and masculine functions of penetrating and dissolving bodies without being contaminated with their touches or debilitated and baffled by their re-action I say notwithstanding this weakness of the Spirit before coagulation yet if after the the resolution it becomes set at liberty from its bonds divorced from its first consort and then exalted and fortified in its own purity by a gradual process becomes so noble and virile a liquor as that it acts upon all Mineral Animal and Vegetable Concretes dissolving them into their Primum ens or seminal Crasis whereby their medicinal virtues are at hand and that without the least re-actions of those bodies upon this universal Solvent Liquor But to return 12. This Spaw as to medicinal use is not of much more efficacy than so much Trencher-salt dissolved in such a proportion of water answerable to that of the Sulphur-Well which both alike would much-what have the same operation only the foetid embryonate Sulphur doth somewhat provoke nature and therefore extimulate the expulsive faculty of the stomach purging either upward or which the rather downward 13. The plenty of the Salt wherewith it is strongly saturate preserves much against Putrefaction and Diseases thence proceeding viz. against worms and wormatick corrupt matter in the stomach and intestines which so much common Salt as I said dissolv'd in fair water would effect the same The blackish Salt which remains after the boyling up of the water hath no more virtue against worms for which it is frequently used than a like quantity of common Salt for it hath no specifical difference from common Salt especially when depurated by solution filtration and evaporation then it is exactly the same 14. And though there be a Marcasite or stone of Vitriol to be found about Sixscore yards from this Well which will fall in the Air in a moist place and by solution filtration and evaporation will become a transparent green Vitriol as an ingenuous Friend of mine for tryal sake made I say though this be found near it yet doth not in the least partake thereof neither in taste nor virtue Concerning the Original of Hot Springs IT is not the least amongst Chymical Enquiries to know the true original cause of heat whether in Vegetables Animals or Minerals amongst which the cause of hot Springs is not inconsiderable seeing that in them are found many medicinable virtues useful for the help of Man Where I shall proceed first to shew That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts next How Mineral Salts upon the contact of one another or of Mineral bodies are the efficient causes of heat in those Springs and thirdly How artificial Baths may be made analogical in virtue and operation to the natural and Lastly shall shew the efficacy of hot Springs and Baths whether natural or artificial As to the first That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts is evident because no Mineral or Metalline body is dissolvable or alterable in the bowels of the earth without the concourse of Salts for in the Mineral and Metalline Kingdom there are but two Agents which makes the great alterations amongst those bodies and those are Fire and Salts by Fire I mean not only the external and elementary fire by whose force Metals and Minerals become separated from their connate Heterogeneities and brought to the best but also the
inward inbred fire viz. the Sulphur of those bodies which ripens and maturates the Minerals and Metals making them more or less pure according to the disposition of the place and graduation of the Sulphur By Salts I mean the Primum Ens salium with its various coagulations into specificated Salts for without these Agents all Mineral and Metalline bodies are at rest There are neither solutions nor coagulations Now there are few sorts of earth through which water in its current passeth saving the Quellem or Arena bulliens but they are impregnate with Mineral juyces of one sort or other which by some sleight touch of a Mineral Salt in the water-Spring becomes dissolv'd in some small proportion enough to give that great difference we find in Spring-water both as to taste which some that have accurate palates and have accustomed themselves to drink water can easily discern an eminent difference in taste of one sort of Spring-water from another as also to the frequent use waters are put to both for boyling meat washing and bleaching cloaths Dying Tanning Brewing c. All which difference I say proceed some small solution of different Mineral juyces by the Medium of a little touch of Salt dissolv'd in the subterraneal chanels of water Here I might expatiate and shew the reasons of the difference of waters both as to taste and also in order to the foresaid uses but least I make these papers swell too much I shall wave it My next work is to shew How Mineral Salts upon the mutual contact of each other or of Mineral bodies are the efficient cause of heat in those Springs I am now speaking of To which purpose I shall propound several mechanical experiments of the productions of heat as first from the mixing acid and alkalizate Liquors as for instance of Oyl of Vitriol with Oyl of Tartar which upon mixing give a great heat making a strong ebullition which when over the heat wasteth and that is either when the one by its greater proportion over-acts or overcomes the other or when both proportionable they are reduc'd to an Equilibrium or neutral Salt called Tartarum Vitriolatum Which heat is caus'd not only by Oyl of Vitriol upon the Alkali of Tartar but also by any other acid Spirit as Spirit of Nitre Spirit of Salt Aqua fortis Spirit of Vinegar or the like which after the ebullition is over give a Tartarum nitrosum salinum acetosum c. And as Salts mutually acting upon each other cause heat so in like manner do some Liquors or Spirits affus'd upon Salts effect the same as Spirit of Wine poured upon drie Salt of Tartar will make a great heat so that in mixing them to rectifie Spirit of Wine therefrom we usually do it per vices or by sprinkling the Salt leisurely therein least we should indanger the glass by heating it too much The like heat happens by pouring the Spirit of Wine upon Arsenick fixt upon Nitre which as from the same cause with that of Spirit of Wine upon Salt of Tartar for the Nitre by the open calcination with Arsenick is partly turned into a fixed Alkali which that it is so appears because if to the dulcified Arsenical powder after the washing away the Salts Spirit of Wine be poured no heat is contracted So water poured upon Calx vive gives a considerable heat which it doth by resolving the acid and alkalizate Salts contained therein who by their mutual contest cause an heat As Salts acting one upon another and the affusion of some Liquors also upon them cause heat so also Salts acting upon Minerals or Metalline bodies by corrosion and dissolution are the efficients of heat Thus any corrosive Menstruum fretting Mineral or Metalline bodies cause the same as for instance in the solution of any Metal in Aqua fortis during the ebullition there is an heat so in making the Vitriolum Martis upon the affusion of the Menstrum the heat is so very strong as that I have not been able to hold the glass in my hand Which proceeds from the agile Spirits of Salts fretting upon the Metalline compage taking it in pieces and reducing it in minima in whose forcible not natural Analysis through the agility of motion the heat is caused But in the pouring Aqua Regia upon Antimony or Spirit of Nitre upon Butyrum Antimonii for the making Bezoardicum Minerale there an heat is caused by an actual humid calcination of the Sulphur of that Mineral where the Sulphur by those corrosive Spirits almost takes flame passeth off with a strong stifling Arsenical vapour Also the motion of bodies one upon or against another by concussion or frication cause heat so fermentation gives quickness of motion and that produceth heat which is sensibly perceived in some fermenting liquors in others not Now the Query pertinent to my purpose is Which of all these several causes of heats may probably be the efficient of hot Springs To which I answer That it is most likely to proceed from Mineral Salts one acting upon another that is from the Essurine Salt which alone with a slight touch of a Mineral give being to those Fontes Acidi viz. Vitrioline Spaws which meeting in the chanels of the Earth with some lixivial Marcasites are by the current of a water-Spring dissolv'd and set a boyling one working and fretting upon another give that heat to the water which dissolves them Which two Salts viz. Acid and Alkalizate are sometimes embryonative in the same Marcasite which may happen in some natural stone or middle Mineral of Calx Vive into which a current of water being opened presently dissolves the two Salts makes them contest and struggle by reason of the antipathy of their natures and thereby cause the heat in hot Baths So that in short It is very probable that it is from a natural stone of Calx Vive which being plentiful in the Minera thereof may give cause for the perpetuation of heat To confirm which Some have found a white Marcasite about the place of those hot oprings in Sommerset-shire which put into water give an heat Now that two such opposite Salts should be embryonate in the same Mineral stone is an argument that the seminal principles of Nature are at work in all places according to the capacity and manner of the matters reception viz. ad modum recipientis Calx Vive distill'd with fresh Urine makes the Spirit thereof arise at the first with that difference also from soliary Spirit of Urine as that it gives cause to think that some volatile Alkali of the Calx ariseth up with it which hinders the coagulation of the Spirit into an Offa with Spirit of Wine usually happening from simple Spirit of Urine and Spirit of Wine mixed together Which very thing argues the difference of Salts of Calx Vive That it hath an Alkali in it is demonstrable enough from its inriching of grounds for which purpose it is frequently used in barren Soyls which the
