as it were modi consistentiae Heat is not the cause of tenuity in ayr because heat is accidental to Ayr and tenuity is essential or at least co-essential but that which is accidental and extrinsick cannot be the cause of that which is essential and intrinsick The next effect we can imagine to emanate from lightness with continuity or the greatest diduction and yet remaining continuated must needs be Tenuity Besides these there are some more qualities restant as Obtuseness and Acuteness Asperity and Levor Solidity and Liquidity Softness and Hardness Lentor and Friability It is a mistake in Authors to derive the Original of these Qualities from the Elements as they constitute a mixt body and thence to term them Qualities of a mixt body To the contrary they do emanate from the Elements as they are conceived in their absolute form as hath been proved These Qualities you may nominate third fourth and fifth according as the understanding doth apprehend the one to be before the other in Nature although not in Time The third qualities of the Elements are Obtuseness Acuteness c. I prove it because we apprehend them next to the second qualities for the understanding in discerning these sensible qualities is lead by the Senses as its Pilots now our tact or feeling being the first in esse operari is also imployed in distinguishing those first second and third Qualities and for that reason they are all called tactible or tangible qualities The first action made by any of the Elements upon the tact is local motion as Gravity and Levity for feeling any Element its weight or lightness would be the First thing we should perceive the next would be its rarity or density The third acuteness or hebetude the fourth asperity or levor the fifth hardness or softness the sixth solidity or liquidity the seventh lentor or friability There is a twofold Acuteness formally differing from one another 1. An Acuteness deriving from Density 2. An Acuteness emanating from Rarity Acuteness is a quality whereby our tact is most divided Obtuseness is a quality whereby our tact is least divided Acuteness is in Fire and Earth but in a different manner Acuteness in fire is a rare acuteness whereby it most divideth our tact through its parts being contiguously diducted or spread from the Center The acuteness inherent in earth is a dense acuteness whereby it divides our tact through a dense acuteness or minima's moving through their pressing weight to the Center Obtuseness is a quality following crassitude and tenuity whereby its subject compresseth our tact or divideth it less or least and in longer time Obtuseness in ayr is a quality immediately produced by its tenuity and continuous Expansion for were it contiguous it would be acute but being continuous one part hindreth the other from penetrating or dividing any objected body And so its parts acting together and equally they effect a compression This compression or obtuseness in the ayr is thin and subtil and more potent then that in water because it resisteth less and therefore is also less opposed and through its subtility is capable of making stronger opposition Obtuseness in water issueth out of a thick quality or from its continuous depressing vertue This Obtuseness and that in ayr as also acuteness in fire and earth are altogether different as I said before but through the narrowness of the Language I am compelled to attribute each to two several beings adding some notes of Distinction The same understand of all the other derived Qualities Asperity is a quality immediately consecuting Acuteness and Levor is a quality emanating from Hebetude or Obtuseness Asperity more plainly is an inequality or roughness in the surface of a body this experience tels us proceedeth from a sharpness or Acuteness Levor is an equality of the Surface descending from Hebetude or a continuous pressure or diduction Asperity in fire is a rare diffusing and vibrating asperity that in earth is a dense heavy contracting asperity I prove it our feeling certifieth us that fire is a rare diffusing and vibrating roughness and so feeling earth we feel a dense heavy and contracting roughness From a contiguous and dense Asperity spreades hardness which is a quality where by its subject is difficulty pressed down into it self So thin Levor begetteth softness which is a quality whereby its subject easily giveth way into it self to pressure Hardness in earth may properly be termed Rigidity or a rugged hardness because the earth doth only of all the Elements possess its center and therefore cannot introcede into it self That Rigidity is caused by Asperity its ordinary Definition among Physitians doth testifie Rigidity say they is a hardness with Asperity or a roughness that is from asperity From a continuous and thick Obtuseness derives a smooth hardness such as is conceived in Chrystal or Ice and is alone proper to water Softness in fire being unequal or rough is whereby it giveth way towards its Circumference if pressed from without Softness in ayr being equal and smooth is whereby it giveth way towards its Circumference if pressed from without Solidity is an effect of hardness through which a body is consistent that is uncapable of flowing So water is a smooth solid body because of its peculiar hardness and earth is a rugged solid body likewise because of its proper hardness Liquidity is an effect of Softness whereby a body is apt to flow or to be diducted In Fire it is rare and acute in Ayr thin and obtuse Solidity produceth Friability which is a quality whereby its parts are separable From one another in minute particles wherefore since Solidity cannot give way by flowing it giveth way through Friability Lentor is a quality produced by Liquidity and is whereby a body is rendered deductible by reason of its continuity of Parts We may otherwise apprehend these qualities to differ from one another secundum magis minus thus Asperity is a greater Acuteness of parts Hardness is a greater Asperity or thick Levor Solidity is a greater Hardness Levor is a greater Obtuseness Softness is a greater thin Levor Liquidity is a greater Softness CHAP. XV. Of the Respective Qualities of the Elements particularly of Fire Earth and Water 1. What is meant by the Respective Qualities of the Elements Why they are termed Second Qualities 2. That heat is the second respective or accidental quality of fire That fire is not burning hot within its own Region That fire doth not burn unless it flames is proved by an Experiment through Aq. fort 3. That heat in fire is violently produced The manner of the production of a Flame What it is which we call hot warm or burning How fire dissolves and consumes a body into Ashes 4. That Heat is nothing else but a Multiplication Condensation and Retention of the parts of fire The degrees of Heat in fire and how it cometh to be warm hot scorching hot blistering hot burning hot and consuming hot 5. A way
below because the ayr here is much freed from that irrigation of waterish moysture which the vapours contribute to the lowermost Region as impelling all extraneous vapours and exhalâ—tion to a body Moreover I will give you a reason for it To dry is to dissipate and disperse moysture or dampishness adhering to any substance but the ayr being a most subtil body doth through its subtility attenuate the water which attenuated fals off from that body whereunto it first hung and is then imbibed by the ayr which it doth afterwards detrude to its proper place Lightness with tenuity is the form and first quality of ayr What lightness is I have set down before Tenuity is a continuous exparsion and diffusion into all dimensions As water is weighty with crassitude so contrariwise as it were is air light with tenuity I prove that ayr is light because all aerial bodies as Cobwebs Feathers although they are complicated yet being cast forth into the ayr their parts are diffused from the Center to the Circumference Grease Tallow Oyl Wax c. these bodies because they do much participate of Ayr when melted and dropt upon the ground do spread themselves into broad splatches not contracting themselves like earth or water into close round bodies but rather contrariwise Gunpowder when kindled Smoak breathes of living Creatures Vapours Exhalations Dust c. are all diducted from their Center to the Circumference through the natural motion of the air inclosed within their bodies The Ayr if condensed as they say but improperly is in a counter-natural state for then it makes use of violence ergo its diffusion to the Circumference is natural to it That the air is tenuous or confisting of thin parts expanded in continuity into all dimensions its rupture doth signifie for were it contiguous every subtil exhalation or wind would not move it but might easily transpire through its porosity without concussing it but it being continuous is compelled to break which rupture causes both its commotion and sound Hence it is that the least breath moves the air and makes a sound in it The reason why the water is moved or at any time a sound is made in it is because it being continuous is subject to ruptures which disposeth it to both but neither happens to fire or earth because they are porous and only contiguous Lastly It s being and preservation is impossible without this relative form For through it the Ayr doth moderate balance and is subservient to it self and other Elements Water is weighty with crassitude and through its so being it compasses the earth so narrowly that the fire is unable of striking through its continuity for to meet the earth wherefore Ayr being light with tenuity doth diffuse and expand the body of water and so the fire is led to the earth by the conduct of the Ayr. Again water being of that weight would move to an infinitum and the lightness of fire is insufficient to stay it because water is heavy and thick and therefore contrary to fire which is light and rare and through that quality must necessarily expel the fire wherefore air is requisite for to balance its weight and having partly the same nature with water and partly different yet not contrary is alone capable of mixing with the water Ayr is partly of the same nature with water because they are both continuous and so do thereby immediately at their first conjunction pervade each other and come to an exact union This I will illustrate to you by an Example Affuse Spirits of Wine to Water you see they will mixe exactly in a moment for you may presently after tast them equally at the bottom of the Glass and at the top Now it is evident that Spirits of Wine are very ayry and fiery and therefore because continuous mingle instantly with the water But fire refuseth to mixe with it because it is contiguous and light and altogether contrary as it were It is different because it moves to the Circumference and water to the Center Pray observe the wisdom of Nature this is most necessity for although they are both continuous how could they mix unless the one did move to the Center and the other from it whereby they come to meet one another in an instant Did they move both to the Center they could not mix or meet together for being then supposed to be of an equal weight that which was undermost would remain undermost much in the manner of two Horses going both one pace one before the other about in a Mill who will hardly meet unless the one turnes its gate and go contrarily to the other and so they do immediately confront one another Hence it is that wine mixes quicker by far with water then one kind of water doth with another By this you may discern the absolute necessity of these motions in the Elements both for mixtion and their mutual conservation VIII The first quality of fire is Levity with Rarity Rarity is a subtility or minority of parts whereby its minima's are contiguous one to the other Who ever doubted of the lightness of fire Doth not fire diffuse its heat equally from its Center to the Circumference Doth not the fire in a Torch cast its light circularly from its Center That fire abhors a continuity we perceive by its burning for we see that the flames in Spirits of Wine do terminate into points which points make a roughness whereas were the fire continuous its terms would be smooth like unto those of Water and Ayr. Doth not the fire work through the smallest pores ergo through its contiguous points Hence it is that fire passes where ayr is shut out It s relative nature is constituted by its contiguity of parts for through it it is fitted for the embracing of earth were it continuous and light it would shun the earth or if admitted into the earth the earth would disrupt and expel it like as it disrupts and expels Ayr. Wherefore through its porosity and contiguity it enters the earth and the earth enters it each opening its pores at this friendly reception Nevertheless supposing that contiguity had no contrariety to continuity yet would the Ayr not be light enough to sustain the weight of the body of earth besides there must be two gravities conceived for one lightness and two or three continuities for one contiguity so that of absolute necessity a fourth Element must be added that might be answering to the earths gravity and density through its levity and rarity That which is light and rare is more vibrating and by far of greater activity and energy then that which is light and thin Summarily let us take a view of all their first qualities and compare them together Water and Ayr do communicate in a perfect friendship and so doth Earth and Fire water and earth ayr and water fire and ayr are all beholding to one another yet not in the same respect but divers Water and Fire
yet be one fourth less and likewise fire and ayr would in their supposed purity possess a place yet one fourth larger the reason is because the fourth part of the admisted Elements to each pure Element doth so much the more augment or diminish its quantity which being prescinded must necessarily either enlarge or lessen their places Wherefore you see that it doth not hinder but that the minima's of the earth and water may be equal in number activity to the minima's of the others Neither doth it hinder but that the earth and water being expanded by the support of the light elements as appears in the Chaos might have constituted so great a mole as the Chaos was notwithstanding it appeares so small now for every natural point of water was almost half as much diducted violently as it were by the thin levity of the ayr as such a proportion of ayr is now naturally through its absolute form expanded So likewise was the air then half as much cohibited and incrassated through its relative form by the water as the water is now incrassated The like conceive of fire and earth Through these abstractions did all the temperate qualities of the Chaos cease each element did arrive almost to its absolute nature The greatest commerce which they then exercised was with each their nearest adjacent as the fire with ayr ayr with water and fire water with earth and ayr earth with water and fire with ayr In this Scheme you may see the apparition of the second Division which was the third act of Creation The fire moves circulatly by reason of the ayr the ayr is cast equally over the water the water over the earth both pursuing a circular course The Representation of the Chaos after its second Division CHAP. XII Of the Third Division of the Chaos 1. The effects of the Third Knock. Why earth is heavier then water Why water is more weighty near the top then towards the bottom Why a man when he is drowned doth not go down to the bottom of the Ocean Why a potch'd Egge doth commonly rest it self about the middle of the water in a Skillet Why the middle parts of Salt-water are more saltish then the upper parts 2. Whence the earth hapned to be thrust out into great protuberancies How the earth arrived to be disposed to germination of Plants A vast Grove pressed into the earth 3. The cause of the waters continual circular motion 4. The cause of the rise of such a variety of Plants 1. THe third Division or the fourth act of Creation was whereby the most universal Nature naturans did yet more purifie and as it were clarifie the Elements in abstracting each element from its nearer and congregating it to a proper place of its own These several acts of purification and exaltation are not unlike to the operations of an Alchymist in purifying a Mineral 1. He reduceth it to a powder and mixeth it exactly and so it was with the Chaos 2. Then it is either put into a Retort Alembick or a Sublimatory whereby the light parts are separated and abstracted from the heavy ones this hapned also in the first Division 3. He rectifieth the light parts in repeating the former operation and exalts it to a more sublime and pure nature and so separates the lightest parts from the light ones even so it was here God did yet more separate the fire from the ayr Touching the caput mortuum as the earthy parts that he dissolves in water and afterwards to purifie it he coagulates the earth and so separates it from the water in the same manner did God here coagulate the earth and parted it from the waters Further how this is effected I shall in brief explain to you The water through her gravity with crassitude doth obtain a vertue in her of squeezing which is performed by a body that is weighty and continuous for by its weight it presseth downwards to the center and through its continuity it impedes the body which it presseth from entring into its own substance and so forceth it to give way which is the manner of squeezing Now was this body weighty and contiguous only then it would be uncapable of squeezing but would rather press another substance into its own Pores Through this squeezing vertue is water rendred capable of collecting her own parts by making Groves into the earth especially being thereunto impelled by the divine Architect But possibly you may object that water cannot squeeze or press the earth because the earth is weightier then it I answer that earth is weightier then water caeter is paribus supposing that neither is obstructed or violently as it were detained for instance imagining that the mass of earth and of water were each of them placed in Scales no doubt but earth would be heavier and its parts make a greater impulse to the Center because they are single in every minimum and not continuated one to the other and therefore one part doth not hinder the force of the other but rather helpeth it As for water her impulse is lesser because her parts are continuated one to the other and so are a mutual hinderance to one another This I prove take an hour-glass and fill it with water never a drop shall pass through the center-hole the reason is evident because although its parts are weighty yet their continuity hinders them from stilling through and so one part naturally cleaving to the other doth preclude the way but sand you see easily passeth because it being weighty and contiguous only the one part giveth way to the other and impels the same through Wherefore I conclude that all conditions being equal earth is heavier then water But the one being violently detained may prove weightier then the other and so water is detained by earth for water is impeded from concentrating through the protuberance of the mass of earth which therefore causeth a more forcible innixe in water upon the superficial parts of the earth I prove it water weigheth heavier upon the top of high mountains then in the lowermost Region of the Ayr because there it is remoter from its center 2. Water presseth more atop then underneath because it is more remote from the center this is apparent by mens experience in the water for if they suffer themselves to sink down they feel the greatest force to press them from the supream parts of the water but the lower they descend to the bottom the less force they perceive Also there are many things as an Egge dropt out of the shell into the water in a Skillet and others go no deeper then half way to the bottom the reason is because the superficial parts being most remote from the center press more forcible then the parts under them Men when they are drowned in the Sea do not descend so low as to reach the ground but so far only as the superficial parts of the Sea thrusteth them besides there is reason
compress its parts any more then it was compressed before but a stone or other mixt heavy body lying upon the ground presseth a hole into the ground yet if as much more earth as there is contained in such a stone were cast upon the same place it would not make any sensible cavity or Impression the reason is because in a stone or mixt body the earth is violently detained and therefore useth the greater force or compression to the Center but earth being in its natural seat doth not This quality may be called coldness supposing it to be a passion wrought upon the tact by the earth punctually pressing to the Center In this sense coldness is an absolute quality in another it may be taken for a privation of heat because it seizeth upon the tact only in the absence of heat According to the former sense doth the Poet elegantly explain the nature of Cold. Nam penetrabile frigus adurit For the penetrating cold doth burn By penetrating its compression is intended That the cold is penetrating and pressing none that ever hath been in Greenland will deny wherefore in that it is an absolute quality In the latter sense it may be taken for a privation for it is the absence of heat which effecteth Coldness yet not per se but per accidens because as long as the heat is in a body it doth through its motion ad extra balance and temper the motion of cold ad iutra but the heat being departed then coldness doth through its compression punctually divide the continuous parts of the body as the ayry and waterish parts of it and so coldness is reduced to action through the defect of heat to balance it This we are sensible of in the Winter at which time there being a detraction of the ambient heat the earthy parts contained in the Ayr do then through their weight press down upon us and being arrived to our skin they repel the heat which being repelled they joyn with the earthy parts of our Body and so cause a greater punctual compression whence we soon feel a dense acuteness thence an asperity and thence a hardness or rigidity When again we approach the fire then its heat joynes with our internal heat and expelling the extrinsick cold parts it doth force the intrinsick ones back to the Circumference and so we grow hot again VIII There is also a Compression observeable in water but much different from that caused by earth water compressing the tact with a continuation and not punctually and therefore the compression made by water is equal thick and obtuse whence it is that when we have newly washt our hands with cold water we feel a thick levor upon them caused by the continuous pressure of the water The division which produceth this cold passion in our tact is not by separating or disjoyning its continuous parts but by squeezing the Ayr contained within its pores which being squeezed impelleth also the fiery spirits seated about these Pores from which impulsion we feel a punctual and acute division so that the passion raised by water doth per se only compress obtusely the continuous parts of our tact through a squeezing and per accidens it disuniteth them punctually by impelling the fiery spirits effentially inhering in the said tangent parts besides water containing some earthy points doth by reason of them excite withal a small acute compression Arist. Lib. 2. de ort anim Cap. 4. and in Lib. 1. de Meteor Cap. 4. seemes to assert that coldness is nothing else but a privation of heat For saith he the two Elements implying water and earth remain cold by reason of the defect of circular motion making heat Zabarel Lib. 2. de qual Elem. cap. 3. makes good my Opinion although by guess or at least we must say that coldness is really in it self a positive quality but wherein this positive quality consisteth he knoweth not but that it ariseth from a privation of heat and in respect of heat it may take place among privations This tends to the same purpose as I have stated before namely that coldness cannot act unless heat be absent in such a proportion as that it may have power over it The same is appliable to heat and the other qualities viz. that they are privations in regard they cannot act without the absence of their Opposites but that they are positive because they act sensibly in the absence of the said opposites But what shall I think of Aristotle who hath soon altered his opinion in Lib. 2. de Ort. Inter. Text. 9. Cold is that doth equally conjoyn and congregate bodies that are of the same Gender as well as those of a differing Gender A plain Contradiction for that which doth conjoyn and congregate bodies by condensation must be positive according to his own words yet nevertheless above he asserted it to be a Privation I wave this and proceed in making disquisition upon his Definition Broath as long as it remaines boyling hot the fat of it is contained within it being exactly mixed with the water but assoon as it cooles it is separated and cast forth to the top ergo cold doth segregate heterogenea from homogenea Earth separates her self from water and water segregates her parts from fire and ayr but water and earth are cold and yet do not congregate their own parts with others of another gender Ergo. 2. This is no more but the mentioning of one of its remote effects for they themselves grant that it produceth this effect through condensation ergo cold is not formally defined but described through one of its effects It now proves easie to us to decide that inveterated dispute concerning the primum frigidum That which doth most divide the tact by compression is the primum frigidum or the coldest but the earth doth most compress our tact or tangent parts for it doth compress the tact acutely and water obtusely only ergo it is the coldest 2. According to their own Tenents that which doth most condense is the coldest but earth condenses most for it condensates her own parts into Metals and Stones but water although it incrassates yet it cannot condense bodies into that consistence which earth doth ergo 3. That which is heaviest is the coldest for condensation is an effect of weight but earth is heaviest ergo Lastly If it be your pleasure to name Earth a frigidum in summo and Water a frigidum in remisso Fire a calidum in summo sive intenso and Ayr calidum in remisso you may without Offence CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualities of the Elements 1. The Second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The State of the Controversie 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilst he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning then a
to my apprehension all that Country must necessarily be subjected to such deluges since it swims upon the water Touching Inland Inundations as that which befell Friesland in the year 1218 where near 100000 persons were buried in the water and that of Holland and Zealand in the Reign of Charles the fifth Emperour of Germany in the year 1531. and several times since as that of the last year when a great part of the Country all about Gorcum was seized upon by Inland waters Their causes are to be attributed to torrents streaming down out of the melted snow as also to the swelling of the Inland waters through receiving a great quantity of frosty minima's pouring down from the North in a cold Winter The River of Nile proves yearly extravagant in AEgypt for two months and ten daies because being situated very low it is obliged to receive the superfluity of water falling from above out of severall great Rivers and Lakes as the Lakes Zembre Saslan Nuba and the Rivers Cabella Tagazi Ancona Coror and many others besides the water which it draweth from the hills and other grounds These Rivers and Lakes do constantly swell every year by reason of the great rains that fall there at certain times of the year Besides the heat of the Sun exercising its power very vigorously near the latter end of May doth very much subtilize and rarefie those waters whereby they are rendred more fluid penetrating and copious and lastly the Sun conversing in the northern declination doth impell the Ocean stronger against the Northern shores whereby the waters are also much increased Hence it is that the waters of the Nile are so subtill that they deceive the air in carrying of them up in vapours viz. because they are so subtilly strained No wonder then if they prove so healthy The same causes are appliâ—ble to the excessive increase of the Rivers Ganges Padus Arrius Danow Tiber and Athesis CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-mentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate I. VVHat the cause of those effects of the Lake Asphaltites should be the name seems to contain viz. The water glued together by an incrassated air and condensed fire constituting the body of a certain Bitumen called Asphaltos whence the said Lake doth also derive its name It is uncapable of breeding fish because through its sulphureous thickness it suffocates all vitall flames On the contrary the Lakes Avernum although deep 360 fathom and that of AEthiopia are so much subtilized through the passing of rarefied air that they are uncapable of sustaining the least weight Touching their pernicious quality to fowl it must be attributed to the venomous spirits permixt with that rarefied air infecting the whole Element of air as far as it covers them The Lake Lorna and the other in Portugal cause their effects through the permixture of a quantity of crude nitrous bodies which prove very depressing That Lake of AEthiopia is unctious through the admixture of incrassated air II. The Lake Eaug in Ireland acquires a sideropoetick vertue under water from the imbibition of crude Aluminous juyces by means of their indurating and constrictive vertue changing wood sticking in the mud into an Iron-like substance that part which is under water into a stone-like substance because of the diminution of the said Aluminous Juyces which through their weight are more copious in the mud the part of the wood that sticks out of the water remains wood as being beyond the reach of the said heavy juyces The Lakes of Thrace and Gerasa prove pernicious through admixture of crude arsenical exhalations The Lake among the Troglodites being Mercurial is infestuous to the brain The Lake Clitorius through its nitrosity disturbs the stomach and attracts a great quantity of moisture to it and infecting it with an offensive quality causes a loathing of all Liquors The sudden tempests befalling the Lake Laumond and Vadimon are caused through winds breaking out of the earth through the water Lakes resist induration by frost through igneous expirations pervading them The Lake Benacus shews its fury when its internal winds are excited by external ones causing a Concussion and a Rage in the water like unto an aguish body which is disposed to a shaking fit by every sharp wind raising the sharp winds within III. The River Abda passeth freely through the Lake Larius without any commotion of its body because the waters of the Lake through their extream crassitude are depressed downwards and so are constituted atop in a rigid posture whereas the River is impelled forwards and very little downwards But were it to flow through a shallow water whose quantity doth not bear any proportion to receive the pressure of the air downwards against the earth they would soon communicate in streams 2. The waters of a Lake differ much in crassitude and density from those of a River and therefore do exclude its streams The Lake Haneygaban doth not visibly disburden it self of those waters but thrusting Caverns underneath into the earth raises all those hills through the intumescence of the said waters that are near to her out of which some Rivers do take their rice Pilats Pool is stirred into a vehement fermentation by flinging any pressing body into it because thereby those heterogeneous mineral juyces viz. Vitriolat and Sulphureous substances are raised mixt together and brought to a fermentation and working Through this fermentation the water swells and exceeds its borders but the water being clarified the commotion ceaseth Neither needs any one wonder that so small a matter should be the cause of so great an exestuation since one part of the water doth stir up the other and so successively the whole pool comes to be stirred Pools owe their rice to great rains or torrents which sometime do slow visibly over the meadows or through Rivers causing inundations Sometimes through Caverns of the Earth as that near Laubach CHAP. XI Of the rice of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rice of Fountains examined 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rice of Fountains The rice of many principal Fountains of the world 4. Why Holland is not mountainous 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived 7. Whence it is that most shores are Mountainous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the polars The