the evincing the truth of the simplicity of the material Elementaryness of Concrets For as it is in this so also is it in other reductions by the same solvent What becomes of the Salt Sulphur Spirit and earth If these were real Principles they would not be convertible one into another neither would they be reducible into something more simple then themselves in as much as it is essential for Principles to be Primary and to be the last in reduction What becomes of the Spirit one of the Principals of the Moderne Chymical Philosophers which whether it be Vinous got by Fermentation or Saline got by distillation yet is it really convertible into Salt witness the Offa from Spirit of Wine and Spirit of Urine the Sal Alkali made out of spirit of Wine which before was Flagrable but being chang'd into a Salt hath lost that and lastly the rectification of Volatile Urinous Spirits whether of plants or Animals until they distil or Coagulate into the very body of Salt What becomes of Sulphur or Oyl another supposed Principle for Sulphurs are convertible into Salts as I have seen in an experimental process too redious here to be related and Helmont saith Salia aromatum ex eorum oleis facta primi entis illorum vices subeunt and that Oyl of Cinnamon if united to its own Alkali by an artificial and secret circulation for the space of three months without any water wil be totally changed into a volatile Salt Also what becomes of Salt another main Principle of both antient and Modern Chymists For whether it be fixt or Volatile neither of them is an ultimate and so consequently no primary Principle in the concrete it is neither volatile nor fixt but made so by Fermentations or force of Fire for in all simple distillations of Vegetables without previous putrefaction there alwaies remains an Alkali or Salt besides the Volatile Salt which ariseth by distillation So in the actual Flagration or Calcination of Vegetables the Salt catcheth hold of the Sulphur and both become fixt together into an Alkali which Assertion viz. that part of the Sulphur in the actual force of the Fire is fixt with the Salt into an Alkali is apparent from the Saponariness of every Alkali whether of Tartar or any dried Vegetable So that Salts as they lie woven up with the Sulphur in the Texture of the Concrete are as I said neither fixt nor volatile but in the mutual imbraces of each other become pregnant with the Medicinal Vertues Odours Sapours c. proper to the Plant and from different operations of fire and ferments thereon doth proceed both the Volatility and fixity of the Salt their mutability of one into another and Separation each from other Now both these are ultimately reducible into Mercury or water which I look upon as Synonyma for Helmont saith Omze oleum distillatum in salem est mutabile in aquam per adjuncta so that into neither of them are bodies by a genuine Analysis ultimately reducible and therefore they are constitutive Principles of things Lastly what will become of earth that first Principle of the Modern Chymists and fourth of the Aristotelians And although those who contend for five Principles because Vegetables and Animals are by a common Analysis of the fire separable into so many distinguishable parts viz. an Oyl Spirit Salt Phlegm and Earth I say though they do find after the separation of the first four an other part as a feculent dross of all the rest which they call earth yet do we deny the Separation of these parts from a concret by force of fire to be any true Analysis or proper way of taking bodies in pieces And therefore it is no genuine reduction thereof into their primary Principles but onely a forcing the parts asunder by violence of fire so that being put upon the Rack if they make any confession of their first parents its onely extorsive Also the basis of Aristotle's Elements falls imo ruit totum quaternarium elementorum praeter aquam for if we strictly examine what earth is we shall find that it enters not the composition of any body as a primary constitutive Ingredient thereof and that because if we search into the great variety of Earths we may observe them all to be but fruits or products of the primitive Principle Water except hence that Arena Quellem terra virginalis which never enters into the composition of any body quoad generatonem indeed artificially it enters the composition of Glass of Brick cement c. but that is sine semine praevio And that the several sorts of Earth are various coagulations of water according to the difference of the Fracedinous seeds dispersed and implanted therein and that they are no less products of water then Mineral Salts middle Minerals Stones and Metalline Bodies are all which receive a Specifical determination from the difference of the Fermental Seeds Is I say demonstable by granting the veracity of Helmont's experiment aforesaid viz. that all these Earths Stones Marcasites Minerals c. are ultimately reducible into water by his grand Solvent the Alkahest and that without any residence or Faeces at all so that if earth were a permanent Principle it would be so as long as bodies are bodies and would alwayes remain earth after the reduction of the concrete into Elements As earth is no Element so neither doth air enter as such into the composition of Bodies and though its true that air is both useful and necessary for Vegetation and Animation without which neither do plants grow nor Animals live yet is it onely respiraculum vitae promoting in Animals both circulation and volatization of the Blood and helps every part to perform the motion proper thereunto inasmuch as we cannot go to stoole without the help thereof compressing the muscles of the Abdomen and so of Urine and the like but still it enters not the composition of any body as an Elementary Ingredient thereof Nor is any body ultimately resolvable thereinto for though there be a flatus arising usually from the Enormities of the digestions yet that is quite another thing then air And as neither earth nor air so neither fire enters the composition of any concrete for though there be heat and consequently a kind of fire in the body of Animals yet that is no other than a product of Vital Fermentation and no radical Principle and therefore Paracelsus was to be laughed at who in his Tractate De separatione Elementorum teacheth the separation of the Element of fire and out of it again a new separation of Elements For if I should with him suppose an Element of fire yet if that be further reducible it forthwith looseth both the name and nature of an Element and although he and other Hermetical Philosophers tell us of the separation of Elementum iguis de vitriolo Veneris yet by that we must onely understand the Sulphur separated from the Vitriol of Copper which Sulphur
of earth dried in an Oven having put them in earthen vessel he moistened it with Rain-water after five years the Tree weighed One Hundred Sixty nine pound three Ounces and the earth being dried was of the same weight as at first Now Whence should proceed the great addition of weight to the Tree of no less than One Hundred Sixty four pounds unless from water than which it had no other additional The wood of which Tree I suppose no man will deny to be different from any other wood of the same species and therefore upon Distillation must yield a sowre Spirit an Oyl Phlegm and Salt if burnt and separated into soot and ashes that soot again would yield a velatile Salt Oyl Spirit Phlegm and Earth all which are but the products of water as by the Experiment is demonstrable To the like purpose the most ingenuous Robers Boyl Esq hath an Experiment which was thus In a weighed quantity of digged earth baked in an Oven and put into an earthen pot he set the seed of a Squash this he ordered to be watered only with Rain or Spring-water I did not saith he without much delight behold how fast it grew though unseasonably sown which was about the middle of May the hastening Winter hindred it from coming to its wonted magnitude About the middle of October it was taken up whose weight with the stalk and leaves was two Pound twelve ounces the earth he baked as formerly and found it the same weight The like Experiment he had of Cucumbers he had two fair ones the weight of which were ten pounds and an half the branches with the roots weighed three pounds fourteen ounces then baking the earth twice and its weight was decreased one pound and an half which twice baking might somewhat minorate the weight of the earth Now Whence should proceed that great bulk both in the Squash and Cucumbers unless from water which was the only matter additional thereto And what happens to these planted in earth and fed with water whose increase is found to be simply from water The same I say doth more than probably happen to all other Vegetables springing up from their innate Seeds or transplanted into other Soyls and that the Earth is only a receptacle or Matrix where the variety of Seeds conceive in the common Mercury Water or Leffas Terrae and bring forth a Salt and Sulphur from whose acting one upon another in the source of corruption ariseth the Vegetation and in that the formation of the Plant according to the Idea wrapt up in the bosom of the Seed for these two active secondary Principles being hewed out from the seminal Archeus work themselves extensively downward but chiefly upwards cloath themselves with a body from the primary Element of Water and shoot forth into stalks leaves flowers fruits seeds c. shapes the body according to the platform of the seminal Idea extraverteth the properties thereof whence the variety of colours odours sapours and other specifical qualities flowing from the essence thereof better known to the humane Archeus by assisting it against many Diseases than apparent to the reason of man As we have demonstrated Vegetables to have their original material Principles from water so also Animals have water for their constitutive Element For all Animals I mean superterrestrial have their nourishment either immediately or mediately from Vegetables and Water immediately as all manner of Cattle proper for the food of Man mediately as Man who feeds upon the flesh of Beasts and sometimes immediately upon Herbs themselves so that in Beasts that feed of Grass and Corn Water becomes once more remov'd from its primitive simplicity undergoes a further transmutation by an Animal Ferment that whereas before it had received a simple transmutation or coagulation into plants and fruits of the earth it now by Beasts feeding thereon suffers a second alteration and by the Ferment of an Animal is turn'd into a Chyle Chyme Milk Blood Urine Flesh Bones c. and all these different one from another according to the difference of the Species Now these Creatures or parts thereof are further transmutable by the Ferment of other Animals that feed upon them as for instance the flesh of Beasts or milk therefrom which is water twice remov'd by the Medium of Ferments is by the Ferment of an humane stomach altered again into a Chyle Chyme Milk Blood Flesh Bones Urines c. wherein the specifical Salt and Sulphur do act variously upon each other which in sound persons by the assistance of the Ferment of the heart work each other into a ruby balsamick Animal Elixir and that coagulated in the capillary vessels becomes Flesh And we see if Blood be distill'd the greatest portion thereof is Phlegm or Water so that above two thirds thereof is an Elementary water in like manner Urine is most part of it separable into a waterish Phlegm and Milk distill'd ariseth the most of it in an insipid water in the distillation of the flesh of an Animal a great part thereof ariseth into water amongst which the flesh of Eeles if distill'd as that great Naturalist Squire Boyle witnesseth yield a very great proportion of water in which while distilling they seem to boyl as in a pot of water or like Dantz Vitriol in an earthen pot placed in the fire seemed to be nothing else but water so these to be nothing else but Phlegm coneal'd To which purpose Helmont tells us Anguium Carnes pisces Mucilago semel glaciata eo ipso mucaginem amittunt in aquam redeunt itam emnis Terrae Mucilago qua aliàs facilè in vermes vertitur for that Izinglass Flesh Fish c. should by being frozen lose their form and thereby be reducible into water is no less than an evident Argument of what I am proving viz. That water is the primary subjective Principle of all Vegetable and Mineral Concretes And that Seed together with the potential Ferments thereof are the Authors of all transmutations by the operation of which Water becomes differently coagulated and specificated according to the variety of the Seed and the innate Ferments thereof into this or the other formal Concrete or part thereof which Ferments being connatural with the Seed is more powerful than fire and therefore fitter Agents for transmutation than fire and that because fire can only burn Stones into a Calx as the most profound Philosopher Helmont saith and wood or Vegetables are thereby turned into ashes than which unless by addition of Sand it may further make glass the solitary fire can operate no further and yet these very Calx-stones and ashes may by a Ferment in the earth be transmuted into the Succus or Leffas Terrae and thereby fertilize barren grounds and so assume the shape of Grass and Corn which a while before was in the form of Stones Dung Ashes c. and that which was lately Grass and Corn presently by the Ferment of an Animal becomes Blood Milk and Flesh of