of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got the Center and how the waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. ib. 6. The qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration ib. 59 CHAP. XI Of the second Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of Effects befalling the Elements through the second knock The proportion of each of the Elements in their purity to the Peregrine Elements p. 60. 2. The ground of the forementioned proportion of the Elements 61 62. 3. That fire and ayr constitute the Firmament p. 63. 4. A grand Objection answered ib. 64. CHAP. XII Of the Third Division of the Chaos 1. The effects of the third knock Why earth is heavier than water Why water is more weighty near the top than towards the bottom Why a man when he is drowned doth not go down to the bottom of the Ocean Why a potch'd Egge doth commonly rest it self about the middle of the water in a Skillet Why the middle parts of Salt-water are more saltish than the upper parts p. 66 67. 2. Whence the earth hapned to be thrust out into great protuberancies How the earth arrived to be disposed to germination of Plants A vast Grove pressed into the earth p. 68. 3. The cause of the waters continual circular motion ib. 69. 4. The cause of the rise of such a variety of Plants p. 71. CHAP. XIII Of the Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of the Effects of the fourth Division That Nature created the first bodies of every Species the greatest is instanced in Bees Fishes and Fowl That all Species are derived from one individuum That Adam was the greatest man that ever was since the Creation What those Glants were which the Poets faigned p. 72 73 74. 2. How the Sun and Moon were created That a Lioness is not more vigorous than a Lion p. 75. 3. How the Stars of the Firmament were created p. 76. 4. How the durable Clouds of the Ayr were created ib. 5. The Effects of the fifth Division ib. 6. The Effects of the sixth Division ib. 7. The Effects of the last Division ib. CHAP. XIV Of the Second and Third Absolute Qualities of the Elements 1. What is understood by Second Qualities p 78. 2. What the Second Quality of Earth is p. 79. 3. Aristotle's Definition of Density rejected ib. 4. The Opinions of Philosophers touching the Nature of Density p. 80. 5. The forementioned Opinions confuted p. 81. 6. The Description of Indivisibles according to Democritus disproved That all Figures are divisible excepting a Circular Minimum That Strength united proveth strongest in around Figure and why ib. 82 83. 7. What the Second Quality of Fire is Cardan Averrhoes Zimara Aristotle Tolet and Zabarel their Opinions touching the Nature of Rarity confuted p. 84 85 86 87. 8. The Second Quality of Water Aristotle Joh. Grammat Tolet Zabarel and Barthol their sence of Thickness and Thinness disproved p. 88. 9. What the Second Quality of Ayr is p. 89. 10. What is intended by third fourth or fifth Qualities An Enumeration of the said Qualities What Obtuseness Acuteness Asperity Levor Hardness Rigidity Softness Solidity Liquidity and Lentor are and their kinds ib. 90 91 92. CHAP. XV. Of the Respective Qualities of the Eements particularly of Fire Earth and Water 1. What is meant by the Respective Qualities of the Elements Why they are termed Second Qualities p. 93. 2. That heat is the second respective or accidental quality of fire That fire is not burning hot within its own Region That fire doth not burn unless it flames is proved by an Experiment through Aq. fort ib. 3. That heat in fire is violently produced The manner of the production of a Flame What it is which we call hot warm or burning How fire dissolves and consumes a body into ashes p. 94. 4. That Heat is nothing else but a Multiplication Condensation and Retention of the parts of fire The degrees of Heat in fire and how it cometh to be warm hot scorching hot blistering hot burning hot and consuming hot p. 95. 5. A way how to try the force of fire by Scales Why fire doth not alwayes feel hot in the Ayr. ib. 96. 6. Plato and Scaliger their Opinion touching heat p. 97. 7. The Parepatetick Description of Heat rejected How fire separateth Silver from Gold and Lead from Silver p. 98. 8. What the second respective quality of Earth is What Cold is The manner of operation of Cold upon our Tâ—â—ct p. 100. 9. The second respective quality of Water That Water cooles differently from Earth ib. 10. Aristotle and Zabarel their wavering Opinions touching Cold. That Earth is the primum frigidum ib. 101. CHAP. XVI Of the remaining Respective Qualilities of the Elements 1. The second Respective Quality of the Ayr. That water cannot be really and essentially attenuated The state of the Controversie 102 103. 2. That Ayr cannot be really and essentially incrassated Why a man whilest he is alive sinkes down into the water and is drowned and afterwards is cast up again That a woman is longer in sinking or drowning than a man The great errour committed in trying of witches by casting them into the water p. 104 105 106. 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth p. 107. 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy p. 108. 5. The third Respective Quality of Fire What Driness is The definition of Moysture The third Respective Qualities of water and Ayr. Aristotles description of Moysture That Water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst p. 109. CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three conditions required in a Mixtion p 110. 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really p. 111. 3. Aristotles definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt bodies 112. 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention p. 113. 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion p. 114. CHAP. XVIII Of Temperament 1. That Temperament is the form of Mixtion That Temperament is a real and positive quality p. 115. 2. The definition of a Temperament Whether a Temperament is a single or manifold quality Whether a complexion of qualities may be called one compounded quality p. 116. 3. VVhether a Temperament be a fift quality A Contradiction among Physitians touching Temperament Whether the congress of the four qualities effects be one Temperament or more ib. 117. 4. That there is no such thing as a Distemper What a substantial Change is p. 118. 5.
The division of water p. 289. 3. VVhat a Lake is The strange vertues of some Lakes 290 291 292. 4. VVhat a Fountain is The wonderfull properties of some Fountains p. 293 to 295. 5. Of Physical Wells p. 296. Of Baths p. 297. 7. Of Rivers and their rare properties ib. 298. 8. Of the chief Straits of the Sea p. 299 230. CHAP. VII Of the Circulation of the Ocean 1. That the disburdening of the Eastern Rivers into the Ocean is not the cause of its Circulation neither are the Sunne or Moon the principal causes of this motion p. 301 302. 2. The periodical course of the Ocean The causes of the high and low waters of the Ocean p. 303 304 305. 3. How it is possible that the Ocean should move so swiftly as in 12 hours and somewhat more to slow about the terrestrial Globe p 306 307 308. 4. A further explanation of the causes of the intumescence and detumescence of the Ocean The causes of the anticipation of the floud of the Ocean 309 to 312. 5. That the Suns intense heat in the torrid Zone is a potent adjuvant cause of the Oceans circulation and likewise the minima's descening from the Moon and the Polar Regions p. 313 to 316. CHAP. VIII Of the course of the Sea towards the Polar Coasts 1. What the Libration of the Ocean is That the Tides are not occasioned by Libration The Navil of the World Whence the Seas move towards the North Polar Why the Ebb is stronger in the Narrow Seas than the Floud and why the Floud is stronger than the Ebb in the Ocean Why the Irish Seas are so rough p. 316 317 318. 2. VVhy the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rise of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus p. 319. 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne p. 320. 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rise of this Sea ib. 321. CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rise of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. p 422 323. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean p. 324. 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where p. 325. 4. The effects of the first deluge ib. 5. Inland Inundations p. 327. CHAP. X. Of the causes of the before-formentioned properties of Lakes 1. Whence the Lake Asphaltites is so strong for sustaining of weighty bodies and why it breeds no Fish The cause of qualities contrary to these in other Lakes The cause of the effects of the Lake Lerna p. 328. 2. Whence the vertues of the Lake Eaug of Thrace Gerasa the Lake among the Troglodites Clitorius Laumond Vadimon and Benaco are derived ib. 3. Whence the properties of the Lake Larius Pilats Pool and the Lake of Laubach emanate p. 329. CHAP. XI Of the rise of Fountains Rivers and Hills 1. That Fountains are not supplied by rain p. 330. 2. Aristotles opinion touching the rise of Fountains examined p. 331. 3. The Authors assertion concerning the rise of Fountains The rise of many principal Fountains of the world ib 332. 4. Why Holland is not mountanous p. 333. 5. That the first deluge was not the cause of Hills ib. 334 6. Whence that great quantity of water contained within the bowels of the Earth is derived p. 335. 7. Whence it is that most shores are mountanous Why the Island Ferro is not irrigated with any Rivers Why the Earth is depressed under the torrid Zone and elevated towards the Polars The cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others ib. 336. 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the Earth p. 337. CHAP XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountains of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epirus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain p. 338 339. 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells p. 340. 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived ib. 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 341. CHAP. XIII Of the various Tastes Smells Congelation and Choice of Water 1. Various tastes of several Lakes Fountain and River waters p. 342. 2. The divers sents of waters p. 343. 3. The causes of the said Tastes That the saltness of the Sea is not generated by the broyling heat of the Sun The Authors opinion ib. 4. The causes of the sents of wates p. 345. 5. What Ice is the cause of it and manner of its generation Why some Countries are less exposed to frosts than others that are nearer to the Line ib. 346. 6. The differences of frosts Why a frost doth usually begin and end with the change of the Moon p. 347. 7. The original or rise of frosty minims Why fresh waters are aptest to be frozen How it is possible for the Sea to be frozen p. 348. 8. What waters are the best and the worst the reasons of their excellency and badaess p 349 350. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the Ayr with the other Elements 1. How the Air moves downwards VVhat motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center VVhy the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 351 352. 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. p. 353. 3. An Objection against the airs circular motion answered p. 354. 4. The Poles of the Air. ib. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities p. 355 CHAP. XV. Of the production of Clouds 1. VVhat a Cloud is how generated its difference How a Rainbow is produced Whether there appeared any Rainbows before the Floud 356 2. The generation of Rain p. 357. 3. How Snow and Hail are engendred p. 358. 4. The manner of generation of winds ib. to 362. 5 The difference of winds Of Monzones Provincial winds general winds c. Of the kinds of storms and their causes What a mist and a dew are p. 362 to 370. CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their effects and some strange instances of them 1. VVhat an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The concomitants thereof p. 370. 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes ib. 371 372. 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes p. 373. 4. Their Effects upon the air p. 374. CHAP. XVII Of fiery Meteors in the Air. 1. Of the generation of a Fools fire a Licking fire Helens fire Pollux
is not in man that walketh to direct his steps Phil. 2. 13. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure II. In answer to these I confesse they are most undoubted truths but they are so farre from making against us that they prove part of what I stated in the fore-going Chapter Without God we cannot act will or live that is through our selves alone and without God's ordinary concurrence with us so that Solomon saith well That man may devise his way that is God hath given man a power of Acting But the Lord directeth his steps that is he hath not given man so absolute a power but that he needs God's ordinary concurrence So St Paul God worketh in you both to will and to do that is hath given us a will and an essence through which we do act and God doth conservate us in that will and essence for without his continual influence we cannot abide in our being or actions But that which they ought to prove is that God's concurrence with man in his actions taketh away his free-will III. They may also oppose against the 1. subconclus of the 1. conclus in the ninth Chapter to wit that moral good is absolutely evil Rom. 8. 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God c. But moral good is effected by them who are carnally minded Therefore it is enmity against God that is absolutely evil Rom. 14. 23. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin But moral good is not of faith Ergo It is a sin or evil Matth. 15. 9. But in vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men But moral good acts are onely such as the Doctrine of man teacheth Therefore they are in vain and evil IV. I answer to the first and except against the Major which is What ever proceeds from a carnal mind is absolutely evil I distinguish that evil is two-fold 1. Evil in particular Malum in particulari which is effected from an evil individual or particular man 2. Evil in common Malum in communi or absolute evil which is evil in it self and is evil if performed by any man whether good or evil Take my Solution thus What ever proceeds from a carnal minded man is evil in particular relatively as it proceeds from him because it is from an evil man in particular But this evil in particular doth not make that evil in common that is evil to all For example eating and drinking in an evil man or what ever an evil man doth is evil but because eating and drinking is evil in an evil man it doth not follow that eating and drinking is evil to all so as to extend also to good men now eating and drinking and what ever an evil man doth is evil because he eats and drinks unworthily and ungratefully in not acknowledging God to be the Creator of the food which is set before him and in not returning thanks for it 1 Thes. 5. 18. So that I say whatever an evil man doth is evil because he doth it unworthily Hence I may deny the Minor and say That a moral good act which is effected by an evil man is evil in particular neverthelesse it abides moral good that is good in common Tit. 1. 15. Wherefore this concludes nothing against my assertion viz. That a natural man can do a moral good act that is if he be a good natural or moral man for it is possible to a natural man to be good and evil and yet be natural V. As to the second I deny the Minor Because moral good in a good natural man is of faith yet not of entire faith for he believeth that God gave him his being and power of acting He believeth in God that he will supply him in all defects Of this more elswhere So that the Major is most true for whatever is not of faith is sin All our actions must be good that is such as God doth require from us But if we do not believe God or believe in him we cannot perform such actions as are pleasing to him for in not believing him is to rob God of all his Attributes of his Mercy Goodnesse Power c. therein they make God a liar and no wonder then if men's actions are evil in God's sight when they perform them without faith The last Objection doth require little else for answer than what was made to the first VI. Further there are other Texts offer'd arguing that man hath no free-will to do good or evil That he hath no free-will to do good is proved by the 6th Chapter of Gen. 5. vers And God saw that the wickednesse of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onely evil continually Gen. 8. 21. For the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth Rom. 7. 18. For I know that in me dwelleth no good thing Job 15. 16. How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water 1 Cor. 6. 19. Eccles. 7. 20. Hence they conclude that man doth alwayes act evil and consequently hath no free-will to good VII I answer that these Texts do not imply man in general that is all men but only wicked men or the most part of men I prove it Were all men implyed by these Texts then there never were any good men but there were many good men then as Moses Abraham c. Therefore all men are not implyed by the said Texts 2. And particularly to the first Text I say that there were many men but they were not natural for had they been natural they could not have been so perverse as quite to have forgotten God and to have denied him who were preternaturally evil that is confirmd Atheists who plainly deni'd God's Essence or Existence No doubt these cannot doe a good act or think a good thought because they act and think with an entire and absolute unbelief Wherefore it is a certain moral saying that none can do good without faith Again That man hath no free-will to evil is inferred by that Scripture of the 7th to the Romans For the good that I would do I do not but the evil which I would not that I do Jer. 13. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil Hence they infer that a man acteth evil necessarily In the first place the Question is not of an evil action but of a free-will to will good and evil Wherefore the first quotation makes for us That a man doth will good although he doth not alwayes act it for saith he The good which I would do I do not Here the Apostle speaks of himself as he is a natural man for as otherwise no question he could will good and do good If as a natural man then a natural man can will good although he doth not act
purity that is in its absolute state doth moysten less then Quicksilver which is not at all IV. The Form or first quality of water is gravity with crassitude There is no single word I can think upon in any Language that I know full enough to express what I do here intend and therefore am compelled to substitute these I explain them thus You must apprehend that gravity is a motion from the Circumference to the Center Levity is a diffusion or motion from the Center to the Circumference Now there is a gravity with density that is which hath density accompanying it Density is a closeness of minima's not diducted into a continuity but potentialiter that is Logicè porous and such is proper to earth There is also a gravity with crassitude which is a weight whose parts are diducted into a continuity or I might rather express my self whose parts do concentrate or move from the Circumference to the Center with a continuity that is without any potential pores dividing its matter as in Quicksilver diduct its body to the Circumference as much as you can yet its part will concentrate with a continuity but if you diduct earth you will perceive its porosity so that its body is altogether discontinuated Water is then weighty with a crassitude I prove it First that it is weighty or that its parts move from the Circumference to the Center Water when divided through force doth unite it self in globosity as appears in drops where all its parts falling from the circumference close to their center form a globosity 2. Water doth not only in its divided parts concentrate but also in its whole quantity This is evident to them that are at sea and approaching to the Land they first make it from the top-mast-head whereas standing at the foot of it upon the Deck they cannot The reason is because the water being swelled up in a round figure the top is interposed between the sight of those that stand upon the Deck and the Land-marks as hils or steeples but they that are aloft viz. upon the Yard arm or top-mast may easily discover them because they stand higher then the top of the swelling of the water The same is also remarkeable in a Bowl filled up with water to the Brim where you may discern the water to be elevated in the middle and proportionably descending to the Brim to constitute a round Figure Archimedes doth most excellently infer the same by demonstration but since the alleadging of it would protract time and try your patience I do omit it Lastly The Stars rising and going down do plainly demonstrate the roundness of the water for to those that sayl in the Eastern Seas the Stars do appear sooner then to others in the Western Ocean because the swelling of the water hindreth the light of the Stars rising in the East from illuminating those in the West The same Argument doth withal perswade us that the earth is round and consequently that its parts do all fall from the Outside to the Center V. Secondly That water hath a crassitude joyning to its gravity sight doth declare to us for it is impossible to discern any porosity in water although dropped in a magnifying Glass which in Sand is not It s levor or most exact smoothness expressing its continuity accompanying its weight is an undoubted mark of its crassitude whereas roughness is alwaies a consequent of contiguity and porosity There is not the least or subtilest spark of fire or ayr can pass the substance of water unless it first break the water and so make its way to get through this is the reason why the least portion of ayr when inclosed within the Intrailes of water cannot get out unless it first raises a bubble upon the water which being broke it procures its vent Nor the least Atome of fire cannot transpire through water unless it disrupts the water by a bubble as we see happens when water seeths or disperse the water into vapours and carry vapours and all with it But ayr and fire do easily go through earth because its parts being only contiguous and porous have no obstacle to obstruct them for sand we see in furnaces will suffer the greatest heat or fire to pass through without any disturbance of its parts Lastly Its respectiveness or relation doth require this form both for its own conservation and for others For the earths relative form being to meet and take hold through its weight and porosity this porosity is necessary for admitting the fire within its bowels for were it continuous as water is it would expel fire and dead it of the fire and by ballancing its lightness to preserve their beings mutually it needs the assistance of water for to inclose the fire when it is received by the earth and through its continuity to keep it in otherwise it would soon break through its pores and desert it So that you see that water by doing the earth this courtesie preserveth her self for were she not stayed likewise in her motion through the fire and ayr she would move to an infinitum VI. Moisture is not the first quality or form of the ayr I prove it Moysture as I said before is nothing else but the adhesion of a moyst body to another which it doth affect or touch Now in this moyst body there must be a certain proportion or Ratio substantiae of quantity it must neither be too thick or too thin Water therefore in its purity is unapt to moysten because it is too thick so ayr in its absolute state is too thin to adhere to any body that it reaches unto If ayr in its mixt nature through which it is rendred of a far thicker consistence is nevertheless not yet thick enough to adhere to the sides of another substance much less in its purity Who ever hath really perceived the moysture of Ayr I daily hear people say hang such a thing up to dry in the ayr but yet I never heard any say hang it up in the ayr to moysten but wet it in the water This drying Faculty of the ayr Peripateticks assert to be accidental to it namely through the permixtion of exhalations with the ayr Alas this is like to one of their Evasions Do we not know that the ayr in its lowest region is rather accidentally moyst because of its imbibition of vapours copiously ascending with the fire or heat tending out of the water to its element Is not the heat more apt to conveigh vapours that do so narrowly enclose it then earth which of it self permits free egress to fire yea where an Ounce of Exhalations ascends there arises a Pint of Vapours Waving this I state the case concerning the second Region of the Ayr or of the top of Mountains where according to their own judgment neither Vapours or â—xhalations are so much dispersed as to be capable of drying or moystning any ex rinsick body even here do wet things dry quicker then
necessarily be so for water strictly so named had it been heaved up it would have been against its first nature and been moved violently which is improbable since that nullum violentum est perpetuum no violent motion is lasting The nature of air certifieth us that it must be it which moved above the waters under it Lastly The waters above the waters strictly so termed are called the Firmament from its firmness because they are as a deep frame or a strong wall about the waters underneath for to keep them together in a counterpoise from falling to an insinitum but it is ai◠that is above the waters and is a Firmament to them ergo the ayr must be comprehended under the Notion of waters Or thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Hebrew is by the Rabbi's and Hebrews expounded an Expansion or thing expanded for its Root is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to attenuate if so then by the waters above must be implied ayr whose nature it is to be expanded as I shewed before So whether you take the word according to the interpretation of the Septuagints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmament or of the Rabbi's Expansion there can be nothing else intended by it but ayr I say then as by waters a duplicity of Elements is implied so by the Heavens ayr and fire are implied I prove it Light is fire flaming but the light was drawn from the Chaos if from the Chaos ergo not from the earth for by earth there is only meant earth single but from the Heaven which imports a conjunction of Elements viz. of Ayr and Fire Secondly Is light being a flaming fire drawn from the Heaven ergo there was fire latent in it So let this serve to answer Van Helmont his Objection who denieth fire to be an Element because its name is not set down in the first Chap. of Gen. neither is ayr mentioned among the Elements in so many Letters yet it is comprehended among them 'T is true Fowl are called Fowl of the ayr but what of that this doth not infer that ayr is an Element because Fowl are named Fowl of the Ayr. Secondly Earth and Water are there expressed in so many letters ergo the Chaos was made up of all the four Elements III. The Elements in the Chaos underwent an exact mixture because each being a stem and perfection to the other they required it for had they been unequally mixt then that part which had not been sufficiently counterpoysed by its opposite Element would have fallen from the whole Hence it followeth that they must have been of an equal extent and degree in their first vertue or quality and not only so but also in their quantity that is they consisted all of an equal number of minima's that so each minimum of every Element might be fitted sustained and perfectionated by three single minimum's of each of the other Elements Now was there but one minimum of any of the Elements in excess above the other it would overbalance the whole Chaos and so make a discord which is not to be conceived But here may be objected That the earth in comparison with the heavens beares little more proportion to their circumference then a point I confess that the air and fire exceed the earth and water in many degrees but again as will be apparent below there is never a Star which you see yea and many more then you see but containes a great proportion of earth and water in its body the immense to our thinking Region of the air and fire are furnished with no small proportion of water and earth so that numeratis numerandis the earth and water are not wanting of a minimum less then are contained either in the fire or ayr IV. The efficient of this greatest and universal body is the greatest and universal cause the Almighty God I prove it The action through which this vast mole was produced is infinite for that action which takes its procession ab infinito ad terminum finitum sive a non ente ad ens from an infinite to a finite term or from nothing to somthing is to be counted infinite but an infinite action requireth an infinite agent therefore none but God who is in all respects infinite is to be acknowledged the sole cause and agent of this great and miracuious effect It was a Golden saying upon this matter of Chrysippus the Stoick If there is any thing that doth effect that which man although he is indued with a reason cannot that certainly is greater mightier and wiser then man but he cannot make the Heavens Wherefore that which doth make them excels man in Art Counsel and Prudence And what saith Hermes in his Pimand The Maker made the universal world through his Word and not with his Hands Anaxagoras concluded the divine mind to be the distinguisher of the universe It was the Saying of Orpheus That there was but one born through himself and that all other things were created by him And Sophocles There is but one true God who made Heaven and the large earth Aristotle Lib. 2. De Gen. Cor. c. 10. f. 59. asserts God to be the Creator of this Universe And Lib. 12. Metaph. c. 8. He attests God to be the First Cause of all other Causes This action is in the holy texts called Creation Gen. 1. 1. Mark 10. 6. Psal. 89. 12. Mal. 2. 10. Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not alwaies intended for one and the same signification sometimes it implying the Creation of the world as in the Scriptures next forementioned other whiles it is restricted to Mankind Mark 16. 15. Mat. 28. 19. Luke 24. 47. In other places it is applied to all created beings Mark 13. 19. Gen. 14. 22. Job 38. 8. Prov. 20. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To create is imported by divers other Expressions 1. By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Form Gen. 2. 7. Esay 43. 7. 2. By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To make Gen. 1. 31. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath establisht Psal. 89. 12. Psal. 104. 5. Mat. 13. 35. Heb. 6. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 20. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To stretch or expand Psal. 10. 2. Es. 42. 5. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To prepare or dispose Prov. 8. 27. Psal. 74. 16. V. Creation is a production of a being out of and from nothing Tho. gives us this Definition in Sent. 2. Dist. 1. Quest. 1. Art 2. Creation is an emanation of an universal Being out of nothing By an universal being he intends a being as it comprehends all material and immaterial beings So that this is rather a definition of the creation of the material and immaterial world then a definition of the Formality of Creation 2. His Definition is defective and erroneous for he adds only out of nothing This is not enough it being possible for a thing to emanate out of nothing and yet not be created the immaterial operations of Angels and
it is but one 2. Were there more then one all the others would be created in vain because the Chaos being the greatest is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds for otherwise it could not be said to be the greatest 3. Or thus in other terms The Chaos is an universal quantity but were there more then one it could not be universal 4. Unity is the beginning and root of all plurality but the Chaos is the beginning and root of all plurality of bodies ergo it is but one 5. The Scripture mentions but of one Chaos Gen. 1. 1 2. 6. The Chaos is eval naturally like as the soul of man is eval and also immortal Eval that is of sempiternal duration yet counting from a beginning I prove it Eccles. 12. Let the dust return to its earth and the spirit return to God who gave it Here the body first returns to dust thence to earth but not to an annihilation for then the Scripture would have mentioned it Eccles. 1. 4. 2. The Chaos is to remain were it but to retribute the matter of humane bodies in order to their Resurrection 3. Annihilation is the greatest defect or imperfection for it supposeth an imperfect Matter and Form which cannot be imagined to be immediately created by God 4. Goodness lasteth for ever but the Chaos was good Gen. 1. 31. 1 Tim. 4. 4. Ergo. 5. Should the Chaos be annihilated then God would have created it in vain But that is impossible Ergo. CHAP. X. Of the first Division of the Chaos 1. Why the Chaos was broken 2. That the Chaos could never have wrought its own change through it self The Efficient of its mutation 3. The several Changes which the Chaos underwent through its disruption The manner of the said Disruption 4. How Light was first produced out of the Chaos What a Flame is 5. A perfect Description of the first knock or division of the Chaos By what means the Earth got to the Center and how the Waters Ayr and Fire got above it Why a Squib turnes into so many whirles in the Ayr. 6. The Qualifications of the first Light of the Creation A plain demonstration proving the circular motion of the Heavens or of the Element of Fire to be natural and of an Eval Duration I. IT was an Elegant Expression of Clem. Alex. Lib. 3. De Recogn Like the shell of an Egge although it seemeth to be beautifully made and diligently formed nevertheless it is necessary that it should be broken and opened that the Chicken may thence come forth and that that may appear for which the shape of the whole Egge seems to be formed Wherefore it is also necessary that the state of this world do pass that so the more sublime state of the Heavenly Kingdom may appear in its brightness The same I may aptly apply to the Chaos that it is to be broken and opened that so a more glorious substance may thence appear and come forth II. One Substance can have but one first power or vertue of acting and therefore the Chaos having no more could not act any effect but which it did act and so had no principle of changing it self from that which it was and consequently would have remained in that shape for ever For this reason we must grant that the Creative power and universal efficient wrought a mutation upon it This mutation was gradual a perfecto ad perfectius It was not by way of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or creation of the first manner but of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Moses sets down through that he said fiat let there be and this was the Note of the mediate Creation The manner as we may best conceive to our selves was by expansion division or opening of the Chaos III. Through the first diduction and opening the Fire and Ayr being light Elements and so entirely knitted into one must necessarily have diffused themselves above the superficial weighty Elements these falling nearer to the Center The fire having hereby acquired a greater liberty and more force by being less oppressed by the water its contiguous parts were notwithstanding united and suppressed through the continuity of the ayr and conveyed a great part of earth and water with them the ayr also could not be detracted from the universal mixture without the adherence of some water and earth wherefore that appeared also very thick IV. The fire being the lightest and of most activity towards the Circumference must have been vented in the greatest quantity yet not as I said without incraffated ayr which united to the vibrating parts of the fire were both changed into a flame A Flame is a splendent heat Flamma est calidum splendens wherefore by this two new qualities were produced to wit heat and splendor By Calidum heat understand a red hot fire Ignis candens Fire is named candent quod candorem efficiat because it begetteth a candour that is the brightest light But how fire became at once through this division burning and candent I shall distinctly evidence hereafter The Representation of the Chaos after its first Division V. Through this concussion the waters being also somewhat freed from the minima's of the earth tending to the Center were continuated a top of the earth like unto a fleece or skin for the points of the earth which did before discontinue the water being through their more potent gravity descended the water getting a top must needs have acquired its continuity which as you have read â—â—fore is the first quality of water The water therefore got above the earth not because it is less weighty per se but per accidens through its continuation The flame of the first division was yet thick and reddy not exalted to that brightness which afterwards it was The heat of this division was hot in the first degree because there was not yet so much fire drawn out as to make a greater heat This flame I may compare to the flame of a torch or candle which is either but newly lighted or near upon going out the heats which these flames then cast forth are in reference to their highest state as it were but in the first degree Their light is a dusky red The first motion of this fire being to diffuse it self to the circumference of the ambient ayr is there arriving beaten back and reflected through the external surface or coat of the ayr not through the thickness of it for no doubt that was rather thinner there then below but through its own natural motion whereby it moves to its preservation for a same cannot subsist but by the help and sustenance of the ayr It so whither can it move not directly back again retorting into it self that being its extream contrary motion but rather to the sides moving circularly about the surface of the ayr in the same manner as fire in a rooft Furnace where we see it first diffuseth its self directly towards the Circumference of
the Furnace and beating against the Roof of it doth not reverberate into it self but reflects to the sides and so moves along circularly about the sides of the wall which doth more evidently appear in a globous Furnace Fornax reverberatoria The same is also manifested by the fire of kindled Gunpowder in a Squib which thickneth the ayr by impelling the Vapours and Exhalations therein contained one upon the other and augmenting them by its own fumes is almost every way resisted and beaten back whence therefore we observe it betakes it self to a circular motion The reason is because through a circular motion it is less resisted for one part of it preceding the other doth not stop the following parts but rather one part draweth another after it or bears another before it and moving alwaies round it never meets with any other resistance for the one part is gone before the other can overtake it or what should resist it It is just like un to two horses going both one pace round in a Mill the one can never be a stop to the other but rather the one draweth the other after him because they move both one way Was this motion any other but circular it would meet with resistance This motion is as it were natural to the fire and therefore is also of an eval duration for its nature is ever to move from the Center which it doth in moving circularly not primarily but secondarily it moving first directly to the Circumference and thence reflecting to the sides it creeps as it were all about the surface of the ayr one part drawing the other after it or pushing and thrusting it before it or both waies Did not the fire continue in motion it would soon lose its flame for the flame is continued by being united that which unites it is besides its own motion the crassitude of the ayr which the fire impelling one part upon the other renders thicker and so unites it self the more So that in all Particulars this motion is natural to the fire necessarily of an eval duration because the said motion preserves it in its being and is its proper nature Now were this motion the effect of heat it must be violent and consequently of no long duration for what is violent destroyes the essence of a being It would he violent because heat is produced by a violent cause from without namely the opposition of the ayr 2. We read of no burning heat in the Mosaick Philosophy but only of a moving spirit which is that I call fire or at least an effect impressed upon part of the Chaos by which it moved to the surface for you read that this moving vertue was upon the face of the waters before there was light that is it was drawn out from the Chaos before it could raise a flame to give light What can be more plain Lastly it was necessary that the Elements should be of an eval duration for they were created to exist the same duration which Adam had he abided in his primitive state of Innocency would have existed By all which it appeares that there is no other Principle whence its eval duration is deducible but from hence CHAP. XI Of the second Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of Effects befalling the Elements through the second Knock. The proportion of each of the Elements in their purity to the Peregrine Elements 2. The ground of the forementioned proportion of the Elements 3. That fire and ayr constitute the Firmament 4. A grand Objection answered I. LEt us pass to the second Division and speculate the effects of that Through this vibration did the earth yet more concentrate and the waters gulped also upwards equally from all parts for as I said the Chaos was equally mixt otherwise how could the waters equally cover the earth as they did the waters being got atop the ayr got loose in a far greater measure then it did before which being expanded constituted this great tract of the air which now we breath into This breach although in a manner agreeable to the absolute propension of fire and ayr could not since they were soexactly mixed with the weighty elements but give occasion of conveighing a greater proportion of both with them Neither was that little remaining bowl of the great mole whereon we now tread destitute of all her former adherents there still being immerst in her the same proportion of the light Elements to the weighty as there is a proportion of weighty elements attending the separated light ones Consider now the proportion of each to it self 1. Although the earth doth harbour some of the other Elements in her yet she is triumphant over them in the fourth degree that is there are three parts pure earth to one part of the others and amongst these others that constitute a fourth part in her own bowels it is to be conceived that water doth transcend the ayre and so the ayre the fire Supposing then the earth to-consist of 64 parts 48 thereof are pure earth 6 1 â— pure water 5 1 â— pure ayr and 4 1 â— fire Hence from its predominance it is called earth and so the like of water ayr and fire to wit water reserves 48 parts of pure water 5 1 â— of ayr 5 1 â— of earth 5 of fire Ayr is called ayr also from its greater predominance over the other elements not from its purity as if it should be all pure ayr that is impossible It s purity appropriates 48. water and fire each 5 â— â— earth 5. Fire is pure in 48. ayr in 6 1 â— water in 5 1 â— earth in 4 1 â— The proportion of these forementioned elements take thus 64 parts is the whole three fourths of it which are 48 denote the proportion of each element in its purity Then there remains 16 which is the last fourth signifying the proportion of the admisted elements to the principal element as it is considered to be in its purity Again there is another proportion observable among the perigrine elements as they are sharers of the last fourth which is 16. Wherefore in earth 6 parts and a third is taken up by water one less to wit 5 1 â— by ayr and also one less namely 4 1 â— by the fire In water five and a half is equally attributed to earth and air one less that is the overplus fraction of each compleat number of earth and air makes socially one more to fire The last fourth or 16 of the air is supplied in five and a half by each of the ingress of fire and water In five by fire Fire is tied to 6 1 â— of ayr 5 1 â— of water to 4 1 â— of earth II. The ground and reason of this proportion is 1. That the least predominance whereby an element may acquire its name must be triple that is thrice as many times more in quantity then the elements affixed to it for did an element in its purity
overbalance the others but in two parts then it could hardly retain a form whereby its nature might be sufficiently distinguisht from the others if in more then in three parts it would be apparently discernable that that element was mixed if so then it must also be denominated by a mixed name for the cause why men generally impose a single name upon some beings that are mixt and compounded is because there is so little of the extrinsick body discernable that it doth not deserve to be named but if discernable then a compounded word is applied for instance there is none would say that water whereinto only a few drops of wine were instilled was wine and water or Oinolympha but they would nominate it water alone because there is so little wine in it that it is not gustable but supposing there were so much wine mingled with water as to make it perceptible either by tast or smell then no doubt they would say it was wine and water Even so it is here was there more then a fourth part of extrinsick Elements admitted to a single pure element it would be perceptible if so then we should not nominate the elements by a single name but by a compound one Now that it is not perceptible is evident for who can perceive water ayr or fire in the earth or who can distinguish water earth or air in fire c. Was there less then a fourth part it would disaptate the principal element from being an ingredient in a mixture The reason is because there must be some parts adhering to such an element whereby it may be received by the other for example had fire no ayr affixed to it as I have formerly noted it could not be received by water but would be immediately expelled Neither could the earth be disposed to receive fire and ayr but by the admisture of some parts of water some of ayr and others of fire but less then a fourth of these adherents would be insufficient That this is really in effect thus the separation of the elements is a testimony Distil Sea-water and rectifie it often but weigh it before distillation the residence or fixed Salt wherein fire ayr and earth are contained will in little less then a 6th or 8th considering that the water which is separated is not so pure yet but that it retaines some part of the perigrine elements and that another part is dispersed through the ambient ayr respond to the whole body of water Or thus Weigh Sea-water with distilled water and the one shall be a sixth part heavier then the other then imagine that the leasts which are evaporated of the peregrine elements are the remaining parts Lastly the elements being four in company it is very consentaneous to their number that each should be separated by the others in a fourth The reason why water constituting part of the fourth part of earth doth superate the ayr in one degree is because water is more agreeing and that immediately with earth then ayr because of its weight 2. Because it is nearer to the earth then the tract of ayr Fire is least in proportion because it is the remorest In the supplying the fourth of water earth and ayr are in an equal proportion because they are equally consentaneous to water for earth is agreeable to it through its weight and ayr through its continuity and because they are also of the same propinquity to water Fire is less in quantity then these through its remoteness it is more then it is in earth because it is nearer to it Ayr containes an equal part of fire and water by reason they are of an equal approximation of an equal concord with ayr the fire agreeing to it in levity water in continuity Earth is in ayr in the same proportion that fire is in water because they are equidistant to each of their allied elements and retain the same degree of Concord Fire hath the same proportion of earth which earth in its proper Region hath of fire It is sociated to more air in one degree then water to more water in the same degree then ayr to more water then earth in one degree also because their several situation is nearer to fire in one degree III. Summarily through this Division the Firmament was establisht The Firmament was the circumvallation of ayr and fire about the waters which made the earth and water firm in their present situation that is bound them up together and hindred them equally from all parts from falling from the universal Center for the ayr and fire being both light elements do as well diffuse themselves from their own center towards the universal Center as above it towards the imaginary vacuum and so by this means come to sustain the mass of the weighty elements IV. Here a grand Objection and no less Mystery offers it self viz. that it is improbable that the points of earth should be of an equal number and efficacy with the other elements which by this section are so much expanded that their magnitude is divisible into infinite points as it were in comparison to the points of earth and which in respect to the minima's of ayr and fire are but as one point to a million or more To the answering of this call to mind that the absolute form of earth is concentration through dense weight and the form of ayr and fire diffusion from the Center all these absolute forms are met and balanced thence seem to be checkt and obtused by their reciprocal relative forms Now the more these relative forms are degraded from their related form the more they acquire of their absolute forms and consequently greater and stronger motions Well then observe this great Mystery and the hitherto yet unknown Labyrinth of the greatest Philosophers The earth being degraded from her respective form through that the fire and the other elements are abstracted from her hath acquired the more of her absolute form which is to fall to her Center this then being her form no wonder if she doth come to so small a quantity The same apprehend also of water So on the other side fire and ayr being also as much advanced from their relative to their absolute forms do as much diffuse from the center as the earth and water fall to their center so that did not fire and ayr in diffusing from their center possess as great a place as earth and water in moving to the center possess a little place or the earth and water possess as little a place as the fire and ayr a great place it would be dissonant to their natures Besides the little place taken up by the earth and water is as much to them as the great place taken up by the fire and ayr their activity to the center is as much as the activity of the others to the circumference Were the earth imagined to be pure without the admixture of any of the other elements its supposed place would
for this a mans body although alive must needs be less weighty then the thick water at the bottom of the Sea I do not speak of the Seas depth near shoars but where it is of an ordinary profundity as in the Ocean Dissolve Salt into water the middle parts shall be more saltish then the superficial parts for the same reason Besides these experiments the understanding affords also an argument to demonstrate the same If the natural propension of water be concentration then the further it is remote from its center the more it must incline to it But the natural propension of water is concentration ergo II. Since then it is yielded that water is violently detained and remote from its center no wonder if it doth squeeze the extime parts of the earth whereby the earth giveth way in rotundity and is protruded either into longitude or latitude Water having formed but a small dent into the earth a greater quantity of water must needs depress thither and so through a continuated force bores a greater cavern into the earth until at last it hath perduced into her a vast grove whereinto the body of water did retire and so constituted the Ocean The earth being thus impacted by the waters must of a necessity be protruded above some part of the waters and hereby was the earth disposed to germination of plants she being now exposed to the celestial Influences and moderately irrigated and foecundated by the remaines of the water The Representation of the Chaos after its third Division IV. Through this division was the earth in part detected whereby as I said before it was rendred capable of germination or protruding plants God did also congregate the earth and separated her body from heterogeneous Elements yet not so but that there remained still some small part of them These heterogeneous Elements as I may call them for doctrines sake were coagulated into small bodies of divers figures These bodies were of a different size and proportion according to Gods intent and purpose for to effect various and divers kinds of mixt bodies The different proportion was that in some there was a greater quantity of fire in others of ayr c. The coagulation of these small bodies was a close and near compaction of the elements within one small compass Through this compaction each element was pinched in as it were which caused the same violent detention of each as you have read to be in water necessarily augmenting the force and activity of each element in fire it effected a heat which is nothing else but a greater and condensed motion of the fire look below in the Chapt. of 2d Qualit in ayr it agitated a thin swelling or bubling which proceeds from a coarctation of the ayr whereby it is constipated in its motion towards the circumference by water moving to the center Water again is incitated to a stronger motion through the detention of ayr swelling up against its compression The earth is no less compelled to require her natural place the Center then she is opposed by the fire Were all these violent motions as it were equal in their elements being formed also in one figure they might continue so for ever like as if they were all surprized by a Catoche but being coagulated in an unequal proportion and unlike figure they break through one another in some progress of time and being confused in various figures they effect also protrusions of no less variety in figures Observe that in these commistions the elements are confused in a contrary manner then they are placed without in their entire bodies For here the fire against its nature as it were is constituted in the center next the ayr then earth and water is outermost There the earth is the center next to it is water c. Herein appeares the wisdom and providence of Nature which although casting the Elements into a fight yet directs terminates them into a most perfect friendship These coagulated bodies are called seeds which are multiplied according to the number of the kinds thence budding Seeds understand in a large sense as they denominate the Rudiments and first beginnings of all mixt bodies Otherwise Seeds are strictly attributed to living Creatures alone as to Plants and Animals Although Hearbs and Plants are alone nominated by Moses to be produced through this Division yet the seeds of Minerals and of their recrements as they erroneously term them and of Stones were also implied since their Creation is no where else mentioned CHAP. XIII Of the Fourth Fifth Sixth and Seventh Division of the Chaos 1. An Enarration of the Effects of the fourth Division That Nature created the first bodies of every Species the greatest is instanced in Bees Fishes and Fowl That all Species are derived from one individuum That Adam was the greatest man that ever was since the Creation What those Giants were which the Poets faigned 2. How the Sun and Moon were created That a Lioness is not more vigorous then a Lion 3. How the Stars of the Firmament were created 4. How the durable Clouds of the Ayr were created 5. The Effects of the fifth Division 6. The Effects of the sixth Division 7. The Effects of the last Division AS there was a coagulation of the waters and earth so God did in the same manner through the fourth Division coagulate and further purifie the Elements of fire and ayr This coagulation was of the heterogeneous Elements namely of part of the adjoyned 16 parts of the peregrine Elements These being congregated did condense and unite a great portion of fire which condensation through a mixture of ayr water and earth constituted it into a flame Earth giveth a body to fire and staies its light parts ayr and water keep in the flame Look below where I have particularly illustrated the generation of a flame 1. These coagulations consisted of parts differing variously in quantity some greater others less Nature did also observe a most exact order among them to wit she first coagulated one greatest body afterwards some greater bodies lastly many little ones I prove this In all kinds there is one greatest because there is the least for where there is a least there must necessarily be a greatest Among Bees there is one which is the greatest and therefore he is the Leader and King of all the rest Among Fowl we see the same namely that there is one greatest in each kind of them which all the rest follow and fly about In a multitude of Fishes they all swim after and about one which is the greatest among them c 2. The greatest of all kinds were created at the beginning of the world because that being the Superlative degree and therefore excelling the others must have been created immediately by God he creating immediately nothing but what is the most excellent Since that all beings have their rise and origine from one it is necessary that this one should be the greatest That all