transmutation of Earth into Water for the supply of Springs it 's so absurd that its enough to name it although the Dr. is too credulous in telling us he can easily believe That the thinner part of the Earth may be turned into Water as also the grosser parts of Water into Earth So the thinner and more subtile parts of Water into Air and the grosser parts of Air into Water arguing a Transmutability of the Quaternary of Elements amongst themselves which I wish he could make me believe too by any ocular demonstration 5. As for that Transmutation of Air into Water for the supposed supply of Springs it 's Aristotle's opinion and Dr. Wittie denying this Thesis yet saith that reason tells us that more then ten parts of Air will not serve for the making but of one part of Water I think saith he by Parenthesis twenty would be to little But if I should be heard to speak in this case it should be Paradoxical and that thus viz. that five parts of Air would be too much and five thousand parts thereof would be too little for the making one part of Water 6. I shall therefore first endeavour to impugne his Thesis of Snow and Rain-Water to be the Original of all Springs by being Negative therein Next to which I shall assume a positive Thesis from the Circulation of Water in the Terraqueous Globe by the mediation of Subterraneal Chanels from Sea to Sea yea and from the Sea to the Heads of Springs from them into Rivulets and those again into Rivers and those into the Ocean and so circulate round 7. First therefore that Snow and Rain-Water should give Original to living Springs as we call them cannot be because then upon deficiency of Snow and Rain-Water as usually happens in long droughts these Springs would certainly fail But we find the contrary viz. that in long continued droughts when all Land-Springs are thereby dried that yet the true Quick Springs are as fluent as ever Ergo they are not fed by Snow or Rain-Water I cannot indeed deny but that Quick-springs are not without their additional supplies from Land-Springs which are fed by Snow or Rain-Water and thereupon may in long droughts having those auxiliaries drawn off become less able to manage that strong current they had before yet doth it not therefore follow but that these Springs when solitary fetch their Original deeper then Rain Water can sink 8. Yea suppose we should grant that some few of these Quick-Springs should for the generality of them do not prove deficient through long continued droughts yet this may very probably happen upon a double account First because the Quick-Spring it self may be lengthened by the additional supply of a Land-spring being suppose but an arme of that larger Channel which is carried under ground at a greater distance to another Spring of a more strong current and therefore a drought taking away its Auxiliaries may thereby break off an arm and make it run in its strong single Channel along the Sabulum bulliens to an other Spring-head where it glides currently away 9. The next reason why some few Quick-Springs as I said may in long droughts prove dry'd up is because the Superficies of the earth is so exhausted of that Natural moysture which should supple it for Vegetation and the like as that it imbibes it into its self like a Spung and the Spring spends its stock to moysten the thirsty earth about it and so proves deficient in its current But when the earth becomes again satiated by irrigating showers then that which before was diverted to moysten the Earth finds its Channel again and runs as fluently as ever 10. The second reason why Springs have not their Original from Snow and Rain-Water is because we find Springs break forth upon the tops of Hills or Mountains which flow even in the greatest droughts Now if Rain-Water should at that season onely supply them then of necessity upon want of Rain and continuance of long droughts these must be dryed up yea and that very speedily too because they want a supply from their essential constituent Cause which according to his Thesis is Snow or Rain-water But by experience we find the contrary viz that Quick-Springs even in long droughts do keep their current therefore Snow and Rain-Water are not the constituent or efficient Cause of Quick-Springs 11. The third reason that makes me scruple the Veracity of this Hypothesis is because neither the Dr. nor the rest of the Assertors thereof have duly assign'd the manner or Method the Pipes Channels or Conduits how Springs having their Original from Snow or Rain should ascend and mount the tops of Hills and spring forth in the uppermost parts of high Heaths And why upon the truth of the assertion they should not rather alwayes be thrust down into Vallies and confin'd to low declive places as being more proper for the heavy body of Water according to their own supposition of its being next in weight to Earth to descend then contrary as they say to the nature thereof to ascend To make Water climb a Hill forcing it volens nolens up the inside when all the contrivance they have cannot do the same upon the outside thereof Methinks they should have indeavoured to have extricated themselves and the world from these suspicious doubts before they had impos'd their Thesis 12. For by this supposition a great part of Rain-Water falling for the supply of Springs sinks down by secret passages into the Earth What then must force this Water contrary to its natural inclination up the bank to make it spring forth out of the tops of Hills and high places Surely the contrivers of this Hypothesis had not their eyes every way did not cast about to salve all the incident Phaenomena of this Doctrine All the reason I find Dr. Wittie gives for its Ebullition out of the Earth is a tendency towards its proper place which is the convex part of the Earth By which it should seem that the Water while in the Bowels of the Earth is out of its place and therefore must by a certain force ab extra as to its self be reduc'd to its natural place What this should be that may make the Water recoyle or drive upward contrary to it own Nature the Doctor would have done well to have assign'd For no body can be suppos'd to have a natural tendency in that where a force is impos'd but here is a natural tendency to the proper place viz. the convex part of the Earth and yet this is carryed upwards a contrary motion to that that is proper to water so that in good earnest it implyes no less then a tacit contradiction 13. For he expresly saith That the Springing forth or Eruption of the Water is not made by any forcible agitation compulsion or violence that is put upon it ab extra within the Earth c. but from its own natural inclination and tendency towards its
proper place viz. the convex part of the Earth and yet these Springs sometimes break forth in the top of high Hills and in the uppermost part of high Heaths as to go no further that of Knarsborough Spaw the vitrioline I mean is a pretty strong Spring and yet is upon the uppermost part of that high Heath which in the greatest droughts ceaseth not to spring so that He and the followers of this opinion must of necessity grant that either it is not improper for water to ascend and then they must assign the true efficient causes thereof that forceth Water after it has fallen from the Clouds and sinks into the cavityes of the earth up again to the Superficies thereof and that too to the tops of many high Hills Or else they must retrive their Opinion that the convex part of the Earth is the proper place of the Water For if water as in many Springs it 's found ascends and breaks forth above the level of Plains and that too without any compulsive force is a more firme argument that the Water whilst there is rather in its proper place then when thrust forth into declive Places along the convex part of the earth where it doth forthwith undergo Hydraulick Laws is ponderous and runs down any Declive Current 14. The arguments Dr. Wittie urgeth for the confirming his Opinion of Rain and Snow-Water to be the Original of Springs are Three The first of which is because it is found by experience saith he that Fountains and consequently Rivers are greater and do abound more with Water in Winter and moyst weather than in Summer To which I answer That it 's granted that they do indeed abound more in Winter and moyst weather but yet I deny that therefore it should follow That Fountains and Rivers shuuld have their Original therefrom For it is onely Land-Springs or at the most a Co-incidence of them with some few Quick-springs that receive so great increase from Rain and Snow Water as joyned with declive Currents of Water that run down Hills Mountains and other steep Places which fill Rivers make them overflow their banks and drown the Fens and other low grounds in Winter and sometimes in Summer by great sudden falls of Rain-Water whereas Quick-Springs saving their additionals the Land-springs are the same then as at other times I mean as to their own Channels from their proper source 15. Secondly In those years when great floods of rain do fall in Summer and great store of Snow in winter we find saith he Springs durable whereas in droughty Seasons when there is but little or no Rain or Snow the Springs dry up To which I answer that first as to the durablenes of those Fontes perennes the sudden falls of Rain contribute nothing and that because they indure after the dreining away and exhausting of the Land-Springs by continued droughts Whereas if the continuance of these Quick-Springs did depend upon those falls of rain then would they in great droughts being denied of their supply also as I said before cease The great plenty of water in wet Seasons do indeed as I said set the Land-Springs a-flote yea and begets other Springs that appear not at all in other Seasons witness the Gypsies in the Woulds in York-shire which by the in-lets of Chanels each into other may for a time increase the current of Quick-Springs but adds nothing at all to its durableness for the earth is no sooner dreyned of the superfluous water which come by great falls of wet but the living Springs as they may not improperly be call'd are reduced in statu quo prius And as to what he saith That in droughty Seasons when there is but little or no Rain or Snow the Springs dry up As to the truth thereof I shall I say appeal to the observations of all such