beings derive their rise and original from one is evident in that all beings arised from the Chaos 2. In their several kinds as in man all men took their Original from one first man Adam God proposes among the perfectest living creatures a pattern of all the rest which is man Now he being multiplied through one although not from one man it is not improbable that all other Species of living creatures multiplied through one 3. We read in the first Chap. That God did first create the moving Creatures that is one of every kind for otherwise Moses would have written that God immediately and primarily had created two of every kind In v. 20. Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures and fowles In v. 21. He plainly expresseth that God created every living creature that moveth that is one of every kind as I said before And in the 24th Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind not living creatures after their kind And in the 29 v. Every Herb bearing Seed not Herbs So that this is not to be doubted of You may object that in the 24th v. It is said that God created great Whales ergo more then one I deny the Consequence for Whales here denotes the plurality of Species of great Fishes to wit Porposes Dolphins Whales strictly so named c. not the plurality of Individua in every kind 4. Nature is uniform and not various in acting ergo since she created the first man single and out of him a woman it is apparent that she observed the same order and manner of creating every other perfect moving creature You may object that according to the Antecedence which I offer as a Maxime man should be created in the same manner as Beasts I Answer If you consider him only as a moving Creature having a sensitive soul he was but if as he is man that is Mens sivo Substantia spiritualis rationalis in corpus hominis vivens sensitivum a Natura infusa a Mind or a spiritual rational substance infused by God into a living and moving body then no doubt but the action is various since it is in diversa actionis specie 5. God acteth by the fewest Meanes but one is fewer or less then more ergo If then all beings are multiplied through one then this one must necessarily be the greatest I prove the Consequence You are to apprehend that man as he is an Animal is propagated in the same manner as other Animals Being then propagated through one that one must have been indued with the greatest and strongest vertue of propagation because that wasting and weakning in progress of time could not be sufficient to last out a whole race this greatest vertue must be assixed to a proportionate subject or body which must then be the greatest body for the greatest vertue cannot be contained in a less subject then the greatest body this is evident in a great flame which must be maintained in a great place 2. We may remember out of History that the nearer men lived to the first man the greater and stronger bodies they had the longer they lived the more numerous issue they had and the more generous and the less exercised in wickedness all which proceeded from a stronger vertue and a greater body If so then it is not improbale that the first man and all the first of other kinds of Animals were the greatest for the same reason Besides we read in Joshua 14. 15. That Arba in some Bibles written Adam was the greatest among the Anakims Which most Interpreters judge to be spoken of the first man Adam But possibly you may reply that if Adam was the greatest man he must have been thought to be a Giant but a Giant is monstrous wherefore Adam was not the greatest man I deny the Minor for monstrous is that which doth degenerate from the Species so that it makes a difference between that which is adjudged to be a Monster and the Species as the abundance or defect of parts or a deformation in some or all parts through which its Subject is rendered different from the Species to which it was intended but a great greater or greatest man is no more a Monster then a little less or least man because there is no difference between either in number form or figure of parts 'T is true Giants have been generally received for Monsters but then they were differing from other men in number and figure of parts as the Cyclopes a great sort of people faigned by the Poets to have had but one eye in the midst of their Forehead and to be Vulcans Journeymen employed in making weapons for Jupiter Grandeur of body if actuated by sufficiency of vigorous spirits is a perfection denoting strength of all the animal and vegetative faculties fitted for long life and propagation which therefore must not be detracted from the first of all kinds II. Hence I may then safely infer that in the Firmament the greatest part of the heterogeneous elements and a great proportion of fire were coagulated into the greatest flame which was the Sun Out of the courser part of the Sun God created another great body next to the greatest the greatest which was the Moon For as Earth Waters and Animals were defaecated by having other bodies formed out of their courser matter so it was also in the Element of fire This is most obvious in Animals whose Female was formed out of the courser part of the Male whereby it becometh more excellent and vigorous in all its actions This may be contradicted in that a Lioness is taken to be more vigorous and fierce then a Lion I Answer that this kind of sierceness and apparent vigour is in all Females but it is not lasting more a spurt and shew of vigour and fierceness then real and durable III. These two great flames did by their hourly motion produce other great ones which again propagated as it were lesser and thence little ones which were those by us now called Stars But of these more particularly hereafter IV. In the Ayr the like coagulation formed the thin Clouds consisting of a great part of Ayr incrassated through a smaller quantity of water and punctually divided by the same proportion of fire balanced and incorporated with the least measure of earth These Cloudes have their continual abode in the ayr seldom vanishing Their Colour is blewish arising from its incrassation through water and incorporation with earth for the ayr of it self is so thin that it is insufficient to unite a light or cause reflection but being reduced to a thicker consistence by the co-expansion of water with it it becomes capable of uniting reflecting and propagating a light now were there no Particle of earth affixt to this mixture the colour would be transparent lucid or Chrystalline But being somewhat obtenebrated through the density of earth is changed into a light blew or light Sky-colour V. Thus did the great
how to try the force of fire by Scales Why fire doth not alwaies feel hot in the Ayr. 6. Plato and Scaliger their Opinion touching heat 7. The Parepatetick Description of Heat rejected How fire separateth Silver from Gold and Lead from Silver 8. What the second respective quality of Earth is What Cold is The manner of operation of Cold upon our Tact. 9. The second respective quality of Water That water cooles differently from Earth 10. Aristotle and Zabarel their wavering Opinions touching Cold. That Earth is the primum frigidum 1. THe Respective Qualities of the Elements are such as do consecute the congress of the same Elements They are called Qualities per accidens in respect they are supposed to befall them after their production in their absolute Form They are withal termed Second Qualities because they are produced by the First Qualities of the Elements in their congress II. The Second Accidental Quality emanating from fire in its concurse to mixture is Heat The manner of production of heat is accidental and violent That it is accidental is evident because fire in its own Region as the Parepateticks themselves allow is seated beyond all degrees of heat or at least doth not burn It doth not burn because it flames not for nothing doth burn unless it is exalted to a flame or contains a flame within it self A red hot Iron burneth no longer then the flame of the fire lodgeth within its pores nay it doth not so much as effect warmth unless the fire that is contained within its pores flames a little but this flame is so litâ—le that it fleeth the eye-sight If a red hot Iron burneth strongly because it containes a great flame and the same Iron burneth less and less as the fire flaming diminisheth it is a certain sign that where its flame is extinguisht its heat is vanished with it Again none ever doubted but that in a flaming Torch there is an actual burning fire Now tell me when the flame is ready to go out whither that fire goeth Your Answer must be that it is dispersed through the Ayr but then the fire being dispersed through the ayr is no more hot no not warm because it doth not flame wherefore fire naturally and per se is not hot I ask you again whether there is not fire contained in Aqua fortis You will answer me affirmatively But then doth this fire burn No it doth not so much as warm your hand through a Glass If you make the fire in the Aqua fortis flame you will find that it shall not only warm but also burn your hand Powre Aqua fortis upon any Mettal as upon the Filings of Brass contained in a precipitating Glass you will soon see it change into a flame smoak and burning heat through the Glass That it flames the light which appeares within the Glass testifieth Possibly you may object that Aqua fortis if powred upon cloath or your hand will burn and yet not flame To this I answer That Cloath through the subtility of its haires doth open the body of Aqua fortis which being opened the fire cometh forth and it withheld by a thickned ayr adhering to the Cloath which causeth a subtil flame yet seldom visible although sometimes there appeares a Glance The like is effected by powring it upon your hand and then we say it doth enflame the hand because there appeares a subtil flame Wherefore Physitians say well such a part is enflamed when it burnes because there is no burning heat without a flame Nevertheless the fire contained within a mixt body may burn and yet its heat may not be sensible but then its flame is withal imperceptible The reason is because the thickness and density of the circumjacent Elements do hinder the penetration of heat out of that body as also of its light III. It is violent by reason its production is depending upon an extrinsick and violent detention The manner of it is thus Fire being violently concentrated in a mixture striveth to pass the Pores of the earth which it doth with little difficulty but being arrived to a thick ayr the fire is there detained by it notwithstanding do the other parts yet remaining within the Pores of the earth continually and successively follow one another and being all united and condensed which is violent to the fire they make a greater force for strength united is made stronger whereby they dilate and expand the incrassated Ayr this Dilatation and expansion of the Ayr by fire condensed within its belly or bladder is that which we call a Flame Now how fire begetteth heat and becometh burning I shall instantly explain First let me tell you what heat is You know that we name all things according to their natures which they manifest to us in affecting our senses So we call that a Sound which affecteth our Eares and according as it doth divide our auditory spirits and nerves we nominate it harsh or shrill c. Even so we name a thing hot when it doth in a certain manner divide our tangent spirits and Membrane or shorter we say a thing is hot when it feeles hot When our spirits are a little shaked or moved by small and loose Particles of flames then it seemes to be warm but when our tangent parts are divided by dense and forcible Particles of fire then we say it burns so that it is only a division of our tangent parts by the dividing and penetrating parts of fire which we call burning This division is different from a cut or incision which is made by a dense acute body and therefore it separates the whole part but through the acuteness of fire its ayry and waterish parts only are divided contiguously because the fire is contiguous Now the more the parts of fire are condensed the stronger it penetrates divides and consumes The reason why burning fire doth consume or dissolve a body into ashes is because it breakes through the ayry and waterish parts by its great force of contiguous lightness which parts being discontinued and expelled the earth is left alone because the ayry and waterish parts were the glâ—w of that body Fire doth only break through the ayry and waterish parts because they only do resist as it were the fire as for the earthy minims they do not so much resist the fire because being contiguous they give way to its passing IV. Secondly That heat is nothing else but a multiplication condensation detention of igneous parts I prove also hence Hold your hand at a certain distance to a fire at the first application of your hand you will feel no heat or warmth but having held it there a little while you shall begin to feel warmth and continuing your hand somewhat longer at the same distance you will feel heat the reason is because at your first application the fire not yet being sufficiently detained or condensed by your hand you felt no warmth but after a certain condensation
and gathering of the hot parts of the fire it begins to move and stir the ayry parts contained within the pores of your hand and after a further condensation it makes force and penetrates through the ayry parts of the hand Hence when you feel a pricking pain then you cry it burnes this pricking is nothing else but the passing of the fire through the ayry parts and dividing it in Points and Pricks The reason why it doth force so through your hand is because the ayry parts of it doth condense the parts of the fire So that according to the multiplication condensation and detention of the fire warmth becometh hot hot scorching hot scorching hot blistering hot blistering hot burning and burning hot becometh lastly to be consuming hot and these are all the degrees of condensation of fire V. I shall not think my labour lost if I propose a way whereby to balance and know the force of fire and to distinguish exactly what fire giveth the greatest heat In my Road let me tell you that balancing is a way whereby to know and compute the force of a thing The balancing of weighty bodies as of earth earthy and waterish bodies they call weighing because it is the trying of the force of weight that is how much stronger one thing moveth to the Center then another Upon the same ground one may as justly term the balancing of light bodies as of fire and ayr lighting which is the measuring of the force of bodies from the Center * The Scales hung perpendicular over the Fire A. B The Scales inverted D Flatness upon the gibbous side of the Scale for to place the weights upon From what hath been discoursed upon a reason may be drawn why fire that is inherent in the ayr is not sensibly warm namely because it is not enough condensed through the ambient Ayr. VI. Now that you shall not conceit that what hath been proposed is altogether my own Notion I will adduce the judgment of Plato upon this Particular who although hitting right upon many things yet they were soon dasht out by the Arrogance of the Peripateticks In the first place saith he in Timaeo let us consider for what reason fire is said to be hot which we shall soon come to know if we do but observe the Division and separation made by it That it is a certain sharpness and passion is manifest almost to all we must consider the subtility of its Angles the thinness of its sides the smalness of its Particles the swiftness of its motion through all which it is forcible and penetrating and that which it doth swiftly meet it alwaies divides and dissipates considering also the generation of its figure that dividing our bodies through no other nature and dividing it in smal parts doth induce that passion which is justly called Heat Here you see Plato hath hinted right at many things appertaining to the Notion of Heat He saith heat is a passion that is as I said before that we call heat a certain sensation induced by the division of fiery minims 2. You may observe that his opinion asserts heat to be a quality migrating out of fire into the body which it heateth but that it heateth by dividing and penetrating through the diffusion of its small parts Scaliger Exerc. 12. d. 3. maintains the heat which is in red hot Copper not to be a quality raised in it by the fire but to be fire in substance contained and condensed between its Pores Arist. Lib. 2. de gener Cap. 2. describes heat to be that which congregates such bodies as are of one Genus For saith he to segregate which is that which they say fire doth is to congregate congenited bodies and such as are of the same Genus for it is accidental that it removes strange bodies His Followers propose the same in other words viz. Heat is a quality through which homgeneous bodies are congregated and heterogeneous disgregated I object against this that fire is hot but fire doth through liquation mix Brass and Silver together Grease and Oyl Wine and Water c. But these are not bodies of one nature Wherefore fire doth not alwaies disgregate heterogeneous bodies 2. The heat of a Potters Oven congregateth Ayr Water and Earth together but Ayr Water and Earth are heterogeneous Bodies Ergo. 3. If heat congregates homogeneous Bodies then the hotter a thing is the more it must congregate homogeneous Bodies but the Consequence is false and therefore the Antecedence is false also The falsity of the Consequence appeares hence that if the body of man be hotter then its temperamentum ad justitiam requires then it gathers and breeds heterogeneous humors in the Bloud as Choler and adust Melancholy 4. The heat of the Sun raises mud and other heterogeneous bodies in the bottom of waters and causeth them to congregate and unite with the body of the same waters 5. Some of his Sectators demonstrate the reality of this effect of fire in that it congregates Gold through liquation and so separates Silver and other Metals from it To this I answer that the same heat having exactly mixed them before can as well if intended re-unite them again as it hath separated them Neither is this separation any other but per accidens although the union is per se. I prove it It is true at the first melting there is a kind of Separation of Silver from Gold and of Lead from Silver but this befalleth accidentally only for the Silver is separated from Gold and Silver from Lead because Silver being melted before Gold and Lead before Silver and the Gold remaining as yet unmelted and silver also after the Liquation of Lead they must of necessity sink down through the first melted parts of Silver and Lead as being yet unmelted for Silver which is contained within the body of Gold will be melted and attenuated within its body before the Gold it self is scarce mollified whose parts being now mollified through their dense weight squeeze the Silver out of their Pores Wherefore this separation is effected by the fire per accidens but augment your heat to such a degree as to melt your Gold then cast some more Silver to it and see whether they will not mix I believe you will find it so Lastly This is not a Description of heat but the mentioning of one of its Effects for heat formally is another thing VII The Second quality per Accidens of earth is a punctual violent compression to the Center As the earth doth meet the fire in its first quality so it doth also in its second Earth when it is violently detained from its Center it doth punctually compress that body which doth detain it towards its Center If you take up a handful of Sand from the ground doth it not compress your hand downwards Likewise the pressing downwards in all bodies proceeds from the detention of earth in their bodies Observe cast earth upon earth and it will hardly
man The great errour committed in trying of Witches by casting them into the water 3. That a greater Condensation or Rarefaction is impossible in the Earth 4. In what sense the Author understands and intends Rarefaction and Condensation throughout his Philosophy 5. The third Respective quality of Fire What Driness is The Definition of Moysture The third respective qualities of Water and Ayr. Aristotles Description of Moysture rejected That water is the primum humidum In what sense Ayr is termed dry in what moyst 1. THe Second Respective quality of Ayr is a continuous expression towards the Circumference as we see in water viz. in bubbles within whose body ayr being contained doth express the water to the Circumference When water is thus expressed to the Circumference we say then it is water attenuated or rarefied and when ayr is contained within the body of water so as it is not strong enough to come forth we say it is ayr incrassated but these are no real transmutations For can any body imagine that ayr is really and essentially incrassated or condensed as they call it or that water is attenuated or essentially changed into a thin substance by ayr I prove that a real incrassation of the ayr is impossible Peripatecicks generally conceive the incrassation of the ayr to happen when that ayr having thinly or naturally filled up a cavity there is as much more impacted in that cavity upon the preceding ayr as the cavity contained before Through this impaction the former ayr must needs give way into it self for to admit that ayr which is last entred wherefore say they there must be a penetration of bodies whereby that former ayr doth introcede into it self The ayr then thus introceding into it self is called ayr incrassated Water is attenuated when a Pint of water is diducted to a Pint and a quarter or more without being insufflated by the ayr or any other admitted body So rarefaction of earth is when the earth possessing the space of a Pistol Bullet is diducted to the extent of space of a Musket Bullet without the admission of any other Element Fire is supposed to be condensed in the same manner as Ayr is incrassated This is the true and evident state of the Controversie touching Rarefaction and Condensation Attenuation Incrassation which never any among the Peripateticks did yet truly state They supposing and taking it for granted that such a Condensation Rarefaction Artenuation and Incrassation is possible and hapneth every moment do proceed in debating whether a penetration of bodies be not necessary in Rarefaction and Condensation As for insufflation that is not to be called in question because we stated Incrassation and Rarefaction to happen without the admittance of any other body Wherefore proving such an Incrassation and Attenuation to be impossible and absurd their further surmising of penetration will seem ridiculous Supposing that a Glass were filled with pure water all the Arts of the world could not distend it without the admission of another body through the force of which its parts might be divided and lifted up Since then that water is said to be attenuated because its parts are lifted up diducted through Ayr and Fire retained with their body this cannot be a natural and proper attenuation of the real parts of water but only a violent diduction of water through the ayr which is under it Here may be objected That water when it is thus lifted up and expanded is stretcht and through that stretching its parts are attenuated and its quantity is increased because after the retching it possesseth a larger place To this I Answer that the encrease of quantity about the Surface is not through a single extent of water without access of other parts of water to it but the encrease is from the access of those parts which did possess the Center and now are beaten away and impelled to the Surface where arriving they must be extended in greater quantity and possess a larger place So that what is encreased in the Surface is decreased from the Center and its adjacent parts A Chord of an Instrument is producted in length because it is diminished in thickness and not from a meer quality without the Access of other parts 2. Were the natural thickness of water transmutable into thinness then one extream contrary would be transmutable into the other for thinness and thickness are as much contrary as coldness and heat or dryness and moysture and who ever knew the same coldness changed into heat or the same heat into coldness That would be as if one said one and the same was both cold and hot at the same time I guess your Reply to wit that through Thinness is not meant an extream Thinness but a less Thickness only I answer That if a thick Element is transmutable into a less thick then certainly through the continuance and intention of the cause of that less thickning it might become least thick that is most thin wherefore your Reply is invalid 3. Were thickness transmutable into thinness then every rarefaction would be a creation secundi modi or a new generation because such a transmutation is a non esse vel a nihilo sui ad esse aliquid for thickness is a positive if I may be suffered to term it so privation and negation of thinness because when we affirm a thing to be thick it is the same as if we said it is not thin 4. Thickness is a property quarti modi of water but a proprium quarti modi is inseparable from its Subject and that to remain in being II. The same Arguments prove the impossibility of incrassating Ayr and such a supposition is so far absurd that it is impossible and contradictory to Nature that one Minimum more of Ayr should enter into a Cavity already filled up with it and the ayr would sooner break the world then admit incrassation although but in one Minimum If the nature of ayr is to be thin then in taking away tenuity you take away the nature of Ayr. And if ayr could be incrassated in one minimum it might be incrassated to the thickness of water Lastly was there any such incrassation there must of necessity a penetration of bodies be allowed but a penetration is impossible ergo Incrassation also I prove that a penetration is impossible Suppose a hundred minima's of ayr were through penetration incrassated to fifty and these fifty to possess but half the place which the hundred did fill up I conclude then that through continuance and intention of the same incrassating cause they could be reduced to one minimum and from one minimum to the essence of a spirit or to nothing for since they through penetration have lost the space of Ninety nine unities of points through the same reason they might the easier lose the last unity and so become spirits and thence nothing if there was a penetration of bodies then the less body into which the
such a Rarefaction or greater Condensation because it consisteth as I have proved out of indivisible minima's If then we should grant a rarefaction or greater condensation we must allow the minima's of earth to be divisible for how could they either be retcht or give way into themselves else and so it would be divisible and indivisible at once which is absurd The same Argument serves against the condensation and rarefaction of fire But more of this in our Discourse de vacuo IV. Condensation Rarefaction Attenuation and Incrassation although impossible in this sense yet in another are usually received and may be allowed Condensation in a tolerable acception is when a rare body is united to a dense body and because it is then as it were made one body with the dense substance it is said to be condensed Thus when fire is united to earth it is said to be condensed but through this condensation there is nothing detracted from or added to the natural rarity of the fire 2. Condensation is also taken for the frequent and constant following of one particle of fire upon the other Now you must not conceive that the fire hereby is condensed or impacted in its rarity no but that one part pusheth the other forward and being so pusht forward one before the other they are said to be condensed that is following one another so close as that they just come to touch one another Thus we say that condensed fire warmeth or heateth the hand because many parts follow one another and so push one another forward into the substance of the hand so that condensation of fire in this sense is nothing else but an approximation of the parts of fire that were dispersed before 2. Fire burneth the hand when its parts being condensed according to both these two acceptions are received and collected following close upon one another and so do burn the hand The reason is because as the force of earth and water is intended by violent detention so is fire which being violently detained by earth and water doth move with greater force Besides through the latter of these condensations the parts of fire are more collected and united The fire is violently detained when it is detained from moving from the Center to the Circumference Besides according to these two latter acceptions you are to understand condensation above whereas I have attributed it to fire A body is said to be rarefied when it is affixed to a rare element thus they conceive earth to be rarefied when its minima's are diffused by a portion of fire A body is attenuated when it is united to a thin Element so water is attenuated when its parts are diducted through the renuity of Ayr. A body is said to be incrassated when it is adjoyned to a thick Element Thus Ayr is understood to be incrassated when it is cloathed about with water Remember that I have made use of these words in my foregoing Discourses according to the said Interpretations V. The Third Relative Qualities are such as do immediately emanate from the Second The third respective Quality of fire is Dryness A Dryness is an expulsion of Moysture which fire doth by forcing it to the Circumference and dividing ad extra its continuity Dryness in the earth is an effect of coldness through which it divides ad intra the continuity of moysture inwards and forceth it to the Center Moysture is an effect of water through which it overlaies a body with its own thick substance expanded in ayr it is a quality whereby it overlayes a body with its thin substance Aristotle in stead of describing these qualities he sets down one of their Attributes Moysture is that which is difficultly contained within its own bounds and easily within others This is openly false for the ayr is difficultly contained within the bounds of others insomuch that it striveth to break through with violence and therefore is more easily contained within its own bounds So water is easier contained within its own bounds for when it is poured upon the earth it vanisheth presently which is not a containing of it Besides granting this Attribute to them both it is only a mark of Moysture and not the Description of its formality No doubt but water is moyster then ayr because it is more apt to cleave through its thickness and adhere to a body then ayr which by reason of its tenuity is not so tenacious Wherefore it is Idleness in thâ—se who say that the ayr is moyster then water although water moistneth more because of its thickness And as concerning the primum siccum it belongeth to the earth because that obtaineth greater force in detracting waterish moysture which is the moystest That it doth so appeares hence because the waterish moysture through its weight is more obedient to the impulse of earth then of fire But if you agree to term nothing moyst but what hath a palpable Dampness and that drying which removeth the said dampness then water alone is moystning and ayr drying because ayr through its tenuity divides the crassitude of the water and so disperseth it CHAP. XVII Of Mixtion 1. What Mixtion is Three Conditions required in a Mixtion 2. Whether Mixtion and the generation of a mixt body differ really 3. Aristotles Definition of Mixtion examined Whether the Elements remain entire in mixt Bodies 4. That there is no such Intension or Remission of Qualities as the Peripateticks do apprehend The Authors sense of Remission and Intention 5. That a Mixtion is erroneously divided into a perfect and imperfect Mixtion HItherto we have sufficiently declared the absolute and respective Qualities of the Elements That which I must next apply my self unto is to enarrate the qualities befalling them joyntly in their union one with the other I. Their union is called Mixtion which is an union of the Elements in Minima's or Points Observe that mixtion sometimes is taken for the union of parts not in points but particles and is termed Union by Apposition as when you mixe Barly and Oates together into one heap Anaxagoras and many of the ancient Philosophers did opiniate that Mixtion consisted only in the apposition of little parts to one body but Aristotle hath justly reprehended them for this Assertion and confuted their Opinion Lib. 2. de Gen. Corrup Cap. 10. Properly Mixtion is effected through an exact confusion of parts and their union in Minima's or the least particles the exactness consisteth in this that there must be an equal measure sive ad pondus sive ad justitiam of parts Parts are either little or great The great are constituted out of little and the little out of the least In mixture to wit an equal one are generally three condititions required 1. A mutual contact without which there must be a vacuum in misto a mixt body 2. This mutual contact must be in points whereby every point of an Element toucheth the minimum of another hence they say well mixtio fit