Persons as have taken notice thereof A sure Proof of which we had he saith in England in the Years 1654 55 and 56 when our Climate was dryer than ever any Stories mention so as we had very little Rain in Summer or Snow in Winter most of our Springs were dryed up even those sorts of Springs we call Fontes perennes which I say as to matter of fact the Country-People can testifie was not so and though I grant many Springs were through the drought and penury of Rain-water dryed up yet do I deny these to be Quick-Springs excepting some few which as I said before might be diverted by the extream dryness of the adjacent thirsty ground which might drink it up as it came or by having its Auxiliaries of a Land-Spring drawn off or lastly by having its current intercepted and carryed by longer stretch'd Subterraneal Chanels into other Springs I must confess that it 's more than probable that those Land-Springs which are ordinarily fed by Snow and water and which supply many Draw-Wells were indeed dryed up for the most part in those droughty Seasons but that the true Quick-Springs those I mean which always run along the Sabulum bulliens or bubbling Sand should be dryed up in droughty Seasons excepting as aforesaid is neither agreeable to reason or observation 17. A third reason which saith he perswades to this original from Snow and Rain is Because in those Climates and Countries where little Rain falls few or no Springs and Rivers are seen as in the Desarts of Aethiopia and in most parts of Africa near the Equinoctial they have little water To which I answer That though this seemingly be the most cogent Argument that Dr. Wittie urgeth for the vindication of this Opinion yet I see no more that it evinceth than this viz. That in those places where there are but rare falls of Rain-water those Auxiliarie helps and conveyances by Land-Springs which in other places by great dashes of Rain fill other Rivers very plentifully are mostwhat cut off and the simple Quick-Springs are left solitary which as such cannot make many Rivers nor much swell those already made 18. Hence in Aegypt where it Rains very seldom they are supplyed instead thereof by the overflowing of Nilus whose River begins to arise on the the Seventeenth of June swelling by degrees until it mounts to sometimes Twenty four Cubits though heretofore Sixteen was the most it attained to represented by that Image of Nilus having Sixteen Children playing about it brought from thence and dedicated to the gods by Vespasian in his Temple of Peace and now to be seen as Sandys in his Travails faith in the Vatican in Rome 19. Which constant rising of Nilus at such a day as aforesaid is imputed by Diodorus Siculus unto the abundance of Rain falling on the Aethiopian Mountains for Forty days together at such time as the Sun approcheth Cancer which is affirmed to be true saith Sandys by the Inhabitants of Aegypt who receive it from Strangers frequenting Cairo from sundry parts of Aethiopia and Libya who come down with the floud and bring with them Slaves Monkies Parrots
the Sea is found at sometimes great plenty of Naphtha and Bitumen which comes from the Bituminous Sea call'd Mortuum from its Lentor or toughness it 's call'd also Mare Asphalticum from Bitumen of which it has great plenty whose shores have great store of Bituminous Pits Into this Sea Jordan runs which having no other way to emptie it self but by these Subterraneal Chanels carries along with it its Bituminous offspring into the Red-Sea and that by a Chanel of 62 Leagues for so far is the Asphaltick from the Red-Sea The same happens to all Seas Lakes and great Rivers which receive others into themselves but let none forth by visible arms and therfore do it by Subterraneal passages 49. Other Lakes there are whose Superficies lies level with that of the Hydrophylacia and therefore are as Springs of the deep kept for a reserve for the furnishing upon occasion the grand Circulation Many other Rivers besides what are named do hide their Chanels in the Earth for many miles together and appear again as the Rhine in Germany Padus in the Alps but especially Guadiana of old call'd Anas a River in Spain which runs under ground in a subterraneal Chanel for 32 Miles together and breaks up again which gave occasion to the Spaniards to boast of their great Bridge which will feed so many thousand Sheep also the River Rye in Yorkshire as Dr. Wittie acknowledgeth runs under ground a quarter of a Mile and then appears again 50. And as by this Circulation of Water all Inland Seas Lakes c. communicate by Subterraneal Chanels or by visible arms one with another and at length with the common Ocean it self So by the mediation of the same hidden pipes conveyed along the Sabulum the Water circulates from the Seas and Hydrophylacia unto the Spring-heads which breaks forth at great distances either in Levels Valleys Hills or Mountains 51. Now to determine the cause of the Waters rising above the Level of the Superficies of the Sea up into the tops of Hills and Mountains a motion seemingly and indeeed really according to the Hydrostatick Laws of water considered as Extravasated contrary to the nature of the weight of Water will be here very considerable being the main thing objected against the Hypothesis of Springs taking their Original from the Sea To the better understanding of which we shall propound 52. First that this Thesis supposeth and has hitherto partly proved a Circulation of Waters or a running round from the Ocean into In-land Seas and Lakes and those into each other and back again into the Ocean but whilst running into each other they also run along other Subterraneal Chanels at great distances under the Earth until they break up into Springs Fountains and Rivers and those often as I said above the Level of the Sea Now in every Circulation or Circle there is strictly neither beginning nor end because round as a wheel or ring so that wherever you determine a beginning in a Circle there also is the end 53. But that we may be the more demonstrative I shall for better apprehension determine a beginning of this Circulation and that shall be from the Sea and from the efficient cause moving the Seas which will be the last again in the Circle and this we suppose to be the Winds Storms and pressure of the Atmosphere upon the surface of the Seas together with the influence and Ellipsis of the Moon which probably gives being to the Flux and Reflux of the Sea by causing a depression of the waters at two opposite places in the Terraqueous Globe and an accumulation of the Seas answerable thereto in the two other Quadrants of the Globous Circle which swelling of the Sea is always opposite each Tumor possessing a whole Quadrant of the vast Ocean these Tumors rowl about the earthy Globe in Twenty four hours thereby agitating the whole bulk of the Seas and driving up the waters by the Subterraneal Chanels into the Hydrophylâ—cia and from thence by Hydragogal Syphons up Hills Mountains and high Heaths to the heads of Springs and Fountains 54. That there is besides the weight of Clouds Storms Winds c. a pressure of Water by Air is evident in common Hydrostatick Experiments for if you put down a glass Tube into a vessel of water you will find the water in the Tube to be above the level of the water in the vessel and that for no other cause than that the pressure of the Air upon the surface of the water in the vessel is stronger than the resistance of that Ayr that is pent up in the Tube and that it is so is evident because if you stop up the upper end of the Tube with your thumb or the like you will find that the Ayr in the Tube not having the liberty of recoyling becomes strong and presseth so much upon the water as that it raiseth up the water in the vessel to such a height proportionable to the compass of the Tube which I have thus tryed by taking a pint-white-Viol fill'd with water to about a fingers breadth of the mouth into which I let down a glass Tube stopping the upper end closely with my thumb the Ayr in the Tube would so press upon the water as that the glass would in a manner be quite full but upon removing my thumb the water would immediately run up the Tube two or three fingers breadth above the level of the water in the Viol and bubble up to and again till it settled a little above the surface of the water in the Viol and that still because water follows the strongest impulse of Ayr which while the Tube is closely stop'd bears down the water and raiseth it on the surface thereof whereas when the Ayr in the Tube has liberty again then the water being pressed by the Ayr upon the Superficies thereof mounts up speedily above the level of the water in the Viol. 55. So in like manner we see in a Weather-glass which is suppose a Globe or Egg-glass inverted into a vessel of water which if you do without altering the tone of the Ayr in the glass the water riseth very little within the Tube and that because of the resistance that is made by the unaltered Ayr in the glass but if you heat the glass and thereby thin the Ayr you will find the water to ascend gradually to a considerable height above the level of the water in the vessel which suppose to be done in the foresaid pint-Viol and you shall see the water five or six fingers breadth above the surface of the water in the Viol which when cool set it before the fire or expose it to the heat of the Sun so the heat be proportionable and you will find it descend as fast as it ascended before 56. Which argues That Ayr when altered by heat gives a different and that a less pressure upon the body of water than when it is in its natural texture and therefore upon the