a man to be of a cholerick or Melancholy temperament because the heat or coldness which Choler and Melancholy do produce is unequally mixt with out temperatures and therefore do not constitute a temperament but an intemperies wherefore it is more proper to state a man to be of a hot cold moist and dry temperament or to deduct temperatures from the Elements and denominate them according to their exuperancies fiery waterish c. It is very proper to state the temperament of Ayr to be moist and hot or cold and moist c. because its various situation disposes it to mixtion with fire and water for a moist and hot temperament or cold and moist if with more water and earth then fire c. But Aristotle spoke very improperly when he said that the ayr was of a moist and hot temperature when he supposed the ayr to be simple and unmixt Now if it was unmixt how could it be said to be tempered for according to his own words temperamentum est plurium a temperament consists of more then one The Division of temperaments is manifold 1. There is a single temperament wherein one Element redounds above the others and thence according to its eminence is called fiery waterish ayry or earthy light with contiguity light with continuity heavy with contiguity or heavy with continuity rare dense thin or thick hard soft c. 2. A compounded temperament when two Elements are eminent above the others in a temperament as fiery and waterish fiery and ayry fiery and earthy earthy and waterish earthy and ayry ayry and waterish 3. When three exceed the restant one According to which a Subject is said to be waterish fiery and earthy earthy ayry and waterish fiery ayry and waterish fiery ayry and earthy In the same manner can a substance be named rare and dense rare and thin rare and thick thick and thin c. The number of Distempers are agreeable to the number of Temperatures which since they have been already enumerated I shall not trouble you with the rehearsal of them The Temperatures and Distemperaments of the parts of mans body are much different to what Authors have described them but their particular relation appertaining to another Treatise◠I do wittingly omit their Insertion in this place A Temperament is further divisible into an universal and particular temperament An universal temperament is effected by the conforming of all the parts of an heterogeneous body into one temperament A particular temperament is the temperament of every particular part in a heterogeneous body so a Bone is of a temperament differing from a Ligament a Ligament from a Membrane c. But a Bone and a Ligament agree also in an universal temperament viz. of the whole body A temperament is considered either absolutely in it self or comparatively with another as one Species with another according to which the Species of man is most exactly tempered as Galen hath it Lib. de opt corp constit above all other Species This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of man is the Rule whereby to measure the vertues of Medicaments which if they do neither cool or heat moisten or dry they are accounted to be temperate or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if they alter it either in heat coldness c. they are taken to be of a hot cold c. temperament or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. One Individual may be compared with another in temperature whereby one man is said to be more or less temperate hotter or colder then another 3. An individual is compared to it self and so a man is said to be more temperate in one age time of year Climate c. then in another 4. When one part is compared to another one is adjudged to be more temperate hotter moyster c. then another So Galen Lib. 1. de Temper towards the end states the skin of a mans hand to be of an exquisite middle temperament between all sensible bodies and the most temperate of all the parts of man Authors propose another Division of Temperament into actual and potential but since I have declared my Opinion in the Dispute of Powers I shall pass it by VI. It will not be useless to adumbrate the Combination of the Second Qualities one with the other and delineate their Effects Heat is either thin or dense A thin heat doth attenuate and mollifie for molliaction is an action proceeding from a subtil attenuating heat through which it attenuates the thick Moysture and elevates the body of earth and water whereby it is disposed to softness Hence it is that the inward Crums of hard stale Bread are softned by loosening its moysture and admitting the ayry fire A dense heat is drying and burning A thick heat is obtuse not penetrating but dampish like unto the heat of damp Hay Cold and thin is neither a powerful or piercing cold but gentle and meek like unto the cool quality of a Summers Brize Cold and dense is a piercing and potent cold striking through the central parts of a body A thick and dense cold is condensing congealing and coagulating A dense thin Moysture doth moysten very much because it penetrates through the pores of a body and lodgeth it self there whereas a single moysture is too thick to moysten or to penetrate A rare Moysture moystens less by far and is soon expelled A thin Moysture moystens somewhat more then a rare moysture But both do mollifie CHAP. XX. Of Alteration Coction Decoction Generation Putrefaction and Corruption 1. What Coction and Putrefaction is The Difference between Putrefaction and Corruption 2. The Authors Definition of Alteration The effects of Alteration 3. The Division of Alteration 4. That the first Qualities of the Peripateticks are not intended by the acquisition of new Qualities without Matter Wherein Alteration differs from Mixtion or Temperament 5. The Definition of Coction Why a man was changed much more in his Youth then when come to Maturity 6. The Constitution of women Which are the best and worst Constitutions in men That heat is not the sole cause of Coction 7. The kinds of Coction What Maturation Elixation and Assation are 8. What Decoction is and the manner of it 9. The Definition of Putrefaction 10. What Generation imports in a large and strict acception Whether the Seed of a Plant or Animal is essentially distinguisht from a young Plant or new born Animal That heat is not the sole Efficient in Generation 11. Whether the innate heat is not indued with a power of converting adventitious heat into its own Nature Whether the innate heat be Celestial or Elementary 12. The Definition of Corruption Why the innate heat becomes oft more vigorous after violent Feavers Whether Life may be prolonged to an eval duration What the Catochization of a Flame is By what means many pretend to prolong Life That the Production of Life to an eval Duration is impossible Whether our Dayes be determined The Ambiguity of Corruption Whether Corruption
fire again moving to the earth and the ayr to the water at last they become altogether entirely altered embracing one another which constitutes a temperament ad justitiam They being all thus reduced to a temperament the alteration is much abated but still continues although in a very small and insensible manner which causes a stability for a while in the body so temperated the reason of that great abatement of alteration is because the Elements being now dispersed and divided into small parts retain a less force and exercise a less opposition one against another and therefore the temperament becomes stable Observe then that Coction is swift because of the greatness of alteration 2. The temperament ad justitiam is stable and ad tempus quasi consistens 3. Putrefaction is the swiftest because its alteration is the swiftest as you shall read by and by Hence you may easily collect the reason why a man in his youth alters or changes so much and at his adult years is seated in a consistent temperament and changes not for a long while whereas a youth we see changes every day or at least it is observable every Moneth for stay away from a known youth but a Moneth and when you see him again you will mark that he is altered This every Mother can spy out after she hath been gone forth from her Child but an hour or two and at her return cry out Oh how is my Child altered The reason is because the calidum innatum is copiously shut up within the central particles of each part and therefore moves strongly by Alteration Hence Authors conclude Infants to be perfused with a more copious calidum innatum then when they come to be grown up in years The force of this â—â—Nrâ—â— promogenious heat is such that it altereth Children almost every moment Hence we may know why every external alteration of Diet Weather or Climate doth so easily injure them because besides that they are much altered internally wherefore the least alteration from without if durable soon disperseth and inflames their heat and proves a frequent cause of so numerous deaths of Children whereas men and women their heat being now consistent and making but small force their flesh closer c. are not so much subjected to Diseases and such sudden deaths VI. Women die faster that is thicker then men and are more disposed to sickness then they because their innate heat and ayr do effect greater alterations upon their bodies as having but little earth or compressing density in comparison to men to resist the light Elements and moderate their irruptions and therefore women seldom reach to any equal or consistent temperature but are alwaies in changing which in them after 18 20 or 24 years expiration is particularly called breaking because then they alter so fast that they swiftly put a period to their dayes and that because their bodies being lax and porous their innate heat shoots through in particles and now in minima's without which there can be no durable temperature Were their bodies heavier and denser the minima's of earth would divide their heat into minima's and reduce it to a temperature If then their innate heat doth constantly cohere in particles and is never dirempted into minima's it retaining in that case stronger force then otherwise it could do in minima's it alterates their bodies continually and so they never attain to any consistency of age Many sexagenarian Widowers or men of threescore years of age do alter less and flower then most women do from their five and thirtieth year wherefore they do rather cover a wife of twenty because she will just last as long in her Prime or will be as fast in breaking altering and changing her temperament form and shape in one year as the old man shall alter or change in three or four years and so they grow deformed in an equal time Wherefore a mans consistent age may last out the beauties of two or three women one after the other and because of this some in their mirth have proclaimed a woman after her 35th year to be fitter for an Hospital then to continue a Wife No wonder if a Woman be more fierce furious and of a more rash swift Judgment then a man for their spirits and heat moving in great troops and confluences of Particles must needs move swift which swiftness of motion is the cause of their sudden rages nimble tongues and rash wits To the contrary a mans heat being tempered to minima's moves more flow therefore is less passionate and of a surer Judgment A Cholerick man with a soft and glabrous skin is likest to a woman in temperament and is undoubtedly tied to all manner of Passion as Fear Love Anger to Rashness of Opinion forgetfulness hazarding and foolish venturing and at other times because of his Fear is as obstinate and refractory in hazarding He is perfectly unfortunate of a short life and disposed to continual alterations fitter for nothing then to fill up a Church yard in a short space of time A man of a cholerick and melancholy temperature with a soft skin and somewhat rough is likewise of a short life but somewhat longer in his course then the former His Fancy is contrived for plotting of base and inhumane designes his Opinion is atheistical his heart full of cheating and murderous thoughts he is merciless and cruel to all his nearest relations are as great a prey to him as strangers Among men of this Temperature is a twofold difference the one is more cholerick then melancholy the other more melancholy then cholerick The colour of the first is yellowish of the last swarty The former exceeds the latter by far in conditions and is correctible but with great pains and notwithstanding is of a detestable nature but as for the latter his pravity is abominable only fit to make a Hangman or else is most likely to come to the Gallowes himself The best temperature of all is a sanguine tempered with melancholy this portends all honesty modesty faithfulness pleasingness of humour long life great fortunes pregnancy of wit ingenuity a rare fancy for new Inventions tenacity of Memory a sifting Judgment profoundness of Meditations couragious and generous in fine fit for all things Wherefore it was a true Saying of Arist. that none could be wise unless he was somewhat melancholy A pure sanguine temperature is of all humours the most pleasing lovely perfectly innocent of a long life and very fortunate I could set down here demonstrable and certain Rules whereby to know infallibly the particular Inclinations Passions and Faculties of every person but apprehending that the Art might be abused by the Vulgar and that the knowledge of it might prove as prejudicial to some as profitable to others I judge it more convenient to preserve its rarity and admirableness by secrecy Authors do successively attribute the causality of Coction to heat alone but how erroneously you may now easily judge since that I
dense body wherefore it is ridiculous to opinionate that lumen of the Stars otherwise termed their Influences should be the causes of so great effects upon great bodies as are adscribed to them VI. Colours are generally divided by the Peripateticks into two sorts viz. into true and apparent True Colours are such as do really inhere in their subjects in the same manner as they are represented to the eye Apparent ones are those which are not really inherent in their subjects in the same manner as they seem to be to our sight such are the colours of a Rainbow or of a Peacocks feathers or of the Sea-water because these according to the several distances and position of the eye seem divers The cause they impute to the light Lumen which according to its various aspects renders the said colours various the errour of this Doctrine will appear from these Conclusions 1. All Apparent colours are real and true colours as for their being real colours but few do doubt of it because they do really move the sight That they are true colours I prove hence That which is a real colour must be a true colour because a being and true are convertible ens vernm convertuntur wherefore if it be a colour it must be a true colour or else none for it doth as really and truly move the sight as that which is strictly called a true colour or how should we see it else To this you reply that you do not deny it to be true a colour in one sense namely metaphysically but in another and in respect to a true colour strictly so called it is not true I answer That all the difference I find between them is that the one is more durable or less changeable than the other which doth not make the one more or less true than the other for did an apparent colour move the sight otherwaies than it doth it would be no true colour but it moves the senses as it is and to most mens sight it is the same continuing its duration For when we see a Rainbow its colours do appear the same to all standing in the same place but were they not true they would appear in one shape to one and in another to another As for their different appearances and shapes at several distances and positions is as well incident to those which they call true colours as to apparent ones For a Picture where the colours are all real and true will vary at several distances and positions You will say That a Picture will not vary in colour if you look upon it from the right opposite place where the light is cast in a due proportion I answer Neither will that which you call the apparent colour of a Picture vary keeping the same place and distance And what difference can you then make between them The only difference between them is their more or less durability and changeableness which proceeds from its greater or less compactness of mixture The colour of a Rainbow is as true a colour at that position and distance as of any other object it differing alone in durability for suppose a colour to be altered by a reduplication or over-casting of another colour in substance but the same in appearance as for instance a painted face having its natural colour hid under a painted colour certainly you will say that the latter is only an apparent colour if so wherein is the latter different from the former being a true colour as you call it but in durability To wit the paint wears off and the other abides The same is observable in the clouds whose lasting colour is blewish their fading or painted colours are the rayes of the Sun incorporated with their bodies really and truly altering their lasting colours nevertheless this latter is as true a colour as the paint was upon a painted visage VII The differences and number of colours are various and many for every temperament hath a several colour attending it But as it was not every insensible alteration of temperament that constituted a new temperature saving that alone which is sensible so neither doth every insensible alteration of colour constitute a new colour but only such a one as is sensible Colours are either durable and less mixt mixti è paucioribus non vero minus mixti or changeable and more mixt that is with extrinsick heterogeneous bodies So that a durable colour arises from a compact temperament of the Elements included by extrinsick bodies the other depends upon a less compact union of the Elements Changeable colours are various also according to the lights reflection or refraction and its various incidencies upon objects which causeth them to appear either whiter or blacker or otherwise lighter or darker A changeable colour is sometimes accidental to a persistent colour as appears by the fore-mentioned instance of a painted face Colours are extreme or intermediate Extreme ones are such as cannot be intended or heightned in their action as black I mean that which is blackest cannot be heightned that is it cannot be supposed to pinch and drown the light more than it doth These extreme colours depend upon the extreme or greatest proportion of the superating Element in reference to the whole So that in case fire is the greatest predominant its body is white if the earth its subject is black According to this supposition there are four extreme colours because there are four extreme proportions of the Elements Which are these White Black Crystalline and Pellucid This is made known to us 1. In that Sea-coal consisting of most earth is black 2. A Flame consisting of most fire is white to wit the Sun 3. The Ayr consisting most of ayry parts is Pellucid 4. Ice consisting most of waterish parts is crystalline I will further prove this by reason If blackness be proper to earth and earthy bodies whiteness must be proper to fire and fiery bodies they being opposite correspondents to one another in all qualities The colour which is in water and waterish bodies is neither white or black ergo it must be an extreme colour of it self for since that each Element obtains distinct extreme qualities the same must also be in colours Who would say that water is white or black or partakes of any white or black from fire or earth wherefore Theophrastus was to be blamed for adscribing yellow to fire and white to the three others That which moved him to appropriate yellow to focal fire was because for the most part in flaming or burning it seems yellow and reddish To this I answer That the colour of focal fire is not an extreme colour because fire is not inherent in focal fire in its greatest proportion and predominance it having much earth to obscure its extream whiteness and so it is turned to a yellow or red but where fire is in his greatest predominance and least counterpoised by earth there it seems alwaies white as appears in the colour
of the Sun and in oyl or fat cast into focal fire burning white Here may be objected That Snow is white Ergo it should consist most of fire which it doth not I repeat my distinction of durable and changeable colours and affirm that whiteness depending upon fire is deprehended only in durable and compact permixt bodies the other inherent in changeable subjects and thin open bodies derives more from the ingredient light entring their pores where being a little pinched and collected appears white so that this may be thought to be as much the colour of the condensed light as of the body which lasteth no longer than it is condensed by condensed water and that being melted the colour vanisheth withall possibly you will turn your objection to a bone which being white doth not contain fire predominating in it I answer That a bone consists of much fire and ayr as appears in its flammability and therefore is white Lastly you may object That a Marble stone or Alabaster is white but neither are fiery I answer That both do consist of a condensed and attenuated water and not without a little rarefaction caused by the fire Suppose that Marble were only a natural water which as I have demonstrated is naturally thick and consistent like unto Ice and condensed with a little earth certainly it would be of a transparent and crystalline colour this Ice being yet more condensed by earth pinches and collects the light a little and so appears white Wherefore observe that this white is primarily an extrinsick colour depending on the incidence of light and not fundamental alone wrought by the internal temperature of the mixt body So that this objection doth conclude nothing against our Assertion mentioning intrinsick colours acting from a compact mixt body The reason why Marble and Alabaster are shining is because their body is consistent of a continuated substance to wit thick water Intermediate colours are such as arise out of the descent of the Elements from their extreams To wit thus The less there is of fire the less it is intrinsecally and fundamentally white the less there is of earth the more an object diminisheth in blackness Which degradations constitute the intermediate colours Intermediate colours are almost infinite but enumerating them according to the above-stated condition of Latitude of Colours they are vulgarly counted ten in number 1. Yellowish Subflavus 2. Yellow 3. Reddish Subruber 4. Red. 5. Greenish 6. Green 7. Blewish 8. Blew 9. Brownish 10. Brown Red is an equal mixture of Black and White and is the Center and middle of all colours being equally interjacent between the two extreams so that all colours are between Red and White and between Red and Black as appears in the subnext scheme of colours Before I proceed I will commend to you a very necessary distinction of intermediate colours which are either fundamental or extrinsick The fundamental intermediate colours are those that are constituted by the internally proportionated Elements in temperament and are compactly permisted The extrinsick colours are such as are as much imputable to the external incidence and ingredience of Light This premitted I say that a fundamental Red doth only consecute a body mixed and temperated ad pondus which was alone in the Chaos the noblest of colours befitting so noble a body Of those red colours which we now have a sanguine cometh nearest to it because it proceeds from the exactest temperature ad justitiam which is nearest to that ad pondus The change from this towards the extreams as before constitutes a different colour if to water its change is into a green as you may observe in the bloud of hydropick bodies appearing greenish if to air blewish as you see it doth in the clouds which is changed out of a Red Cloud being dispersed into a greater measure of air if to Harth Brown if to Fire Yellow which is manifest in Bloud turning to a Yellow if predominated by fire or Choller to Brown if predominated by Melancholy or Earth to Blew if attenuated or incorporated with predominant air Besides these there are many others which because approaching to some one of the forementioned I shall not think material to relate but refer you to Scaligers CCCXXVth Exerc. where you have the names of most colours set down What Splendor and the cause of it is you know already its opposite is a deadishness which as splendor is effected upon a smooth and continuated body so is this effected upon a ruggid and contiguous body Luminous and Opake are also Opposites The latter is distinguisht from black in that this is taken for a fundamental colour the other for an extrinsick privation of light VIII Reflection of light is the beating back or reaction of a splendid or thick body upon the obtended air which Reflection obtending and stretching the air yet more then it was before makes it apdear much lighter That it is made lighter is discerned by the eye which is more forcibly obtended by the reflected light which if it be much causes a dazling in the eyes and is nothing else but an over-retching of the optick air and Membranes and sometimes is so great that it presses water out of the eyes Reflection is only upon continuous bodies as Gold Silver Brass Steel Precious Stones Glass and Water c. IX Refraction of colours is a reflection seeming to be broke as when you put a Stick into the water the colour of it seems to be broke By an internal reflection its colour seems to be more augmented in quantity and extent of parts then really it is The manner of it is thus Mark that a superficial reflection doth not augment the extent of a colour which reflects the light for Gold or Crystal is not augmented in extent of colour that is seems not bigger then really it is by reflecting light superficially neither do they render a colour in the air bigger then it is 2. A double reflection is the continuation of a reflection for there is also a reflection of light within the very body of an object as you may see by a piece of Money cast into the water or big Sands lodged sometime within the center of a Diamond or Crystal causing a reflection although remote from the Surface wherefore a Colour is not well described by Arist. Lib. de Sens. Sensil to be the extremity of a terminated perspicuous body for I have told you where and how it may be visible in the intrinsick body of an Object Notwithstanding this Scaligers Objection in Exerc. 325. d. 4. against colour stated to be the extremity of an Object is invalid His Objection is because a Chesnut is coloured in the middle as well as in its extremity ergo saith he Colour is not the extremity But how did he know a Chesnut to be coloured in the middle Questionless by seeing it cut through if so then that middle cut through is now come to be the extremity so there