and that part of the Tube to be larger and the other part revers'd to be much smaller which suppose to be fill'd with Water at A where by the Solitary pressure of the Air contain'd within the cavity of the Tabe made by the Palm of the Hand laid thereon forceth the Water which is in the Pipe A B C. with a great sure from F to C and that too a great Height above C in the same manner the Air in the Atmosphere being pressed with Winds Storms Clouds and condensation thereof and the like causes aforesaid forceth upon the surface of the Sea which with the Hydrophylacia are alwayes at an Aequilibrium according to the Line F G beyond the Aequilibrium F G into the Concha's of Mountains E K C which are much higher then the Mathematical Circle of Water I mean then that circle of Water from which all Lines drawn to the Centre are equal So that supposing a constant pressure upon A or G which is certainly done at all times by some or all of the foresaid causes the Water must as constantly be press'd from F to K and C and there as certainly make Springs to break forth for from the same causes alwaies at work the same effects are alwaies produc'd 67. Hence the great difficulty may easily be resolv'd why Springs are sometimes found upon the tops of the highest Mountains and that because the bulk of Waters to be carried above the Aequilibrium F. G. is in a manner insensible in comparison of the great weight and pressure of the Water in the Ocean and that thus as the ingenious Kircher computes that the Semidiameter of the Earth is 3600 Miles of which 60 answer to every Degree of the Aequater which Semidiameter is computed from the Superficies of the Sea where the lines as I said from any part thereof to the Center are equal and seeing that the Basis of Mountains are level with the Mathematical globous earth so that the tops of these Mountains must be very protuberant Therefore it onely remains to be demonstrated how much higher the Sea ought to mount be yond its Aequilibrium F G or Periphery of its globous circle to make Springs break forth on Mountains 62. Fig iii. pag 323 68. To which purpose suppose the line See the 3 Figure in the Scheme A B to be the Semidiameter of the Earth 3600 Miles long which terminates in the line D E which cuts the Superficies of the Terraqueous Globe in the point B. Now suppose the height of the tallest Mountain to be C which added to the Semidiameter of the Earth A B will produce the line A C which expresseth the top of the highest Mountain Therefore as A B is to B C so is the Semidiameter of the Earth to the highest Mountain so is 3600 to 30 with which computing the immensness of the surface of the Ocean pressed on all hands with the foresaid causes makes it very easie to apprehend how readily Water may be carried from the Seas and Hydrophylcacia to the heads of Springs in the highest Mountains 69. For the proportion betwixt the Semidiameter of the Earth 3600 together with the vastness of the immense Ocean forc'd by the Spring of the Atmosphere to the Line B C viz. the top of the highest Mountain 30 is in a manner insensible and the more insensible by how much Hills or Mountains are less in height then 30 Miles insomuch that as the learned Kircher observes the Picke of Teneriff Olympus in Asia Aetna in Sicilia Caucasus in Asia Otho in Macedonia would as to their proportion with the vast Ocean disappear whence he concludes Unde infero inquit Kircherus Oceani aquas sive fluxa refluxuque sive tempestatibus ventorumque vi sive nubium descensu pressas nullo negotio etiam in altissimos vertices montium ejaculari posse 70. And as this pressure of the Sea by the said causes is constant and as constantly keeps Springs and Fountains in flowing upon Mountains and remore places upon Continents so also thereby the Hydrophylacia are alwayes kept fill'd from whence as from a Store-house the Alps comprehended by France Germany and Italy pour forth so many Torrents and Rivers which by a perpetual current never have ceased nor never will as long as the Wheels and Springs of Nature are kept at work by the Great Master Mechanick of the world cease to flow from which Springs of the deep Danubius Rhenus Mosella Mosa Rhodanus Arar Padus Ticinus together with other smaller Rivers have their supply 71. Besides Some Springs seeme to emulate the Flux and Reflux of the Sea as that which Pliny tells us of in the Gades which observes the motion of the Sea in ebbing and flowing and perhaps that in the Peake of Derby-shire may be from the same cause which ebs and flows every 12 hours And how Dr. Wittie comes to be sure that this last together with the Spring at Giggleswick in York-shire hath no correspondence with the Sea he might have done well to have inform'd us that we might have been as sure as he 72. As for the Spring at Gliggleswick which ebs and flows many times a-day we may perhaps not unaptly attain to some Foot-steps of the knowledge thereof if we remind what I have already delivered above viz. that if a glass Tube stop'd close at the one end with ones Thumb and the other end let down into a Vial or other vessel full of Water as soon as ever the air gets liberty by removing the thumb the Spring of air from without presseth up the Water 2 or 3 Finger breadths above the Level of the Water and bubbles up to and again for a while then settles to its ordinary pitch which is an exact resemblance of the Spring at Giggleswick and such like 73 For in these Springs the Air is so pent up by the streightness of the Chanels near the Spring-head and by the denseness of some interposing Glebe of earth which may and doth probably for a time very much though not totally intercepts the motion of the Air which hinders the Spring from flowing alwayes to high as if the Air had liberty it would therefore it onely flows at that time when the pressure of the Water forceth it through the dense Earth and gives thereby liberty for the Air which before was pent up for we see in all Hydrostatick Experiments that water follows Air as well as Air circulates after Water and that Water alwayes obeys the more strong impulse of Air though it be to ascend to a great height 74. Now having run through all the causes and demonstrated the reasons of those causes which promote the grand Circulation of Water it is now time to consider the final End Aim and Intention of the first Mover in Nature who sets all these Wheels and Springs a going in the great Clock-work of the World and who orders all things in Time Weight and Measure and that to the end that one part and Wheel
may mutually promote the motion of an other that all the parts and motions thereof may joyntly conspire the good and intirenes of the whole But that we may in some few particulars view the Wisdom of God in ordering this Circulation of Water and that it is not done in vain but hath its various uses and those of larg extent for the benefit of man and other Creatures and that as followeth 75. First Waters by this great Circulation are kept from putrefaction and corruption motion being to Waters as it is to the vapours in the Air viz. hinders them from corrupting and as wind fan the Air from putrid vapours so motion keeps Water from Stagnating and consequently from putridness and therefore a peice of raw flesh laid in a constant current of Water will keep from corrupting a considerable time 76 Secondly In times of drought when Land-Springs are mostwhat dryed up These viz the Springs Rivulets c. contain'd in the great Circulation serve for the use of Man and Cattle and that in places at great distance from large Rivers for the Quick-Springs constantly moving in the great Wheel are never dry and that by reason that where the cause doth perpetuate the effect must do the same but the causes as aforesaid are alwaies at work therefore Springs I mean Quick-Springs must never fail as long as the Fabrick of the World is upheld by the same Fiat as at first 77. Thirdly By great Rivers which are made of Rivulets and Fountains which in the great Circulation run thereinto we can easily pass from one Place and Country into an other and that by Oaken vessels which if the Water whether in Rivers or Seas were Stagnant could not move thereon half so well so that in Ships by the motion of the Sea and Winds we visit forreign Countrys and the Merchants Traffique abroad and that for a general good of Mankind 78. Fourthly By this grand Circulation all Mineral Springs for the health of man are produc'd For the Water circulating in the bowels of the earth being pressed by the foresaid causes as it meets with various Mineral Earths and Salts becomes impregnated with the Tinctures or tasts thereof making some slight solutions of the Mineral juyces into it self passeth on to the head of the next Spring where breaking forth makes Spaws of different sorts as Vitrioline Alluminous Nitrous Salinous Sulphureous c according to the nature of the mineral Glebe the Water passeth through to the Spring-head whence is the great variety of Waters 79. Fifthly Water by this great Circulation in the bowels of the Earth being dispers'd as I may say by capillary veins into the whole habit of the earthy body is coagulated by various Ferments and Specifick Mineral or Metalline Seeds into such like Bodyes For as we have else where demonstrated Water is the Material subject of all Minerals and consequently of Metalline Bodyes and that it needs onely different Seeds with their various Archeal Ferments to shape it into all sorts of bodyes found in Vulcan's shop each according to its Seminal difference For from whence proceeds the great variety of all Stones Marcasites Minerals Mineral Earths Metals c. but from Water shap'd by Seeds and Ferments into bodyes under various disguises Which here by this grand Circulation is alwayes at hand and ready for the Seminal Faber or Vulcan to work upon 80. Sixthly This circulation joyning Issue with that lesser one of Rain and Snow Impregnated with Coelestial influences doth make the ground fruitful and makes the Superficies thereof bring forth all manner of Seed Bearing plants and Trees according to the kinds of the first Seeds or Seminal Principles implanted by God therein at the first and so being impregnated with the Salt of the Earth promotes vegetation upon the green carpet thereof For when when I view Plants and Trees in their Verdure in the Spring or Summer times methinks I see nothing but Water altered by Seeds and Ferments which thereupon Proteus like puts on various Garbs and appears in different diesses and to me it s as easy to apprehend how Water moved by the foresaid causes riseth up into Hills and Mountains there breaking forth into Springs as to conceive how Water riseth up into the tops of the highest Trees and there to bud forth into leaves Fruit and Seed or how between the Bark and bole of the Tree Water should ascend up like as in Syphons and that in some Trees without any considerable alteration of tast or consistence from simple distill'd Water save a sleight touch of a Medicinal Odor as for instance cut a Vine in January or February but especially in March and you shall find it weep forth a deal of insipid Water at the knots or joynts where it 's cut so if you wound a Branch of the Birch Tree or lop the bole thereof in March if it be done below near the ground the Latex thence issuing is a mere insipid Water but if a Branch of about 3 Fingers thickness be wounded to the Semidiameter thereof and fill'd with Wooll it Weeps forth a Subacid Liquor in great abundance insomuch that in one day such a wounded Branch may give 8 or 10 pound of that Liquor concerning the vertue whereof Helmont saith Qui in ipso lithiasis tormento solatur afflictes tribus quatuorve cochlearibus assumptis viz. that it gives help in the torments of the Stone being taken to the quantity of three or four spoonfulls which he saith is Balsumus Lithioisis merus which great quantity of Water must come from the root and that must receive it by its Fibers from the Capillary Veins of the earth carryed thither by the grand Circulation of Water with its included circle of Rain and Snow which the one meeting with the other becomes the material subject of all Plants Trees and Fruits of the earth which earth is onely the Matrix where water becomes coagulated by the Fracedinous Odor thereof and by the Fermental operation of Seed into all sorts of Vegetable Concrets which spring up in the Superficies of the Earth Now the Medicinal virtue that this Liquor hath is from a Ferment which it receives from the Tree as it passeth along the Channels thereof for the same Liquor weeping from a wound of the bole near the Earth hath not that virtue Therefore it must be from a Medicinal Ferment it receives from the Tree above that place also if a Pompion be cut while it's growing will as a Friend of mine told me upon his own triall run a great deal of a limpid Water which by the heat of the Sun will be congeal'd into a pulpie substance and that because the Water which comes for the nourishment thereof hath received a Specifical Ferment from the Pompion which if it were intire would presently be coagulated for the growth and increase thereof but being let forth by a wound is at last by the heat of the Sun coagulated into somewhat Analogous thereto so probably Melons
Cucumers Hollands Squash c. would if wounded do the like for they have great store of Water which comes for their supply which by the Ferment of the Plants is easily coagulated into the pulpous substance thereof so the heads of wounded Poppies weep forth a considerable quantity of Liquor which condens'd by the Sun becomes Opium or the heads of the same bruis'd make Meconium In both which Water is the material subject which passing up the secret Meanders of that Plant is by the Ferment thereof particularly appropriate to that Plant and its kindes in the same family determin'd into that coagulating juyce of which Opium and Meconium is made and so of the rest of Plants Trees and Fruits Thus we see how Water in the great Circulation taking in the lesser of Rain and Snow which is repleted with a volatile Nitrous Salt the one joyning issue with the other becomes the Material subject of all Vegetable Fruits of the Earth 81. Seventhly And lastly The Circulation of Water passing through varieties of Glebes in the Meanders of the Earth makes different Waters of various uses for the service of man as for instance some Waters will bear Soap and Yeast viz. River-Water and some River-Water better then others also some Waters are better and more peculiar for Bleaching dying Washing Brewing salving boyling of Meat c. than others 82. Now the great difference as to the common use of Waters is betwixt that of Springs and that of Rivers for the Rivers are generally supply'd from Springs in the round of our Circulation yet passing along the Surface of the Earth and sometime running down Hills and steep places in torrents and mixing with Rain-Water as it runs along into Rivers it both may and doth give a considerable difference to Waters in Rivers from the same as running immediately from Springs and that because it washeth over several sorts or soyls of Earth as Marle Limestone Manur'd ground and the like where it licks up the Nitrous Salt wherewith several Sorts of Earth are repleted and by the help of this becomes Saponary viz. bears Soap well bears Yeast bleacheth well c. 83. Whereas simple Quick-Spring Water passing through the Colander of the Sabulum is frequently drein'd of all the Salts it had imbib'd in other more Patent places of the Earth and perhaps onely retains a small portion of a minute Sabulum inconspicuous in Water but remains visible after distillation thereof or being little indiscernable Fragments of some Marcasites or Stones which it razeth off as it runs along which water I say being percolated from all Salts through the strainer of the Sabulum hath not that Saponary property that River-Water hath and therefore will neither wash bleach nor bear yeast Besides many Land-Springs which drein through Nitrous Earth empty themselves by their proper Chanels into Rivers Which also frequently upon sudden falls of Rain overflow low grounds and so do wash from thence a Nitrous or Alkalizate Salt which contributes much to the making River-Water more useful for the common intentions of Washing Bleaching Brewing c. 84. For that which makes Soyls more fertile makes Waters also more useful which is an Alkalizate or Nitrous Salt For what doth Limestone Manure Marle c. add to the inriching of Soyls but either by impregnating the ground with a Nitrous Salt or making the Earth to become more Magnetical to center upon it self the Volatile Nitrous Aereal Salt which floats to and again in the Atmosphere whence it is that the Country-man lets some part of his tillage or arable ground ly fallow every year on purpose that this Nitrous Salt which circulates in the Air and is the main wheel of Vegetation may coagulate it self upon the ground made fit thereto by the addition of Limestone Marle or Manure and thereby become fitter to bring forth many fold which if the ground be exhausted of this Salt as in a few years by bringing forth much Corn it will then it becomes barren until it be manur'd by dung ashes limestone or marle and is laid fough or fallow as the Country-man calls it which in the conclusion impregnates the Soyl again with a fresh Salt or spirit whereby it is made fruitful You are the Salt of the Earth saith our Saviour to his Disciples which if it hath lost it's savour wherewith shall it be salted So that the Earth hath a Salt which makes it fruitful and the loss of that Salt makes it barren and useless 85. As for Lime-stone that contributes to the manuring and inriching of ground after a double manner and that first by communicating its Alkalizate Salt which it hath in it to the ground and next which indeed I think is the cheif that it becomes as a proper Magnet to attract if such there be or center upon it self the volatile fructifying Nitrous Salt which floats in the Air in which I am confirm'd because the Country-man observes that though it be quench'd already with Water or Rain before it be thrown upon the ground as most frequently it is yet nevertheless it makes the ground as fruitful as if it were not yea Lime that hath laid long and that one would think hath had all its Salt wash'd from it if it be thrown upon impoverish'd ground will yet make it fruitful The same will the Faeces of Soap-Ashes do after all the Salts are wash'd both from the Ashes of Breccans or Brogg as they call it and from the Lime which is much us'd where it 's to be had to lay up grounds to fertilize them And that certainly for no other cause but that it helps as a proper Magnet the Nitrous Salt to settle upon that soyl whence it is that they plow that ground often thereby exposing new parts of the Earth to the Air to become impregnate with the Salt thereof so dung and ashes have Salts in them the one a volatile the other a fixt but are both much altered by a Ferment both from the Air and Earth before they become transmuted into the Leffas terrae or are turn'd into the true fructifying Nitrous Salt Also Marle doth inrich Soyls two manner of wayes the one is by having a Nitrous Salt inherent in it self as I have found by imbibing it in distill'd Water Filtering and Evaporating where I have had actually a Nitrous Salt The next way is by being as a Magnet to the Nitre in the Air to make it settle upon that Soyl where Marle is most found therefore that Soyl which is naturally a Marle or is at least well manur'd therewith keeps in heart as the Country-man saith the longest and will need little or no other assistance for many years because its a proper sort of earth for the fructifying salt in the air to settle upon which makes that soyl hold fruitful the longer And from the different dispositions of ground in order to the degrees of reception of this salt in the air the great variety of soyls proceed 86. And from
the same cause it 's very probable that the fertility of Aegypt is promoted by the overflowing of Nilus for Rain-Water doth contain of this Salt which as I said before being carryed over the Country by Winds are not let down save what moysture drills down by the Syphons of the Air till the clouds come to the Mountains of Aethiopia where being let forth in great abundance they wash down along with them a Nitrous Salt from the Earth of the Mountains which still adds to the fertility of the ground and that the Air at that time hath plenty of this Nitre in it is found because if a turfe be digg'd up from the ground as they usually do to know the height of the floud and weigh'd they do find it to increase considerably as the Water doth in height with a moysture which is impregnate with a Nitrous Salt For the Earth of that Country is very Magnetical and therefore is fertile without showers falling immediately thereon and in lieu thereof hath plenty of dews which commonly has the greatest quantity of the fructifying Salt in them and the flowing of Nilus which River is strongly impregnated with this Nitrous Salt from which much Nitre is made and brought into these Northern parts 87. Yea all the great difference of natural Soyls for some far exceed others in fruitfulness seems to depend upom this very hing viz. that some are naturally more replete with or at least are more magnetical of the Nitrous Salt then others 88. Thus we see that it 's a Nitrous Salt that both fertilizeth Earth as also maketh River-Water serviceable for the foresaid uses for as it distinguisheth Earths as to their fruitfulness so likewise it makes the difference betwixt River and Spring-Water and that it doth so I am confirm'd by an experiment I tryed for my better information therein viz. I took of a Well-Water in my own ground which is supply'd by a true Quick-Spring though it never runs over because in our greatest droughts it is never nere dry I took I say a gallon or more of this Water which alone never bears Soap in which I caus'd two dragmes of Nitre to be put over night which heated the next morning I ordered the Maid to put some of the usual Soap thereto and to wash me some linnen therein which she did and it made a very good Lather as they call it and was as fit for the purpose and perhaps better then if she had taken so much River-Water The like I suppose Spring-Water would do if it were suffered to run through a Tub fill'd with Earth especially if that Earth hath not been too much exhausted of its Nitre by previous Vegetation 89. So that we see that Water in its great Circulation with its included circle of Rain doth in its passage through or over such Earths pregnant with this Nitrous Salt become so much salturate therewith as to make River-Water useful for the foresaid purposes towards which as also to Vegetation Rain-Water doth not a little contribute by carrying along with it the influence of this Acreal Salt for it will bear Soap and Yeast and I suppose Bleach as well if not better then River-Water not here to say how much dew especially May-dew is replenish'd with this volatile Nitrous Salt which contributes not a little to the Vegetation of the fruits of the Earth nor to say what key to a Philosophick Menstruum is hereby hinted concerning which consult Sendivogius and the Tractate de sale Philosophorum Tilemannus his Appendix and other Hermetical Philosophers 90. Now to conclude as Water in the grand Circulation in the Bowels of the Earth meets with different Salts and Mineral Earths it becomes the subject matter wherein these work upon each other and make Mineral or hot Springs and that from a nitrous or volatile Hermetick Salt floating as well in the Air of the Caverns as above the Earth which being condensed upon a proper Magnetick or Virgin-Earth which the Water in its passage runs thorough dissolves the Salt and after meeting with a Mineral Earth of Sulphur or Sulphure vive makes an ebullition therewith and not being carryed far breaks forth in a hot Spring witness the experiment of Monsieur de Rochas in his Tractate De Aquis Sulphureis which I find plac'd at the latter end of the Sixth Volum of the Theatrum Chymicum who tells us that finding a hot Spring near that Mountain whence the River Padus in the Alps takes its Original and desirous to search out