ordinary doubt moved by the Peripateticks Through what medium a sound is deferred to the hearing Their solution is that a sound is really deferred through the air as through a medium but intentionally through the water This seems to partake of no small absurdity for many of them do assert that a sound is subjectively in the air if so then a sound would be said to be its own medium which is absurd for a medium is ever intended to be a different thing from that to which it is a medium Touching their Solution it is partly false in that they affirm a sound to be intentionally only deferred through the water But why more intentionally through the water then through the air I will first propose an Instance inferring water to be capable of receiving a Sound and then enquire further into the case Frogs croaking under the water make a Sound there which we hear above the water likewise we hear the Sound of a Pole hitting against a stone under water Certainly none will deny but that the Sound of these is really propagated by obtruding the air through its bursting upwards for we see the water plainly burst or pluffe upwards a little before we hear the noyse made by a Frog or Pole ergo the action of a Sound is real as well in or through the water as through the air Possibly they may grant me that the noyse made in the water is a real action but deny the noyse made in the air and propagated through the water to be real asserting it to be intentional only I prove it to be reall A great sound made in the air doth sensibly cause a streame in the water ergo its action is really continued upon the water But again a sound being made in the air its action is much obtused because of the improportion between water being very thick and air being very thin so that a great noise in the air will make but a little noise in the water and a little noise in the air will make no sensible noise in the water But were this audible quality in the water intentional then the least sound in the air would be perceptible in the water But the one is false ergo the other is false also That a great sound in the air is audible in the water yet but very obtusely is testified by duckers or divers under the water the same is seconded by Pliny in his natural history 10. b. 70. Chap. attributing hearing and tasting unto fishes and relating that fishes have been called together by a certain sound to take their food Gellius lib. 16. noct attic c. 19. doth also recite out of Herodotus that Arion being cast over-board by the Sea-men did through the harmonical sound of his Musick draw the Dolphins to him whereof one took him upon his back and carried him safe to a Harbor Supposing this to be but a story nevertheless the allusion of the famous Inventor witnesses that fishes can hear under the water IV. Certainly few will require any proof from me that a sound is a real concussion or pluffing of the ayr since there is no great sound but it shakes air houses and the earth too whereon we stand and that sometimes to a very great distance Some years past it hapned that the Magazine of Delf a Town in the Low-countries was blown up by an accidental fire sighted upon the gunpowder the great sound or Concussion of the ayr caused through this blast was extended to many miles insomuch that it was very perfectly perceived at Amsterdam The same blast forced open one of the windows of the Chamber where an Acquaintance of mine lay then at the Hague with that violence that its rebounding against the Wall broke most of the panes At Dunkirk the sound raised by blowing up of two or three barrels of Gunpowder killed a boy although at some distance from it which accident hapned because the Concussion or pluffing of the ayr was continuated with that force that it did in that manner violently concusse or rather disrupt the animal and vital spirits of the boys body which in a manner are as I said before a continuous ayr intermixt with some contiguities of fire and earth I have formerly told you That the propagation of ayr or any quality or effect inherent and impressed in and upon the ayr reaches no further than its continuity is extending and works only upon other continuous bodies The reason is because the same action is continued only upon bodies which are of the same nature and which receive that action in the same manner Wherefore ayr and water being both continuous and united in continuity do receive the effects acted upon their continuities alike and in the same manner that is to say as far as they are both continuous and the effects are acted upon their continuities in a like manner Saving that the tenuity of the one and crassitude of the other doth hinder or facilitate augment or diminish the said action thus continuated from one to the other Further as much as one is deprived from its continuity by having its body intermixt with contiguous indivisibles so much there is detracted from the intenseness of the act continuated unto it by another continuous body Thirdly as the various incidence of light doth alter the face of colours so doth the various continuation of other various bodies variously qualified in their continuity by having other contiguous bodies immixt in them alter the property of the sound continued in them Lastly since a sound is an effect impressed upon the continuity of the ayr nothing is more averse to it or drowns it sooner than a contiguous body By help of these Theorems you may now resolve the node of several difficulties touching sounds 1. Why doth earth or fire dead a sound more than water glass or paper or why is a sound propagable through water glass or paper and is quite deaded by earth in a manner that by how much earth or fire there is contained in a body by so much a sound is deaded by that body and by how much water or ayr there is contained in an intermediate body by so much a sound is propagated further The reason is because a propagated sound is nothing else but the vibration of ayr continuously continued upon a continuous body to which continuity contiguity is contrary I will explain it to you by a conquassation of water whereby it is concussed into streams these streams so concussed are propagated into other more remote streams but if you interpose a board near the centrical streams in will hinder the propagation of the same streams because it doth divide the continuity of water Even so it is with water glass and paper those being continuous do propagate the ayrs quality in as much as they are continuous But let us dive a little further into this and question whether the continuity of the thick waterish substance of glass and of
water be the cause of the propagation of this continuity in sounds or of the ayr admitted within the subtil invisible pores of glasse or of both I answer of both but of the one primarily and perse of the other secundarily and per accidens First I prove it is of the thick waterish parts for a great noise as perhaps of a Gun will bend the glass of a window which glass through its continuity again communicates the same impression to the adjacent ayr In little sounds the waterish part of a glass is not moved but the ayry parts contained within it which propagate the same motion into the next adjacent parts for it is improbable the motion of every small sound should move so solid a body as that of glass unless it were the ayr contained within its subtil porosities Likewise in water it self as it is now the sound which is propagated through it or from it is not alwaies the motion of water it self but of the ayr contained within the water for it is also improbable that every slight sound should be sufficient to move the weighty body of water Besides were it not through the ayr but through the water a sound could not be propagated in so short a space The reason why the sound caused by a soft percussion of the ayr upon one end of a long Beam or of a Mast is so readily heard by another applying his ear to the other end of it is because that sound is propagated by the percussed ayr slyding down along the Surface of the said Beam or Mast not because the sound is propagated through the internal continuity of the Beam or Mast for that were impossible for the sound to reach to the other end through so thick a body in so short a time or by so gentle a percussion But were the sound made by the force of a great Hammer it is not improbable but the sound would pass through the body of it The noise of a Troop of Horse marching over a plain hard sandy ground may be heard at a far distance because the sound is continuately propagated by the ayr impelled along the Surface of the earth there being no contiguous body interposed to dead its sound or interrupt its continuation for otherwise any length of grass or quantity of corn standing in the fields between the hearers and the horses would interrupt and dead the sound The same reason may be applyed to resolve one why a sound made in the ayr by one upon the water is heard from a further distance than if made upon the land because the earth being contiguous doth somewhat dead and interrupt the propagation of a sound but the water being continuous and smooth doth rather further it because it doth slide and reflect the sound from her and so makes it greater and swifter than otherwise it would be if propagated through the ayr alone Water attenuated by the ayr makes a real sound to those that are under water because it concusses the auditory ayr V. This plussing up of ayr in a sound is distinguisht from the obtension of it by light 1. In that in obtensions the ayr moves to the body obtending whereas in plussing the ayr moves from the percutient 2. A plussing is a more course action whereas the other is much more subtil for they are both motions almost of the same kind differing only in tenuity and crassitude Whence I infer That there is no other difference between the Optick and Auditory spirits or ayr than that the Optick ayr is by far subtiller the other more course both having Membranes to qualifie their Objects Hence let us examine whether it be possible for a man to see or discern a voice or sound with his eyes or to hear a colour A man who hath all his senses well qualified if he make trial of the query will bring in his verdict for the impossibility of it Wherefore let us propose the doubt in a more probable state to wit whether a man whose Optick spirits be thick and his Membranes thin and somewhat denser is capable of perceiving and discerning a voice or sound through his sight 2. Whether a man whose Auditory spirits are very thin and Membrane more thick and transparent than ordinary be capable of perceiving colours and light I affirm it and will make it appear to you by experience and reason I have oft been told that the Constable of Castile his brother could perfectly discern sounds and voices by his eyes How this came to pass I shall easily demonstrate by considering first the disposition of his ocular Membranes and Optick spirits The Membranes of his eyes were somewhat thin and course not overmuch transparent standing deep in his head Whence this hapned I do farther explain to you He was deaf in such a degree that the greatest Thunder could not be perceived by him when his Eyes were shut This deafness arose from a total coalition of his Auditory passage and want of a Tympanum The matter of this Tympanum was converted by the plastick vertue in his formation to the constitution of the membranes of his Eyes whence the said membranes appeared deadish course and skinny in short the Tympanum of his eare was in a manner transferred to his eyes His Optick spirits must then of a necessity be thicker or less thin than ordinary for to be proportionable to that membrane for all parts of the body are informated with spirits proportionable to their consistency and in effect their modus consistentiae is caused from the modus consistentiae spirituum fixorum His eyes stood deep in his head and so thereby framed a grove wherein the sound was congregated In fine his eyes were the greater half eyes and the less half eares That all this is agreeable his other acts did testifie because his sight was imperfect he could not see at a distance Objects unless they were great and lustrous could not be perfectly discerned by him on the other side his hearing through his eyes was by far more imperfect a moderate sound he did not perceive a loud sound or voice he was alone sensible of Since then he was capable of perceiving sounds through his eyes no wonder if he learned his speech from thence for speech is nothing else but an ecchoing of a voice spoken by another and perceived by spirits disposed to receive its impression by expressing the same impression again by the tongue in the same manner as it was impressed Now his speech being very imperfect and unequal did testifie that the voices perceived by his eyes were imperfect and unequal That it is possible for an Animal to see colours with its eares is evident in a Mole whose ears not being very deep but its Tympanum somewhat transparent is thereby disposed to distinguish light from darkness and one colour from another that it perceives colours and light is granted by all which it cannot do by its eyes for it hath none ergo it must
of Magnitude or sometimes of the universal Center 4. None but the whole body of the Elements do tend to or strive for the universal Center but particular or mixt bodies for their own particular Center as you may read further in the Chapter of Local Motions II. The earth is and must necessarily be the Center of the world or of all the other Elements within which it is contained like the Yolk of an Egge within the White and the Shell I prove the Proposition If the nature of Earth be to move conically from the Circumference to its own Center through a contiguous gravity and the nature of Air Fire be to be equally diffused from the center through their levity ergo the earth must needs fall to the midst of them all its parts tending circularly and conically to their Center The earth being arrived to the center it resteth quiet and unmoveable the Reason you shall know by and by Return back to the explanation of the manner of the dissolution of the Chaos which cannot but demonstrate the evidence of this Point to you Nevertheless let us consider that old Phansie of Pythagoras Plato Aristarchus Seleucus Niceta and others upon this Matter revived by Copernicus in the preceding Centenary and weigh its probability 1. He imagineth the fixed Stars and their Region to be the extremity of the world and both to be immoveable 2. That the Figure of that Region doth appear to us to be circular but for what we know our Sense may be deceived 3. That the Sun is the Center of the aspectable world being immoveable as to its ex ernal place notwithstanding since through help of the Telescopium is observed by the discerning of the motion of its Spots to change his face about although still remaining in the same external place its own Axis in 27 daies 4. Between these two immoveables the Planets are said to move and among them viz. between Mars and Venus the Earth is imagined as a Planet to move about the Sun and to absolve her Circuit in twelve Moneths 5. That the Moon is seated between the Earth and Venus and is thought to move through its own particular motion about the earth between that space which there is granted to be between her and Venus and between her and Mars Besides the Moon doth also move with the Earth as if she were her Page about the Sun absolving her course much about the same time In like manner are the four Stars first discovered through a Telescopium by Galilaeus said to follow the motion of Jupiter and to move with it about the Sun in twelve years there being besides another motion adscribed to them whereby they move about the Same Jupiter between the space which is between it and Saturn and between it and Mars the innermost whereof absolves its course about it in a day and a quarter the next in three daies and a half the third in three daies and four houres the last in sixteen daies and eight houres besides these they have found out by the help of the said Telescopium Stars which are Concomitants to each Planet 6. That the space between Saturn and the fixed stars is almost immense That the Region of the fixed stars is immoveable he takes for granted without giving any probable proof for it for which notwithstanding may be urged Omne mobile fit super immobili that all moveables do move upon an immoveable which if granted doth not inferre that therefore the Region of the fixed starres must be immoveable since he hath stated one immoveable already namely the Sunne what need is there then of more Further if we do grant two universal immoveables we must also grant two universal contrary motions whereof the one is moved upon one immoveable the other upon the second but the universal diurnal motion of the stars we see is one and the same ergo but one universal immoveable is necessary Lastly He cannot prove it by any sense only that it must be so because it agrees with his supposition and what proof is that to another The holy words in Eccles. do further disprove his position where it is said that God moved the Heavens about within the compass of his Glory His second Position denotes him no great Naturalist The third Position infers the Sun to be the immoveable Center of the world 1. This doth manifestly contradict Scripture which doth oft make mention of the Suns rising and going down And in Isaiah 38. 8. the Sun is said to have returned ten degrees back And in another place Let not the Sun move against Galbaon 2. The Sun is accounted by most and proved by us to be a fiery body or a flame and therefore is uncapable of attaining to rest in a restless Region which if it did its flame would soon diminish through the continual rushing by of the fiery Element tearing its flames into a thousand parts whose effects would certainly prove destructive to the whole Universe but especially to all living Creatures 3. Were the Sun immoveable and enjoying its rest ergo that rest must either be a violent detention or a natural rest not the first because that could not be durable or what can there be thought potent enough to detain that vast and most powerful body of the Sun for that must also be sensibly demonstrated and cleared otherwise you do nothing Neither can it be the latter for were it natural it must not only have a natural principle of rest but also be contained in a vacuum or else in a Region whose parts have likewise attained to a natural rest through the enjoying of their Center It is a property of a Center to be as a point in comparison to the Circumference but nothing can be contracted to a point but Earth and water as I have shewed above whereas according to their own confession the Sun is a vast great body and its Beams spreading and dilating ergo it must be only Earth and Water Now what sign of predominance of Earth and Water is there apparent in the Sun for were it so the Sun would shew black and give no light The Moon is liker if any to be the Center it consisting by far of more earth then the Sun as her minority in body motion and degree of brightness do testifie Lastly Is it not more probable that our sight should hallucinate or be deceived in judging the Sun not to move then in judging it to move all Astronomical Phaenomena's being so consentaneous to this latter Judgment Besides how is it possible for us to judge whether the Sun doth move or rest since that according to this supposition we are carried about with that swiftness By the same reason we may doubt of the motion of all the other Planets The fourth Position concludes a most rapid motion of the earth What principle of motion can the earth consist of Of none certainly but of fire and air which are admitted into her body in
so improportionable a measure that they cannot be thought to impel the earth to the least local motion Moreover earth is of so heavy a body that it is rendered altogether incapable of circular local motion otherwise were the Mass of earth so prone to such a swift circular motion certainly its parts as terrestrial mixt bodies would retain the same inclination to the same motion which we find to be contrary According to the Perip this supposition all light bodies ordinarily so called must be said to be heavy and all heavy bodies light for bodies by them are counted heavy which move downward that is towards the center ergo fire must be said to be heavy earth light because the one moves upwards to its supposed universal center the other from it But this is absurd Can a point move through so vast or almost immense a Region and with that velocity In all other Natural things we find that a Point of any Element hath no force or proportion to move through a span of another Element although that point be supposed to be detained violently Take a particle of Earth which is no point and let it fall out of your hand it will hardly move down to the earth or if it doth it is so slow that is hardly perceptible but much less would a point move If then the earth be but as a point to so immense a Region it cannot be supposed to move Possible you do reply that it is impelled by an extrinsick movent Suppose I granted it its motion being violent could not be durable besides the proportion of a point is insinitely too little for to receive such a most swift impulse which through its littleness it would doubtless effuge Were the Earth a Planet or Star it is supposed it should cast a light which is repugnant to its Nature through which as I have shewed before she is rendered dark and is the cause of all darkness Were this absurdity admitted all our knowledge which hitherto wise men have so laboured to accomplish would be in vain for as I said before earth and earthy bodies must be light fire and fiery bodies must be heavy and enjoy their rest water and waterish bodies must be likewise heavy the air and ayry bodies must be weighty and enjoy their rest for if the earth moves it is certainly moved through the air the which according to that supposition must be immoveable because all moveables omne mobile sit super immobili are moved upon an immoveable Subject All dark colours must be supposed light all Astronomical appearances shadows sounds tasts Sents and all mixt bodies must then be understood to be contrary to what really they are Scripture is likewise plain against it Job 26. 7. Psal. 24. 2. For he hath founded it namely the earth upon the Seas and est ablisht it upon the flouds Job 38. 6. Whereupon are the foundations there of to wit of the Earth fastened or who laid the corner stone thereof Psal. 104. 5. Who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be moved for ever What need there more words to consute so absurd an Opinion But to return to my Proposition That the Earth must necessarily be the Center of the world I proved it above where I did defer the reason of its rest to this place The earth of all the elements doth alone enjoy her rest because she alone doth possess a Center whereby she enjoyes her own natural internal motion but suppose another element to possess the place of her center the Earth to cover it immediately then doubtless the Earth would continue in external motion because its parts are violently detained from a center press upon that body which doth oppose it by keeping her out of her place until she had removed it which being removed it could not be thought to be longer in external local motion since she had recovered her natural place unless we should absurdly imagine that one part should move against the other for to gain a penetration of bodies If then N. Copern D. Origan and others who strive to maintain the threefold motion of the earth viz. of inclination and declination its dayly and yearly motion had discovered that the earth were violently detained by some other Element or body then they might have thence demonstrated a motion but then this motion could have been no other than the motion of water is about the earth whereby the earth would have moved about its detaining body which if it had it would have been immoveable nevertheless as to its external place only it would have turned about and have made several appearances of faces or spots in brief it would have had the same motion which Copernicus adscribed to the Sun Hence it is more than apparent that the earth is the Center of the world and doth enjoy her rest The reason of its rest is so demonstrative that no rational body can deny it I proceed III. The earth may commodiously be divided into three regions differing from one another in purity of body weight density c. The first Region I call the central region because it extends nearest about the Cencer It s Periphery is about 120. degrees its Diameter is 38 â— â— This Region consists of most pure earth and most freed from the peregrin Elements wherefore its weight and density is the weightiest and most dense It contains no mixt bodies within it self because it is so remote that the peregrin Elements cannot move thither besides that smallest proportion of peregrin Elements which may happily be supposed to be detained in the central region is so much depressed and firmely detained by the weight of the earth that it is impossible it should come to any head to constitute a mixt body It s colour must be conceived to be a pure fundamental black The second or the middle region contains in its circumference 240 degrees its Latitude is 191 9 degr This region is less weighty and dense than the central as being accompanied with a greater proportion of extraneous Elements It harbours some mixt bodies as imperfect stones but no Metals The reason of this assertion is drawn from the proportion of the Elements which there are not enough in quantity to constitute the body of metals or perfect stones besides we cannot imagine that the earth should contain any hollownesses in the second region which are requisite as I shall shew by and by for the generation of perfect stones and metals IV. The third region of the earth comprehends in its circuit 360 degrees in its Latitude not its compleat diameter 191 9. This last or extreme region consists of most that is more than the two former regions extraneous Elements because it is situated nearer to the proper regions of the said extraneous Elements which do violently strive to enter her body as you shall read anon whereby and through which the earth especially near to her surface is
rendred of a very unequal temperature where the extraneous Elements uniting together do raise a hollowness in the earth and infinuate into one anothers substance or body to which the coldness of the earth is very much conducing thereby gathering or coagmenting the said Elements together and impelling them into one anothers body and then closing them firmly all which it performs through its coldness Through coldness understand its compressing weighty minima's Wherefore do not still abide in your obstinate conceit that it is the Sun which is the efficient cause of Minerals and Stones For that is absurd I prove it That which is the main efficient of Stones and Metals must be a contracting condensing and indurating substance but the Sun is no contracting condensing or indurating substance Ergo the Sun cannot be the efficient of Stones and Metals The Major is undeniable I confirm the Minor by proving the contrary namely that the Sun doth mollifie because its flame is soft and all heat is soft for softning is nothing else but to dispose a body to bend easily into its self if pressed from without But earth rarefied by fire doth easily bend into it self if pressed from without Ergo The Minor is evident because whatever is throughly hot fiery is soft as we see in red-hot Iron in alive flesh and all Vegetables So that by how much the more heat a body hath by so much the softer it is provided quod caetera sint paria Further What heat is there under the Earth I confess there is more and less coldness under it but no predominating heat What heat can there be in Greenland especially under the earth and yet it is certain that many rocks and stones are generated there They may as well say that fire is the efficient cause of all those Islands of Ice Again so much as a substance consisteth of coldness and earth by so much it participates of hardness or by how much the less heat a body consisteth of so much the lesse hardnesse it partakes of The matter of a stone in the kidneys or in the bladder was sofe when it fluctuated within the vessals but being detained in the kidneys its heat is diminished either through the intense heat of the Kidneys which doth dissipate and attract the lesser heat from the matter retained in the cavity of the kidneys through which ecess of heat the terrestrial and thick waterish parts are coagulated and are closed together through the depressing coldness of the intrinsick earth and water The same matter being retained in kidneys of a cold temperament doth immediately through that degree of coldness coagulate and grow hard The stone in the bladder is generally harder than the stone in the kidneys because the one is of a far colder that is less hot temperament than the other That in the kidneys is more friable whereas the stone in the bladder is affected with a continuous firm thick waterish hardness This I can witness by a stone being taken from a Patient by section which that most learned and expert Physitian Dr. George Bate shewed me six or seven years ago This stone was perduced to that hardness that I am confident an ordinary smart stroak of a hammer could scarce break it Yet when it was within the bladder it was far distant from such a hardness for a piece of the Catheter was unawares run into the body of the stone and broke in it which was afterwards taken out with it but after it had been exposed a little while to the air it grew immediately to that hardness What could be the cause of this but the hotter parts of the stone exhaling into the air whereby the cold parts fell closer and thereby arrived to a greater hardness The errour of Fernelius is obvious in that he stated the intense heat of the kidneys to be the cause of a Lithiasis for it happens as freqently in kidneys of a cold temperament neither is it an insita renum arenosa calculosaque dispositio a parentibus contracta hereditary fixt fabulous and calculous disposition as the same Author conceives which doth consist in a degree of temperament of the solid parts of the kidneys for stones have been generated in kidneys of all kinds of temperaments neither can it be said to be hereditary for many a man hath been troubled with the stone whose Issue never was so much as disposed to it and on the other side many a man hath been miserably tormented with the stone or Duelech as Paracelsus terms it whose Parents never discerned the least symptom of a stone within their bodies Nevertheless as I said before the temperature of the kidneys adds much to the accelerating of a Lithiasis It is then certain that the greatest cause of lapidation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is internal depending upon the predominance of earth or coldness over the other Elements in a mixture The Focus or Uterus as Van Helmont terms it that is the place where a stone or gravel is generated must be a close hollow place wherefore nothing can arrive to this close hollow place unless it be liquid for a thick or course body will be intercepted before it can reach thither This liquid matter being now lodged within this cavity the hot parts do exhale because now through the hollowness of the place they have got liberty to dislate and free themselves from the heavy terrestrial and thick aqueous parts whereas before when they were kept close together through channels and lodges shutting close upon them the hot parts were firmly contained within and bound up This is necessarily and certainly demonstrative and infers that where ever close hollownesses are groved and that liquid matter containing terrestrial and aqueous parts in it may reach to them there certainly stones and metals can and may be generated By vertue of this position I shall prove and shew by and by that stones and metals may be generated in most hollow parts of the body of man But to persue my discourse The hot parts being now freed from the terrestrial parts and inhering in subtil ayry serosiries do with more ease and force procure their passage through this close and hollow prison than they made their way thither leaving the terrestrial and aqueous parts behind them for a Ransom which by degrees are coagulated more and more according to the expulsion of the fiery and ayry parts Understand also the reasons of the qualification of the Focus or womb of stones and Metals 1. It must be hollow the reason of this is set down already 2. It must be close for were it not close but open the terrestrial and aqueous matter could not be detained there but would have as free a passage as the thin parts Besides closeness conduceth to keep out extrinsick heat which otherwise would again dissolve and mollifie the work wherefore the hardest stones and metals are found some degrees below the Surface of the earth and I dare confidently assert that if metals