the cause thereof digg'd along its Chanel with Laborers for 15 days together who found as they came nearer to the source the hotter was the current and that too though the Mountain was covered with Snow But first he evaporated 40 Ounces of the Hot Spring-Water and 5 was left of a slimy matter which being further examin'd gave three Ounces of a Sweet and fusil Salt the rest was a slimy fat matter which by Fire shewes it self to be of a Sulphureous Nature after digging as aforesaid he found the Original of the hot Spring by observing a very great ebullition with much froth who to search yet further digg'd on for three hours along the Chanel of the same Spring and found the Water beyond it to be very cold which was the Current of the same Spring and had lost both it's tast and heat wherefore he took a part of that hot Earth which seem'd to give heat to that Spring and also some of the Water in the very source tryed them both found the Earth to be a pure simple Minera of Sulphur and found the water to be impregnated with a Salt which he calls for want of an other name Sal Hermeticum by which it was manifest that the spirit or salt contained in that water by penetrating the substance of that sulphureous earth was the cause of the great Ebullition which is the same as in pouring Water upon calx vive or in making Tartaruns vitriolatum But to be further satisfied he ordered the Labourers to dig 12 days longer and found the current to be clear and sweet like ordinary Fountain-Water but the Earth to be Salt in tast with which the current of water was impregnated and therefore he examin'd the Earth by infusing it in Rain-Water decauting off the clear as it was settled the one half whereof he boyled up in a Copper Vessel the other part he distill'd in a Glass Alembick to try whether way would yield the more Salt and found much less both as to quantity and quality in that done in the Copper-Vessel than in that distill'd in the Glass-body Then he infus'd this Earth again in the same Rain-Water and found a Salt of the same nature as before but less in quantity which extraction he repeated a third time but found no Salt at the last The earth therefore he expos'd to the Air and found after a time it was impregnated with the same Salt which Salt being separated and the Earth become
one draught of hot Posset-drink which let commonly be three hours after the taking of them and sometimes to take nothing after them till noon and then take a porringer of broth and eat a little warm meat airing the drink at dinner and for that day if it be cold not to stir abroad They may be taken two daies together and rest the third or may be taken every other day or every third fourth or fifth day or once a week as the necessity of the disease requires and opportunity gives leave For diseases of long continuance will require frequent takings thereof while you take them eat but sparingly but especially at Suppers You may with safety take often of them for they do not work by any fretting corrosion of the Liquids and Solids of the body but by gentle reminding the digestions of their due separations and by their Balsamick Ingredients make the patient more cheerful and lively by adding vigour to the ferment of the stomach and that in all the Diseases aforesaid They may be taken at any Season of the Year Secondly As to the Cordial Elixir the dose is from a thimblefull to a spoonful and that either taken alone to those who can so take it putting a piece of Sugar or Sugar-Candy into their mouths which dissolving takes away the bitterness and heat of the mouth and Larynx which the Elixir taken alone leaves behind it or else those who cannot take it so are to take it in a glass of Sack or White-Wine but the other way of taking it alone is the better for though it be more bitter and hot while it is going down yet as soon as it comes into the stomach it becomes grateful and thereupon acceptable thereto doing its work more really by becoming a more effectual Cordialâ— for discussing Wind and Diseases thereon depending The Patient is to Fast two or three hours after the taking thereof and to take it those mornings they take not the Scorbutick Pills and sometimes as afore directed to take thereof about three or four by the Clock in the afternoon of that day the Pills are taken or at going to bed according to former direction and that in all the Diseases afore named And Lastly As to the Diaphoretick or Sweating Pills The Dose thereof is one two or three Pills but two is the ordinary Dose which are to be swallowed down in a spoonful of Burnt-Wine Mace-Ale or Posset-drink taking a draught of the same hot-drink after them But those who cannot swallow them as Pills may dissolve them in any of the foresaid Liquors and wash it down with a little of the same clear drink These are to be taken last at night at bed-time which without laying many more cloths than ordinary will bring the Patient into a pleasant gentle breathing Sweat more than any other Medicine I ever yet met with and will allay the greatest thirst and bring the Patient into a desired calmness and quietness of Spirits abating the most rigorous Symptoms of most Diseases whether Acute or Chronical The next morning after the taking the Sweating Pills the Patient is to take either a Dose of the Cordial Elixir with a glass of Burnt-Wine or a draught of other hot drink after it or only so much clear Burnt-Wine Mace-Ale or Posset-drink while he is in bed and to lie two or three hours after which will bring the Patient again into an easie breathing Sweat which if he please he may help forward with the addition of one Covering more than ordinary But these are generally to be taken after a gentle evacuation by the Scorbutick Pills in Chronick Diseases or by them or Clysters in Fevers Lastly To number the varieties of Cures that have by the Blessing of God been performed by the help of this Ternary of Medicines would but prove tedious and therefore I shall purposely wave it THE Epilogue OR The ESSENCE OF SCARBOROVGH-SPAW THat I might inform my self more satisfactorily of the true Constituent Parts of the water of the Scarborough-Spaw without any other additionals I took three Gallons and three Pints thereof which I let stand a while to settle whose first Precipitation was a reddish Sediment from which I filtred the water and this dryed in the Sun proved to be a red Earth or a kind of Ocre or rather Terra Vitrioli being that which falls to the bottom of the Chanels of all or most Mineral Springs whether Sowes or others and tingeth the Earth it runs along red Then I placed the water in great glasses upon a sand-Furnace with a gentle heat and in a days time a thin crust or film swom upon the top thereof which I took off with a silver spoon and dryed it in the Sun and it was a white scaly light Floscule after a while longer some more of the same separated it self by heat in the water some of which swom and other parts precipitated to the bottom therefore I filtred all the water therefrom which dryed in the Sun as the former was much what the same Then I evaporated the clear filtred water in glasses to a dryness which I found to have an Alumino-nitrous taste or rather indeed more nitrous and would relent in the Air. This I took and dissolv'd it in simple distill'd Rain-water and filtred it which left an other insipid gritty powder with a sparkling lustre The clear filtred water which with Oyl of Tartar poured thereto I found gave a milky separation as if taken fresh from the Spring but with Gauls it gave no purple Tincture after the precipitation of the red earth but became pale-coloured thereby This filtred water I say being again evaporated to a dryness was dissolv'd filtred and evaporated again and so a third time separating still what would be separated by frequent filtration Of the foresaid quantity of Spaw-water I took about two quarts which having filtred I put it in a skillet and boiled away two thirds then I let it cool and a sediment of an insipid Calx fell to the bottom from which I filtred the water dryed up the Calx and then boyled up the water to the dryness of a Salt which was pretty white This I dissolv'd in simple distill'd Rain-water and then filtred and the Calx being dryed in the Sun was a bright sparkling powder The filtred water I evaporated in glasses with a gentle heat to almost a dryness then I filtred it again and so on Thus I can separate from the limpid Spaw as it 's taken out of the Fountain eleven or twelve distinguishable Earths or Sabulums somewhat different in colour shape and consistence one from an other which the Alumino-nitrous Salt in the water razeth off from several Rocks or Quarries of Stone which it passeth through as I can shew at any time to those whose curiosity prompts them to see Rarities of this nature I being the first I think that hath made so many several Separations therefrom All these Earths or Sabulums were equally dryed in the Sun or
a gentle heat Analogous thereto and therefore could not have different colours from different degrees of heat none of them underwent any Calcination or stress of fire nor received any alterations from any additionals being simply done without mixture save of distill'd Rain-water all these sabulous separations were insipid for the Salt where the taste was became concentred in a small room Now if the water be drunke while these stony concretions are in it as it is in all that is drunke at the Spring or elsewhere if any harm I say happen to any Patients that drink of it for want of other good Medicines to carry away the feculent dregs thereof it is chiefly from these sabulous concretions which precipitate upon the bowels sides and Orifices of the Vessels which preventing or obstructing the wonted fluidness of the blood and intermediate juyces occasionally in some bodies apt thereto may cause Fevers Dropsies Defluxions of Rheume and the like It may also increase the Sabulous Duelech and thereby become improper for those afflicted with the Stone For the Spirit of Urine that Calculorum Architeccus meeting with these Earths or Sabulous Concretions becomes coagulated thereon in bodies prone thereto and by its petrefying Coagulation gives beginning at least increaseth the Duelech The same Sabulums may also contribute to the Torments or Gripings of the Guts by clinging to the Tunicles thereof and further may vitiate the Systole of the Membranous parts of the vessels and thereby may suffer the otherwise current Latex to stagnate in the vessels and thence produce swellings in the belly legs or elsewhere as some after returning from the Spaws find themselves troubled with For we are to consider That the several Digestions first have a concomitant heat by which the water may be inclin'd to a sabulous Precipitation upon the bowels themselves unless it be carried off by some other good Abstersives which ought of right to be given upon the drinking of the Waters and next to that we are also to consider the Anastomâ—sis of the vessels each into other in the whole circuit of the body to be as so many Colanders Streiners or Filters by which the recremental Sabulum may suppose as to the courser part be left upon some of the bowels and the finer part by closer Colanders may be left upon other more remote vessels and in both cause obstructions sufficient