incrassated air Arsenick comprehends three sorts 1. Is yellow and is otherwise named Auripigmentum 2. Being red is called Sandaracha 3. Is singularly named Arsenick or crystalline Arsenick being of a whitish colour Their body is constituted out of a most dense fire united to a thick air from this extreme density of fire it happens to be of that corrosive and venomous nature that it proves an immediate poyson to man because through its intense dense heat it extracts expels and suffocates his natural heat in which respect it is but little less corruptive and hot than focal fire Of these three sorts Arsenick is counted the least caustick and malignant the next Auripigmentum Amber is known by three sorts 1. There is that which is particularly called Amber 2. Is called Succinum 3. Is whitish Amber otherwise called Sperma Ceti Whether there is any black Amber is doubted Some do affirm it as having seen it A mistake certainly either they took Jeat or some other substance made out of Musk Lign Aloes Styrax and Ladanum for it Grayish Amber otherwise called Ambergreece is thought to be the purest smoothest and of the best Sent. Succinum is of two sorts viz. white and yellow Spermaceti is by many deemed to be found supernatant atop the Sea who assert it to be rather the Seed of a Whale if so then it must have been generated in their Stomacks or Throats some having found some quantity sticking in their Throats but this doth more probably argue that it was supernatant atop the Sea and devoured by the Whale But for what I know this may be a Story nevertheless it is certain it hath been gathered in the Indian and AEthiopian Seas near to the Shore where Whales have scarcely ever appeared Neither can I imagine this to be that which ancient Physitians called the Flower of Salt there being too great a difference between their Descriptions Flower of Salt is described to be reddish and liquid and to be of a detergent Nature and saltish tast whereas the other is a white furfuraceous famess being of an emollient Nature and of a fat tast and in all particulars directly contrary Ambergreece happens to be supernatant upon the Sea and some Fountaines too from being communicated by the earth in bituminous and lixivious exbalations and exalted and purified by the motion and subliming faculty of the Sea coagulated atop through the exhaling of the hotter spirits and concreased by the ambient coldness The Succinum or common Amber wanting that exaltation and sublimation is found in Germany and Italy in Mines to be of an inferiour nature It is also gathered from the Sea The Spirits of Amber are rare and subtil consisting of a thick ayry body Naphtha and Peteroyl differ from Amber in consistency and greater quantity of fire and air these being liquid and more inflammable but in all other particulars agreeing Peteroyl and Naptha having oft been found to lodge in liquid substances within the body of common Amber Naptha is gathered in great quantity about Babylon the earth there being so tempered with the peregrine Elements that it protrudes abundance of this kind of Bitumon Peteroyl is most frequently collected flowing out of Rocks Asphaltus is a hard black and splendent Bitumen like unto shining Pitch heavy and of a strong Sent. It is gathered swimming atop of Lakes in other places it is taken out of the Earth near to its Surface The Mare mortuum in Judaea affords the best and greatest quantity This is different from the others through its containing a greater proportion of Earth and greater density of Fire As Peteroyl flowes out of the Rocks so doth Oyl of Earth out of the Earth and Hils in some parts of East-India It is of a transparent Red and a strong Sent like unto Peteroyl but more pleasing The vertues of all these Bitumens excepting Arsenick are praysed for their emollient discutient comforting the Brain the Nerves and Membranes thence healing wounds by comforting the calidum innatum of the said parts when wounded and for their anodine nature thence giving ease to the Joynts in Arthritical pains all which they perform through a Subtil and Balsamick Spirit Sea-coal is called by the Latinists Carbo Petrae and Terra Ampelitis notwithstanding the latter name denotes a thing somewhat distinct from the former in that it is more bituminous and less hard The other is nothing but Earth and Sulphur concocted and conglutinated into a stonish substance and is no where ingendred but where the Earth is hollow and foecundated with store of a sulphureous Bitumen Gagates or Jeat is a Bitumen of a more concocted body and more sulphureous The Proverb speaks it to be very black It is kindled and burnes assoon as Brimstone if toucht by fire and gives a Bituminous Scent It s vertue is the same with other Bitumens VIII Besides these there are some other mean bodies generated within the Earth which are neither Metals or Saline or unctious Juyces they are not so hard nor so much concocted as Metals neither are they so loose and rare as Saline and Unctious Bodies They are particularly these Mercury Antimony Marcasita Cobaltum Chalcitis Misy and Sory The first we have treated of above The next is Marcasita otherwise Bismuthum which is a heavy hard brittle whitish body shining within with little points of Gold and Silver It s Matter is too course to generate Gold or Silver but is as it were the Dross of them both and is separated from them as a Natural Excrement which is concocted into a Body of a courser Substance Its Spirits are more dense and Earth is more in proportion Water less This hath endued the Nature of Venom because of its dense heat You are not to conceive that this is only an Excrement of Gold and Silver but that it is also a perfect body primarily generated out of the same proportion of the Elements within a proper Matrix and therefore is to be found in Mines where there is no sign of Gold or Silver It is repercutient from its earth dissolving and detergent from its dense fire if applied externally It s water is a very potent dissolvent of Gold and Silver Cobaltum otherwise called Natural Cadmia is the courser Body or Excrement of Copper It is weighty and of a black colour It s fire is extreamly dense in such a manner that it is thence rendered to be the strongest Poyson It s caustick and corroding quality penetrates so violently through the Gloves and Shoes of the Diggers that it ulcerates their hands and feet Chalcitis Misy and Sory differ from one another in courseness of Substance and are oft found to grow one atop the other Chalcitis is like Copper and brittle in consistency of courseness it is between Sory which is thinner and Misy which is somewhat thicker then it Misy is of a Brass colour glistering through its body with Sparks like Gold growing about Chalcitis like an outermost Crust or like Rust about
Iron Sory is a Mineral hard and thick like to a Stone glistering with yellowish Sparks These three are of a causting quality thereby burning Scars and Crusts into the Flesh besides they are somewhat adstringent Misy is the strongest and Sory is the next to it in strength Antimony is a Mineral of a blewish colour shining throughout its Body like Streeks of Silver its mixture is out of course earth and dense fire yet less dense then any of the foregoing It s vertue is internally vomitive and purgative externally it is discutient detergent and adstringent All these are natural recrements of Metals yet not recrements alone as I said before Bombast and his Sectators analyze all Metals and Minerals into Sal Sulphur and Mercury as if they were all generated out of these as their first Principles for say they our Art instructs us to reduce every Metal or Mineral into each of those foresaid Principles Either this is to be understood that it is possible to reduce all Minerals really into Sal Sulphur Mercury or into some certain more concected beings analogal to them Generally they seem to pretend to educe real Mercury out of all Minerals but as for the others they are only analogal Why should they more expect to extract real Mercury then real Salt or Sulphur Wherefore it will be more consisting with Reason to conclude them all equally analogal that is like in consistency to ordinary Mercury Sal and Sulphur but not in effects It is a Madness for any one to imagine that Gold is constituted by the same Mercury but more concocted that is usually digged out of Mines and that Mercury is convertible into Gold if thereunto intended by a strong concocting preparation They might as well say that Gut-Excrements were convertible into Flesh and that flesh consisted out of the said real Excrements The Case is thus Mercury is by them accounted to be an Excrement of Metals wherefore as an Excrement is a Body really different from those bodies from which it is rejected and in no wise convertible unless it be some of the purest parts of it that have escaped natures Diligence so neither is Mercury any part of Metals nor convertible into them unless it be the smallest purest parts which had fled the earths Metalliferous quality Possibly you will Object that Gold feeds upon Mercury and Mercury upon it wherefore they are convertible into one anothers Nature I deny the Antecedence for Gold is dissolved and destroyed by it as appears in Amalgamation or dissolving Gold by the fume of Mercury ergo it is not fed by it Mercury effects no less in the Body of man for it dissolves his humid parts yea his solid parts too as Mercurial Salivations testifie All which is a sufficient Argument to induce us to forbear from explaining the Causes of Natural Beings by Sal Sulphur Mercury Probably you reply That this is not the meaning of Bombast who intended these Names only to be analogal to those things vulgarly so called Wherefore by Mercury is understood a thin pure liquor by Sulphur a subtil Spirit by Salt the gross substance of a Body I Answer Either you must take these for first Principles or for mixt bodies they cannot be the first because his Mercury is constituted out of water reduced from its greatest hardness into a subtil fluor through admixture of Air and Fire His Sulphur consists of fire condensed by Earth and of Air ergo they must be mixt Bodies if so they are no first Principles of Metals because even these are reducible into more simple bodies viz. his Mercury into thick water a thin air and a rare fire Sulphur into air fire c. This I will grant them that all Metals are dissolveable into such kinds of analogal Substances which are not bodies less mixt but only changed into bodies of several consistencies viz. thick and thin course and fine CHAP. II. Of Stones and Earths 1. A Description of the most Precious Stones 2. A Description of the less Precious Stones that are engendred within Living Creatures 3. A Description of the less Precious Stones that are engendred without the Bodies of Living Creatures 4. An Enumeration of common stones 5. A Disquisition upon the vertues of the forementioned stones An Observation on the Effects of Powders composed out of Precious stones Whether the Tincture of an Emerald is so admirable in a bloudy Flux 6. A particular Examination of the vertues of a Bezoar stone Piedra de Puerco Pearles c. 7. The Kinds of Earth and their Vertues I. OUr Method hath led us to propose the Demonstration of universal Natures before that of particulars and that of Metals before the other of imperfect Minerals and Stones as being more excellent through their perfection of mixture wherefore we have next allotted this Chapter for the treatise of the particular natures of Stones Stones are either known under the name of most Precious less Precious or Common The most Precious Stones are ordinarily called Jewels being 18 in number 1. An Agathe 2. An Amethist 3. An Asterites 4. A Beril 5. A Carbuncle 6. A Chalcedonie 7. A Chrysolite 8. A Diamond 9. An Emerald 10. A Jaspis 11. An Jacinth 12. An Onyx 13. A Ruby 14. A Sarda 15. A Saphir 16 A Sardonix 17. A Topaze 18. A Turcois An Agathe is a stone of divers mixt colours and in no wise transparent An Asterites is a stone somewhat resembling Crystal and within the Moon when she is at full An Amethist is a stone of a Violet colour A Beril is of a Sea-green colour and sometimes is found to have other colours mixt with it A Prase is not unlike to it only that it is not of so deep a green neither so hard for it wears away by much usage A Carbuncle is esteemed for the most precious of all Stones and is of a Gold or Flaming colour It is said that there is a kind of a Carbuncle called a Pyrope to be found in the East-Indies which shines as bright in the Night as the Sun doth in the Day A Chalcedonie is a stone of a Purple colour A Chrysolite is of a Golden colour hard and transparent A Chrysoprase is hard and of a greenish colour A Diamond is thought to be the hardest of all Stones An Emerald is hard and of a perfect green colour A Jaspis is of a greenish colour sported here and there with bloudy Spots An Jacinth is of a Gold or flaming colour Some of them decline from a Yellow to a deep Saffron red or sometimes to a blewish colour They are neither perspicuous or opake but between both An Onyx is of a brownish white but of a dull transparency An Opale stone is by Pliny Lib. 37. c. 6 accounted for the best and rarest of Stones as participating of the rarest Colours of the rarest Stones its fire is more subtil then of a Carbuncle shining with a Purple of an Amethist greenish like to the Sea-green of an
Chalck stone is fiery and knawing and in length of time burns a crust The Ostiocolla is internally and externally used for to conglutinate broken bones Talck we have spoken of before The Glass stone doth whiten womens faces and maketh them look smooth A Calaminar stone is drying detergent adstringent sarcotick and cicatrizing VII Before I close this mineralogy I will but name the kinds of mineral earths viz. terra sigillata so called because it is usually selled which is either Turkish being sealed with Turkish characters and is sold to us for Terra lemnia or of Maltha sealed with the stamp of that Island or German which comprehends two kinds the one being of a clayish colour is found about Triga a Town in Silesia prepared and sealed with their seal the other is of three colours White Ash and Red and sent from a place in Wetteraw known by the name of Terra Wetteracensis or Lubaicensis All these earths are drying and restringent resisting putrefaction dissolving bruised bloud moving sweat and Cordial These vertues depend upon a subtil spirit which is permixt through the said earths Bole armene is a red kind of earth brought hither from Armenia it is also found about Wittenberg in Germany It is drying and adstringent hence stops all fluxes of bloud loosenesses womens menstrua and expels putrefactions Marle is a kind of fat earth inclosed within great stones internally it dissolves bruised bloud externally it proves adstringent sarcotick and cicatrizing Red Chalck is commonly known it is adstringent and emplastick Oaker is much of the same nature Red Chalck is detergent and adstringent Jappan earth is of a purple colour here and there speckt with white specks and of an austere taste it is commended for drying up Catarrhes and strengthning the brain if held in ones mouth Tripolis is a kind of earth of a deep yellow good for nothing but to scoure brass Kettels Dioscorides and Galen do make mention of other earths as Terra Samia Melia Terrachia Cimolia Selinusia Eretria Pnigitis and Ampelitis but their vertues being much inferiour to those foregoing they are little taken notice of by Physitians of this Age. Among these earths we must not forget that whereout Porcelaine Dishes are made there are three sorts of it The one is of a transparent green colour like to a Jaspis or an Emerald yielding to neither in price or beauty and is alone to be bought in Bengala Guzurate Decan but at an extraordinary rate The other is of a transparent white colour like to Crystal and is artificially made up out of a certain paste in the Island Carge near the mouth of the Euphrates The paste consists out of Oyster shels and Egg-shells of some birds called by the Inhabitants Teze and Beyde of many others which being stampt and mingled with some other materials are buried under ground where they are to lye forty fifty or sixty years long Parents shewing their Children where such a mixture was laid who at the time of its perfection and maturity do take it out and make Dishes or Pots of it The third sort is of a Pearl colour but somewhat more dusky and is made out of a certain white earth in the great Province of China which being well cleansed sifted mingled stampt and duly prepared serveth them to make Pots and Dishes out of For a Corollary I will insert my sense upon Libavius his mineral flesh which he in his Singular part 1. fol. 252. infers to be very possible I shall add but one Argument Earth we observe supposing it to be somewhat below its Surface destroyes and consumes all kinds of flesh as appears in dead bodies buried How then can she be thought to conceive apt matter for such a vital substance For living creatures are generated no where but where the heat of the Sun may reach in such a measure as to stir up mollifie and vivifie the substance conceived Nevertheless near the Surface the aforesaid flesh is generable as appears in many square Worms whose shape and form is in nothing differing from the supposed mineral Mole Theophrastus lib. de lapid describes mineral Ivory and bones but you must not imagine these to be distinguisht from stones supposing them to be generated below the Surface of the earth However I will grant you that real bones are generated near to the Surface budding out like sprigs for in Thuringia the same are oft found sticking out of the earth And Linscot in his voyage to the East Indies tell us that the Inhabitants of Goa cast the horns of beasts killed for provision into a certain place within a mile or two from the Town where they soon take root and spread themselves into branches CHAP. III. Of the Loadstone 1. The various names of the Loadstone and its kinds 2. The Physical Essence of the Loadstone 3. An enumeration of its Properties 4. The demonstration of the first Mechanick property of the Loadstone 5. The demonstration of the other Mechanical properties 6. Of its nautical property What is intended by the Poles of the Loadstone 7. The division of the Loadstone into Circles 8. An enumeration of the nautical properties of the Magnete 9. A demonstration of the said nautical properties 10. The cause of the deviation of the Compass Needle 11. An Objection answered 12. Cartesius his Doctrine examined touching the Loadstone 13. The fabulous property of the Loadstone I. THe Loadstone is otherwise called a Magnete from the first Inventor thereof Magnes a driver of Cattel who garding his heard upon the Mount Ida felt his slip-shoes being fastned with Iron pegs to stick fast to the ground and his driving staffe which was pegged at the bottom with an Iron peg to stick first likewise whereat he was much astonisht but searching narrowly into the cause he found they were a sort of stones that held him The Greeks named this stone Sideritis which Pliny lib. 36. C. 16. derives from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iron and not without a just ground it having a vertue of attracting Iron to it Others knew it by the name of Lapis Heraclius not derived from Hercules or Heraclius the supposed Inventor but from Heraclia a City of Lydia where the best were found in great number The Germans call it ein seilstein or a sail-stone because the Mariners sail by it This stone changes its name by the places where it is usually found 1. The Magnesian Loadstone is engendred about the City Magnesia 2. An Alexandrian Loadstone is taken up about Alexandria 3. It is found in Echio in Boeotia 4. The worst of them being spungy and loose are found near the Cape Verlychi in Natolia 5. The best are those of AEthiopia being the blewet heavier and drawing Iron stronger Taisnierius supposing them to grow in the bottom of the AEthiopian Sea relates an odd story that some Ships crossing the AEthiopian Sea and bearing near to the Promontories should have been drawn to the bottom of the Sea by some Loadstones taking
substantia agens acting substance which if so then an accident is not really distinguisht from a substance and a substance must be conceived to act immediately through her self Aristotle lib. de respir. describes life to be the permansion or abiding of the vegetable foul with the heat From which that of Scaliger exercit 202. sect 5. is little different Life is the union of the soul with the body Here the Philosopher appears only to describe life to be a duration which is but an accident neither doth Scaliger's union signifie any thing more 2. They distinguish the soul really from the heat and body which in the same sense are identificated The matter and form of life of a living substance or a Plant are originally the matter and form of the Elements That the matter of living substances is Elementary there are few or none among the wandring Philosophers but will assert it with me yet as for their form their great Master hath obliged them to deny it to be Elementary and to state it to be of no baser a rice than Coelestial Give me leave here to make inquiry what it is they imply for a form Is it the vegetable soul which Aristotle makes mention of in his definition of life Or is it the soul together with the heat wherein it is detained which is accounted of an extract equally noble with her Be it how it will the soul is really distinguisht by them from the matter and from the Celestial heat here they take heat in a sense common with Physicians for Calidum innatum that is heat residing it the radical moisture its subject and acknowledged for a form So likewise the heat Calidum innatum is diversified from the matter and from the soul wherefore it is neither matter or form What then Their confession owns it to be a body Celestial and therefore no Elementary matter Were I tied to defend their tenents I should answer that there was a twofold matter to be conceived in every living body the one Celestial and the other Elementary But then again one might justly reply That beings are not to be multiplied beyond necessity They do answer for themselves That it is to be imagined a tye vinculum whereby the soul is tied to the body So then according to this Doctrine of theirs I should understand the vegetable soul to be immaterial and of the same nature in respect to its rice and immortality with the rational soul for even that is in like manner tied to the body by means of the Calidum innatum and are both apprehended by Aristotle to be Celestial of no mixt body and really differing from their matter If so the vegetable soul must be received for immortal as being subject to no corruption or dissolution because it is Celestial and consequently a single Essence without any composition and to which no sublunary agent can be contrary But again how can it be a single essence since it is divisible and therefore consisteth of a quantitative extension and is a totum integrale Such is their Philosophy full of contradictions and errours In the next place I would willingly know how this innate heat together with its primogenial moisture may properly be termed Celestial since it is not freed from corruption and dissolution whereas all Celestial bodies are exempted from dissolution and therefore the Philosopher takes them for eternal Are not coldness and dryness as much necessary per se for life as heat and moisture Are heat and moisture sole agents without coldness or dryness or are fire and water sufficient principles for actuating life In no wise for as you have read they are uncapable of existing in one subject unless accompanied by air and earth II. Wherefore I say That the form of life is spirits or subtilities of the Elements united in mixtion and a just temperament Spirits are derived from the word spiro I breathe as being bodies no less subtil than a breath Their constitution is out of the best concocted temperated and nearest united parts of the Elements in which parts the Elements embracing one another so arctly minutely and intimately do of a necessity separate themselves from the courser parts of the mixture and so become moveable through the said course parts they acquire withal a great force through the predominancy of fire condensed by earthy minim's and glued together by incrassated air The force and agility in motion of the influent Spirits depends upon the compression of the weighty parts of the body depressing the said spirits out of their places because they hinder the weighty parts from their center which being through their incrassated air naturally gendred glib and slippery do the easier yield to slip out and in from one place to another The efficient of spirits is the universal external heat viz. The Celestial heat mainly proceeding from the greater mixt bodies contained within the heavens For although the peregrin Element's contained within the earth are capable enough of uniting themselves and constituting a mixt body through their proper form yet they remain unable of uniting themselves so arctly as thereby to become spiritous and constitute a living substance wherefore they do stand in need of the external efficiency of the Celestial bodies which through their subtil heat do accelerate their most intimate union in uniting the internal heat before dispersed through the parts of a body to a center whereunto they could not reach without the arct and firm adherence of some incrassated aerial and terrestrial parts which here are yet more closely united into one and refined from their grosser parts Hence it is that Vegetables are no where generated but where a sufficient influence may arrive from the Celestial bodies and for this reason the earth at a certain depth doth not harbour any living Creature as any Vermine or Plants but only near to its Surface The qualification or gradual distinction of this heat partially effects the difference of living bodies for to such a Vegetable only such a degree and qualification of Celestial heat is requisite and to another another and withal observe that this efficient heat doth not become formal neither doth it unite it self to the intrinsick heat of a Plant but exhales after the execution of its office The reason is because it is in many particulars unlike to the internal spirit of a Vegetable and therefore being unfit to be united to it must consequently after the performance of its function expire The spirits predominating in fire reside in an incrassated air the which being continuated throughout the whole matter is the immediate subject whereby the spirits are likewise extended throughout the same body and are although mediately rendred continuous III. The properties of a vegetative form are to be moveable forcible actually warm mollifying attractive recentive concocting expulsive nutritive accretive and plastick The two former I have touched just before Touching the third I say those spirits are actually warm but not sensible to our