sometimes to procure trouble enough Not unlike to these stony Concretions is the Tartareous Sediments of our meat and drink and though Helmont laughs at Paracelsus for his bringing in a Clessis of Tartareous Diseases yet after that rectifying the Notion tells us That there may be a Tartarum resolutum in primâ vel materiâ ultimâ existens I say the better Kitching-Preparations and Fermentations our meat and drink undergo and the stronger the fermental Digestions are the less of a Tartar or rejected Sediment is thrown upon the parts and consequently the more raw our meat and drink is taken and the weaker the ferment of the stomach is not throughly volatizing the nutritive Juyce the more of this tartareous Sediment is by the Streiners and Filters of the several parts of the body left behind which encreaseth the Duelech gives beginning to Obstructions Dropsies Imposthumations c. Now from what stones these Sabulous Ramenta are I know not and at present have not a Microscope by me to make Observation of the various shapes thereof and though Masons tell us That the same stone differently cut nay though with the same Tools doth by various reflections give several and somewhat distinguishable colours yet here the water only as we may suppose running over or along the superficies of a Quarry or other Stones cannot penetrate into the inward parts thereof and so cannot make several colours from one stone Therefore it 's more probable That these Concretions are from several stones sands or earths And if it were water turned into earth according to the Experiment of an ingenious Friend of mine communicated to that great Naturalist Squire Boyl it would retain muchwhat the same colour and figuration of parts but here the parts separated seem to the unassisted eye to be very dissimular some gritty and hard others soft and impalpable some bright and glittering as if from Talke scales of Venice-glass or other bright Mineral stones and others are more dull The last of these stony Concretions which was separated and which one would have expected to have been the most subtile and impalpable powder I found to consist of larger siz'd particles and those bright and sparkling as if they had been razings of Crystals And that these should lie dormant and inconspicuous in the water after so many previous separations of powders much more impalpable than it self gives cause to suspect that there is a variety of pores in the body of water and those two of different sizes and angularities wherein sabulous Bodies and Salts of various shapes may lie undiscovered to the bare eye in the texture of water Therefore if Microscopes were so contriv'd as to take a view of Liquors we might discover many considerable things pertinent to the solving diverse Philosophical Phaenomena's whereof we are yet ignorant Now as to that which remains after all these sabulous separations I mean the esurine Salt which I call the Essence of Scarborough-Spaw is a kind of alumino-nitrous Salt or Sal Hermeticum and therefore where you meet in our Hydrological Discourse with the word Aluminous Salt you are to read it Alumino-nitrous Salt or Nitro-hermetical Salt This Salt if duly ordered is Crystalline shoots into long Stiria's and brancheth it self forth in curious shapes upon the bottom of the glass which I cause to be crystaliz'd in Balneo Mariae It s taste is more discernably nitrous than otherwise yet is a such a sort of a Nitro-hermetical Salt as being exactly dryed and cast upon hot coals or a glowing Spatula takes no flame nor doth it melt nor boyl in a Crucible as that Nitre Dr. Wittie speaks of doth for he means the common Nitre to be had in Shops viz. Such as is added to Cerots and Plaisters as his own words testifie Now this Hermetical Salt in the Spaw flows not in a Crucible in a strong fire but keeps in a dry white body and loseth some of its taste by the force of fire Therefore what we have said against Nitre in our foregoing Discourse is to be understood the common inflammable Nitre which is vulgarly used And it 's very probable that there may be a Magnetical earth not far from the breaking forth of this Spring upon which the Aereal Nitre whether in the Atmosphere upon the surface or in Caverns of the earth doth centre it self which joyning issue with a Mineral acidity may become a competent cause for the production of all Mineral Springs For to my knowledge there are some Bodies to be found in the World that are truly Magnetical of the Universal Spirit or Nitro-hermetical Salt which
flotes otherwise indiscernably in the Air which very thing rightly understood is no small Key to the Hermetick Philosophy which I shall at present purposely wave further to discourse upon Now the Proportion of this Nitrous Salt to the whole bulk of the water after the separation of all these stony Concretions is no less according to my compute than as one is to one hundred twenty eight so that it is at least but the one hundred twenty eighth part of the whole This pure Salt which as to taste is somewhat bitter dissolv'd is that I call the Essence of the Scarborough-Spaw a little of which taken in a glass of White or Rhenish Wine or in a glass of simple Spring-water will as I have tryed purge gently by Stool and without doubt is that by whose efficacy whatever the Spaw-water drunk alone effects is performed and that too with a triple advantage First In that the sabulous Concretions are separated by Art which sometimes precipitating otherwise as I said before upon the bowels may do harm And secondly the smallness of its quantity prevents that hazard to some bodies which the gulping down great draughts of water may produce For such large quantities of Spaw-water as are usually drunk doth in some Constitutions too much dilute the Ferment debilitate the Digestions and vitiate the tone of the Membranous parts both of the stomach and other bowels and so cause Fevers Dropsies defluxions of Rheume c. And lastly The fitness of it to be taken at any Season of the Year whether Winter Spring Summer or Autumn whereas the waters from the Spaw it self are only to be drunk in the Summer-Season But this Essence may not only be drunk then which at that time of the year may be taken in three four or five glasses of any good simple Spring-water especially to those who cannot come to the Spaws but also may conveniently enough be taken in the Winter and in the Spring when the Spaw-water it self cannot with efficacy be drunk because too much diluted with Rain or Snow-water in a glass of White or Rhenish-Wine as I said which though it be taken in such a proportion as not to work sensibly by stool yet will it have a safe and innocent though an insensible Operation Yea What Diseases the Spaw-water is found proper for being taken from the Fountain for the same the Essence thereof is also as proper and according to all reason most effectual as in the Scurvy Scorbutical Asthma's Dropsie Hypocondriack Melancholy Fevers Obstructions of the Vessels in Women and Diseases thence depending together with several other Distempers as may be further seen in the Discourse it self The Essence of the Spaw hath this priviledge in the Cure at least in the assistance of the Cure of Fevers above that of the whole body of the Spaw-water viz. That it may be administred in a glass of Wine and so may readily be carried to absterse the vessels of the blood and other spurious fermenting liquors from their Heterogeneities and recremental Tartar which if taken in the whole bulk of water would be prejudicial and dangerous on all hands as hazarding too sudden a stop to the Fermentation and thereby occasion a preposterous stifling of the volatile Spirits before they can work themselves into a new state by separating Heterogene parts which they constantly attempt in most Fevers Also if this Spaw-water contribute as it 's highly extoll'd to that purpose to the making Women fruitful by removing Obstructions of the Womb the frequent concurring cause of Barrenness it doth it I say by virtue of this Nitro-hermetick Salt viz. That which I call the Essence of the Spaw which indeed is muchwhat of the same nature with that Salt which fructifies all Plants and Fruits of the Earth makes all Soyls multiply in great plenty and may give probability of fruitfulness to Women by opening those Obstructions which frequently hinder Conception By the help of this concentred Essence every simple Current-Spring may be made a Spaw by dissolving a competent quantity hereof in four five six or seven glasses of any Spring-water in the Summer-time which may also not a little increase its purgative quality in as much as the Spaw-waters often Purge downward by their very weight witness the Vitrioline-Spaw at Knarsborough which rarely purgeth any other way than downwards by its very weight either by Stool or Urine So that this very Essence might very properly be taken in the same Sweet Spaw at the Season of the Year and so you might have the virtue of both Spaws in one which would probably thereby answer more general Indications And lastly By the help of our aforesaid Ternary of Medicines together with some other good Specificks joyning issue at the Season of the Year with the use of the Scarborough-Spaw-water might effect very considerable Cures in most Chronick Diseases or the same with the Essence of the same Spaw to be taken in the Winter Spring or any other Season of the Year might not improbably effect the like Cures FINIS FRAGMENT I. Insert this first Fragment between the 29th Section ending with these words the extinction of the vital flame and the beginning of the 30th Section thus 30. This fourth Digestion as I conceive c. in Page 75. Part II. NOw this regurgitated Latex or separated Serum of the Blood let forth of the Abdomen by tapping the Bellies of such are afflicted with that sort of Dropsie call'd Ascites is a limpid liquor whose Tabes whereby it depraves and corrupts the membranous parts where it restagnates is not originally from the Liver that part so generally accus'd by the Galenists for being the grand Patron of Dropsies is apparent by matter of Fact both by the observation of the profound Inquisitor into Nature Baptista Van Helmont who upon the dissection of Bodies whose Diseases were Dropsies has found the Liver firm and sound both in colour and solidness of Parenchyme The same an ingenious and skilful Physician an Acquaintance of mine told me that upon his cutting up a Dropsical Body which Dropsie had worn away the Patient with an Atrophy of all the parts like a Tabes The limpid Liquor that he took forth of his Belly was near two Gallons the Liver was sound and good as any could be so likewise his Heart but the Spleen was discoloured and vitiated the Omentum was black rotten and foetid Some of this Liquor he caus'd to be plac'd over a fire to evaporate some of the moisture the remaining part thicken'd and was as stiff as a gelly and that of a very green colour It was of so stiff a consistence as that a spoon might have stood in it Which Experiment evinceth the truth of these following Considerations First That the Liver is innocent in the genesis of Dropsies In Hydrope insons est hepar saith Helmont and therefore all Medicines that are directed in the Galenical road to the opening Obstructions in the Liver or to any other Indication