1. That the total vertue of Accretion lyeth hidden in the spermatick substance 2. That the accretion of living parts happens through increasing their flame and extending their solid substance and by being united to the radicall ones This observation containes the greatest secresie of the art of Medicine and is the sole basis of most of the Theoremes therein expressed and withall detects a fundamental errour of Galen whose tenet distinguisheth the influent heat essentially from the innate heat whereas the former is nothing else but the flame of the latter increased by spirits lately advened and united to it by the last concocted nutriment But of this more expressely in my Archelogia Iatrica Notwithstanding I shall continue the history of Accretion in each part Through the fore-mentioned expansion rarefaction and intumescence the circumduced pellicles being two in number differing from one another only in crassitude are gradually distended untill at last all the parts being perfectly formed by the mechanick or plastick spirits in the manner beforesaid break their Membranes first naturally at the top next towards the Surface of the Earth but counter-naturally at the sides The cause of this first eruption through the top depends upon the swifter and more forcible turgency of the light Elements tending upwards besides upon the upper parts being more rarefied and attenuated through their greater nearness to the influential heat The Root erupts soon after its having pierced through the membranes by means of its weight strengthned by course heat groweth downwards and spreads into branches like the upper parts grow upwards spreading likewise into boughs These are more rare and thin as consisting of a thinner and rarer flame and of a thin yet solid sperm which according to the capacity of the same principles now mentioned do form themselves into boughs and leaves attracting every day nourishment proportionable to what was dissipated The Root doth in the same manner accrease by attracting weighty nutriment being impregnated with a dense heat and therefore can clime no higher but as for that which is more rare and thin it ascends higher or lower according to its proportion of tenuity and rarity The similar parts are accreased out of the more humorous parts of the attracted nutriment the solid ones out of the grosser parts of it The barke is accreased out of the grossest reliques of the Aliment the fibres out of the grosser the fleshy parts out of a mean substance between gross and subtill solid and liquid the medullar once out of the more unctious and rare parts the boughs out of nutriment somewhat more subtil and rare than that of the middle body or trunck The redounding parts draw matter for their accretion froâ—e cavâ— more waterish parts of the plant abounding in her which 〈…〉 contain a remnant of all the similar dissimilar parts of the whole That these are abounding parts their appearance only at such times when a plant is not alone filled but over-filled with nutriment doth restifie which usually hapneth in the Spring Summer and Autumn Leaves do germinate when the said matter is less concocted however supplied in great abundance whence it is that they make choice of a green colour and are expanded into Latitude Flowers appear when the said matter is somewhat more concocted and are only protruded out of the better and subtiller part of it whence many of them become odoriferous Fruits are engendred out of the same subtil matter being yet more concocted whence it is that most do take their beginning from a subtility for to acquire a crassitude according to this trite one substantiae coctione evadunt crassiores whose more terrestrial part falling through its weight to the center concreaseth into a kernel or stone whereupon the other parts do fasten as upon a foundation increasing dayly by apposition of new matter The recremental parts I call so because they are generated out of the greater part of such matters as ought to be excerned but containing some alimentary ones are retained and agglutinated whence they chance to be somewhat like and dislike to the other parts Plants are variously divided 1. Into three species viz. an herb which is a Plant some consisting of a root only others of a root stalk and leaves whereof some comprehend Fruges Olera Corn and Potherbs 2. A shrub is a plant fastned to the ground by a root and spreading into many boughs without a trunck 3. A tree is a Plant obtaining a root trunk and boughs In respect to their place of conception some are said to be terrestrial others aqueous some wild others Garden Plants According to their bigness some great others small And in regard of their fructification some fruitfull others barren or to their germination some to bud forth sooner others latter For instance the Turnip Basil and Lettuce shew themselves within three or sour daies others in five or six daies as a Gourd the Beete c. some in eight daies as the Orach Some in ten as the Cabbage 〈…〉 in twenty daies as Leeks Parsly in forty or fifty Piony 〈…〉 scarce less than within a year Many other diffeâ—… taken from their Colour Figure c. I do wittingly omit The propagation of a Plant is whereby it doth generate its like in specie through semination This is the last function that a Plant exerciseth for it must be nourisht and accreased to a just magnitude before it can attain to this most perfect and compleat action Semination is the means whereby it performeth the same and is a Plants bringing forth of seed this name in the English otherwise soundeth a seeding Seed is the abridgment of an intire Plant whereby it doth multiply it self into many of the same kind But the great question will be whence it is that a Plant obtaineth this power and what Seed properly is Here you are to observe that Seed is twofold 1. It is that which is casually as it may seem to us constituted within the Earth through the concourse of the Elements into one body being particularly so temperated as to be disposed to germinate into a Plant. Of this I have spoken sufficiently before where it appears that it precedes the constitution of a Plant whereas the other whereof I am to treat at present doth consecute a preceding Plant and is generated by it Seed in this second acception is a dissimilar substance consisting of the rudiments of all the parts of a Plant that are to liken the propagatrix or from which it was propagated in specie The manner of semination is thus A Plant having already disburdened it self of its fulness or abundance of nutriment by casting forth Leaves Flowers and Fruits there is still a remnant of abundance of the best nutriment which a Plant being now exalted to its vigour in its operations through the preceding Spring and Summers heat doth concoct to the highest degree and a just consistency wherein the spirits are united with the solid parts so as it may be requisite
we are to apply it as it relates to the other Elements and is the proper cause of her Commerce with them Water although appearing fluid yet naturally that is absolutely conceived by it self is void of all fluor but partakes of the greatest weight hardness crassitude smoothness and consistency that is imaginable I prove it Water the more it is remote from the intense heat of the Sun the more heavy thick hard smooth and consistent it is Have you not Mountains of Ice of great weight thickness c. in Greenland in the Summer much more in the Winter yet more directly under the Poles and most of all if apprehended absolute by it self and deprived from extrinsick air and fire when we cannot but judge it to be of the greatest weight thickness and consistency that is apprehensible The Scripture seems to attest the same Job 38. And the waters are hid as with a stone and the face of the deep is frozen By the deep here is meant the Chaos ergo the waters were naturally at their first creation thick and hard Lastly As there are two fluid Elements viz. fire and air So it is also necessary that they should be balanced and met with two opposite consistent ones namely Earth and Water The first being contiguous and hard responds to fire the other being continuous and hard responds to air being continuous and soft Whence we may safely conclude that it is the advent of the fire together with the air that renders the water thus thin and fluid as we see it is II. How Water first gained such a body together as the Sea is our exposition of the worlds creation will advise you The Sea is the greatest collection of water by the Latinists it is called Mare from Meare to go or to flow and not from amarum or the word Marath among the Caldeans signifying bitter as some have thought so it is likewise called Oceanus the Ocean from Ocior amnis a swift current It procures various distinctions from its beating against several shores from those of the East and West India it is surnamed the East and West Indian Ocean of the Mount Atlas the Atlantick Ocean from those of Sarmatia the Sarmatick Ocean near Madagascar the rough Sea from the quicksands that are frequently thereabout of Spain and Brittain the Spanish and Brittish Ocean c. And from the Plage whence it doth flow it is called the East West South or North Ocean The same spreads it self into many particular Seas or great Bayes whereof these are the more principal 1. The Mediterranean Sea so named because it flows through the middle of two great parts of the Earth viz. between a great part of Europe Africa and Asia Or more particularly between Spain France Italy Dalmatia Greece and Natolia of the one side and AEgypt and Barbary of the other Where it toucheth the Spanish coast it is called the Iberick sea and more forward the French Balearick Ligustick near Genoa Tyrrhenian or Tuscan about Sicily Sardinian Sicilian Adriatick Cretick Libyan Phoenicean Cyprian Syriack sea c. its mouth is called the Straits 2. Pontus Euxinus the Euxian sea otherwise named the black sea or Mare Majus whose mouth is called the Hellespont from its narrowness its throat Propontis and the Thracian Bosphor so called from bos an Oxe as if an Oxe were too big to pass through that narrowness 3. The Arabian and Persian sea 4. The Gangetican sea so named from the river Ganges which is disburdened into it 5. The Red sea deriving that name not from the colour of the Sea but of the red sand over which it floweth The Baltick Sea alias the Sinus Coddanus or Suevick Sea from the Suevi a Nation that formerly inhabited those coasts at the mouth it is called the Sound flowing 150 leagues far between Denmark Finland Sueden Prussia Liefland Pomerania and Saxony The pacifick sea is so called from the gentleness of the waves or the South sea because it lyeth to the Southward of the Line limited by the coasts of Asia America and terra Australis or the Country of Megallan III. A Lake is a great and perennal collection of water cirrounded by the Earth whereby it is cut off from the Sea It is distinguisht from a Pool in that the one is perennal the other is apt to be dryed up sometime by the heat of the Sun and driness of the earth and to be filled up again with rain Some of these being famous for their extent others for their admirable qualities I shall willingly insert 1. The greatest Lake in the Universe is the Caspian sea in Asia otherwise called the great sea the Albanian Hircanian Pontick Tartarian Sea the Sea of Sala Bachu Abachu Terbestan or Giorgian It diffuseth it self into three Bayes or Gulph viz. near the Mouth into the Hircanian on the right side into the Caspian and on the left side into the Scytick Gulph It bears the name of a Sea very improperly since it is incompassed by the Earth Nevertheless it is saltish and full of fish 2. The Lake Asphaltites in Judaea otherwise called the dead Sea from its immobility because as Corn. Tacit. relates that scarce any wind be it never so violent is strong enough to lift it up into Waves is noted for sustaining weighty bodies especially if anointed with Alume water that are cast into it in a manner that a man his hands and legs being tyed and cast into it shall swim it breeds no fish nor any other living creatures The Lake of the lesser Armenia and the Lake Aposcidamus in Africa and of Sicily are almost of the same strength On the contrary the Lake Avernum in Campania and that of AEthiopia are unable to sustain the weight of a leaf fallen into them from a tree and according to Pliny there is no fowl that flies over them but falleth dead into them There is a Lake near Lerna and another in Portugal which are so attractive and depressing that they do immediately draw and press down to the bottom whatever is cast into them in such a manner that a man having thrust his hand into either must use force to draw it out again Pomponius Mela and Solinus make mention of a Lake in AEthiopia which to the eye appearing crystalline and sweet to the pallat doth so besmear those that bath in it as if they had been duckt into a bath of oyl In the west of the Isle of Iseland travellers have discovered a great Lake fumous very cold in a short space changing whatever is cast into it into a stonish or rockish body a stick being thrust right up into the bottom that part which is under water is in two daies changed into an Iron substance the other above remaining what it was Hect. Boeth writes of another in Ireland which after some months renders that part of a stick that is thrust into the ground Iron the other part that is under water fliuty the upper part
water upon the Surface moveth but very slowly towards the side near the hole because the water moving so swiftly underneath doth cause that atop to sink upon it which prevents its swift motion towards the side and that which causeth the water underneath to spout so violently out of the hole is the weight of the water atop pressing violently and forcibly downwards This occasions me to call to memory that apposite Phrase of the Dutch sea-men who instead of saying the water ebbs say Het water sackt that is the water sinks as if they would signifie the water to move from underneath The Ocean then originally and primarily moving from underneath in a very swift current as the forementioned instance may easily confirm to us hath not that extent to overrun there which we might conceive it would have atop but is above the half shortened in its periphery through its depth and consequently through the deep excavation or extenuation of the Earth Wherefore observe 1. That the Ocean underneath doth well absolve so many degrees as we have writ down before but then they are much abbreviated and lessened in comparison to those degrees whereby the superficial circumference of the water is measured 2. I say that the Ocean absolves the foresaid course of 348 in 12 equal hours only in its lower parts But as touching its superficial ones it is certain they are slow absolving the same compass in no shorter time than six months which may be named a Marinal year This slow progress is evidenced to us by the slow drift of a piece of wood floating in the Ocean 3. Although the superficial parts of the Ocean do not slow with so rapid a course yet it hinders not but that they may tumefie as they do throughout their whole circuit about the Earth in the space of 12 hours 4. Since it must necessarily follow that where the water tumefieth in one place it must sink in another therefore the water tumefying once every 12 hours in the East 6 houres long in which space it arriveth to its height it must sink as much in the VVest because that moisture which causeth the intumescence in the East doth slow underneath from the VVest By the same rule the Eastern Ocean must also sink 6 hours in every 12 for to cause a tumefaction in the VVest VVhence it is that every 6 hours we perceive a change of the Tide in the Ocean 5. VVe are not to perswade our selves that the Eastern floud is occasioned by water returning from the VVest and the western floud through the refluxe of the same water from the East because the Ocean doth continually pass from east to west by way of the South not returning the same way through the South from west to east as appeareth by the quick Voyages of those who setting sail with a good wind and weather from Spain towards the West-Indies do usually make land in three or four weeks whereas returning from thence can scarce recover Spain although having the wind very favourable in less than three or four months Likewise a voyage from Moabar in the Indies to Madagascar otherwise called St. Laurences Island may be accomplisht in 20 daies but from Madagascar to Moabar scarce in less time although with a very prosperous wind than three months In the same manner one may much sooner make a voyage from this Island to Spaine lying hence more eastward than from Spain back again hither or in sailing from Alicant a City of Spaine situated upon the Mediterranean Coast towards Palestina they usually make less speed than in returning All which are undoubted marks of the perennal course of the Ocean from East to west VVherefore Philosophers have been misled in imposing the names of Fluxus and Refluxus upon the course of the Ocean as if returning the same way it went I have taken notice that as the Dutch used a fit word for to denote the Ebb so the French have imposed another no less elegant upon the floud viz. La Montè de la Marè or the rising of the Sea exactly squaring with our foregoing discourse Thus when it is floud they usually say Lamarè il monte that is the Sea rises The Latinists call it AEstus Maris or heat of the Sea because when the Sea begins to be filled with hot exhalations it is wonted to be hot through which it swelleth like hot bloud flushing into our faces and glowing causeth a puffing up and a rising whence it is impelled to flow some part of it one way and another another way which caused the floud observed through the rising of the waters upon the shores These exhalations being dissipated the Sea beginning to cool withdraws it self again into its former compass and leaving the shores puts them in mind of the Ebb. But this dictate being proved to be absurd doth justly advise us to reject the forementioned name 6. VVe need not to doubt being fully informed of this Doctrine but that every floud brings in new water that of the last Ebb flowing forwards with the course of the Sea towards the accomplishment of its annual period 7. Let none be offended at us for granting an internall cause of the Seas motion against Scalig. Exer. 52. asserting the Sea to be an Animal in case it should be moved from an internal cause were this a Paradox we must then believe that the Air Fire Heavens and Stars are Animals they all moving through an intrinsick principle IV. My method doth now lead me to demonstrate the several Phoenomena's of the Ocean by their proper causes 1. The Ocean flowing from East to West cannot be thought to be the sole cause of the diurnal intumescence and detumescence of the Sea since it may be supposed to slow equally over an equal ground Wherefore a second cause must concur to wit an unequal ground or an unequal grove through which it passeth The waters being through the second division of the Creation separated from the Earth which then lay in an equal round figure under the waters these consequently equally covering it in the same figure were afterwards through the third division collected into one place where they must have pressed their great weighty body into two great universal groves whereupon the Earth must necessarily be pressed up into two great universal eminences which are divided from one another through the said waters and consequently constitute two great Islands viz. of the New world or America and the Old world or Asia Africa and Europa The Sea after this working through its great weight deeper and deeper into the Earth must necessarily thereby have formed many other deep and great cavities within the sald universal groves The Earth through whose recess or giving way the said other Cavities were impressed must needs have been compressed to some other part not towards the center because the Earth was so very densely beset there that it was impossible it should give way Ergo towards the Surface where it was
moulded and compressed up into all those great mountains which we see every where about the Sea-shores and into all those great Banks and Rocks which Sea-men do meet withall every where yea some being stuffed up a great way from the shore as witness many Ships that have run aground in the Atlantick Ocean above 60 80 or 100 Leagues from the shore likewise a great banke lying off the Cape of St. Austin and extended near 70 Leagues long Lastly A great part of the receding earth was cast up into great and small Islands especially those numerous ones in the East and West Indies Let us then suppose those said small Isles together with the great ones of the East Indies to be accompanied with great and large banks or shelves whereof some are visible others not This supposition must needs force another from us viz. That the waters passing from West by the North to the East are retarded and partly stopt by the said Isles shelves or banks In the mean time during this retardation and partial stoppage the waters flowing from East by the South to West do decurre decrease and evacuate themselves unto the west grove untill such a degree that they are run off as low as possible at which time the other is at its highest and then they overflow the borders of the Eastern shelves and free themselves from the retention of the Isles by which means the Eastern grove begins to fill and encrease whose swift decurrence of waters being stopt and retarded by the Western borders and banks fils up until high water This discourse may seem strange to you since the waters are never visibly stopt by any shelves or banks these alwaies lying covered but were it so that they proved a stoppage it must be imagined they should lye dry Hereunto I answer That supposing the waters to move from underneath they arriving at a deep grove must needs be retarded through its shelving sides as being against their natural inclination to move upwards This retardation of the water on the bottom of the grove must necessarily cause the waters atop to swell and become turgid or tumide ever framing a round figure atop which is a certain sign denoting the grove to be of a parabolical figure This tumefaction the Ancients did abusively term an exestuation as if proceeding from a fermentation within the water The water underneath being depressed on the bottom of the grove according to its greatest capacity and having withall elevated the waters atop to their greatest height doth now begin to strive to clime up the shelves of the grove being thereunto moved through its own force continuated against the Earth but reflected by the same upwards and propelled by the succeding parts of the water as also compressed and squeezed by the greatest weight of the waters atop lying upon them which compressing is much augmented by the great force of the air and fire bearing against the water and earth for to gain the Center Whence the waters do now begin to flow over the banks of the said shelves making a tumefaction and gradually a high water wherever it comes and so evacuating it self out of one great grove into another happens to cause a low and high water in the Ocean Hence now you may easily collect the reasons and causes of these several properties befalling the Ocean in its diurnal course 1. Every twelve hours there appears a rising of water in either of the universal groves viz. South and North grove continuating the space of 6 hours because the bottom of either grove is 6 hours in filling out of the one into the other Likewise every 12 hours the Ocean falls for 6 hours because its water beneath is so long in evacuating it self 2. The beginning of the swelling of the Ocean is ever slow for two hours much quicker the next two for one hour before the last is quickest of all and the last moves in an equal velocity with the latter of the two first it is at its slowest a little before the pinch of high water at dead low water The beginning is slow because that part which causeth the beginning of the tumefaction of the water is weakest as being most remote from the central parts and employing its greatest force in making way and mounting over the shelves loseth its strength which it recovers when it is backt by the body or central parts of the water following it and so promoting its course with a greater swiftness And being with its whole body arrived to the bottom of the grove it doth as it were rest there for to recover its strength which doth occasion its greatest slowness the same consequently causing the greatest diminution of motion at low water in the other grove 3. High and low water of the Ocean is retarded every natural day near three quarters of an hour that is 34 â—4 2â— minutes of an hour in every single period or 12 hours because it accomplisheth but 348 degrees of the terrestrial AEquator in every 12 hours which doth want 12 degrees of its compleat circuit and before it can absolve those 12 degrees through the beginning of a new period there passeth 24 24 29 minutes of an hour which gives us the true reason of the Oceans retardation every day near three quarters of an hour This course lingring every natural day so many minutes doth in 30 periods or 15 daies stay back full 360 degrees being the total circumference of its circuit and so as it were absolves a compounded period through its retardation in 15 daies which space agreeing with the time of the Moons middle motion between her conjunction and opposition no wonder if the Ocean also agrees to be at its height at a prefixt and constant time alwaies being one and the same when the Moon her aspect is New or Full. 4. The Ocean happens to be augmented or elevated higher than ordinary every Full or New Moon because every thirtieth or middle period which ever falls accidentally but not as if only depending upon the Moon as upon her New or Full Aspect it hath acquired its greatest force of flowing whereby it drives before it and carrieth along with it a greater confluence of water than at any other season This intension of course it procures gradually more and more every period untill at last it comes to its highest after which in like manner it decreases again untill it is descended to its least remission which is upon every thirtieth circuit coincident for the most part with the Moons quarters that is the Ocean at its high water is in comparison to the high waters of the other precedent or following courses at the lowest when the Moon appears in her quarters because the force of the Oceans course is then most remitted Here we may observe the beginning of this intending or periodical compounded course to be when the Ocean moves with the least force causing the lowest high water and the highest low water which
frequently happens near to the Moons quarters whose middle is marked by the Moons Full and New Aspect being when it flows with the greatest force causing the highest high waters and the lowest low waters and tends towards its ending when it remits from its height and intends in lowness This augmentation and diminution may be resembled to the fermentation of Wine or Beer swelling gradually untill its height and thence decreasing again Touching the beginning and ending of the Seas single diurnal circuit if we consider it simpliciter it hath none because it is ever in motion as never being eased by a total rest but if agreeing to state the beginning where the Ocean is slowest in its course and thence tending to a swifter motion then the Proposition is resolveable And according to this Supposition the beginning and ending must be moveable differing every single course near 11 degrees This by the way Returning to explain the cause of the gradual augmentation of water and intention of force I am to remember you of the great proportion of the Oceans peregrin Elements consisting of most Earth then Air and lastly fire of whose close coherence with the waters their saltness is an undoubted argument These salin particles violently detaining the waters from recovering the center must necessarily add force to the gravity of the waters and consequently in intending their force they must also augment them in quantity because the more force the waters use the more in quantity they bear along with them The detention of the said salin particles being at their beginning of no great strength or in no great quantity do therefore cause no great intention of the Oceans force but every single period piercing gradually by rarefaction upon the waters must necessarily also augment their tumefaction gradually higher and higher every day untill at last being arrived to their height of penetration which ordinarily happens in 15 circuits the Ocean is likewise elevated unto its height Some of these salin particles being penetrated through the body of the waters are gradually depressed to the ground through their own disposition and the weight of the Ocean others being attrited and confused through their passive motion against the water and the decess of their heaviest particles do more and more gradually desist from their violent detention every circuit returning to the bottom and so the Ocean doth also gradually every day incline nearer and nearer to its natural force and detumescence of its water untill it is returned to its own proper course at which season its force and intumescence are equally at their lowest During this space those subsiding particles begin again to be expanded rarefied and attenuated because of the grinding of the water against them and through the expansion of the aerial and igneous parts adunited to them do bear up again The others elevated atop beginning to concentrate through the conquiescence of the Sea are ready to be compressed downwards both which gradually striving a reciprocal meeting do in the foregoing manner gradually reunite the force and augmentation of the Water V. Here we cannot but admit the Suns intense hear every day beating down the torrid Zone to be a great instrumental and adjuvant cause to the stirring of the aforesaid salin particles But this continuing in one measure equality and station in respect to the torrid Zone all the year long cannot in any wise be thought the principal cause of a motion varying twice every day Likewise the Moon being beset with a great quantity of dampish and heavy particles doth every day spread down some of those particles whereby the Ocean is also gradually filled more more every day And like as these said particles are most apt to rain down the nearer the Moon doth appropinquate to the Ecliptick because the air enjoyeth a greater subtility there from the rarefaction of the Sun hence it is that the Moon frees her self most of these heavy concomitants near her Conjunction and at her apposition So they are most apt to ascend the further the Moon is declined from the Ecliptick as happens in her quarters when for that reason the waters are also at their lowest That these two Lights are accidental causes of the intention of the Oceans force and daily augmentation of its waters is plain enough and their mutual concurrence to the effecting of the same effect we have confirmed beyond all doubting whereby the absurdity of the Moons compression proposed by Des-Cartes and so disagreeing with his own position of the nature of the air is likewise set before you The Moon near her Conjunction makes very high waters because conversing with the hot rayes of the Sun sends down a great number of the foresaid bodies and not because she is impregnated with the light of the Sun whereby she should be grown more potent to excite vapours and exhalations This is ridiculous for we find other bodies to be swelled near that time not only through exhalations raised out of themselves but particularly through particles demitted by the conveyance of the air into their pores The like happens although in a weaker manner when the Moon is in her full Aspect because of her nearer approximation to the Ecliptick But much more in a Lunar Eclipse because she is then found directly in the Ecliptick And most of all yea twice higher than ordinary at the Full Moon of March and September because the Sun being then in the AEquinoxial and most directly over the torrid Zone under which the greatest body of the Ocean floats and the Moon in the same way near the Ecliptick must needs joyntly cause a vast decidence of the forenamed bodies intending and augmenting the waters Or to declare the matter plainer to you The continuation of the Seas Motion forward is not only depending upon the pulsion of succeeding parts bending by refraction naturally forward but also by a kind of attraction or suction of preceding parts thus Suppose the Earth to be excavated into certain great cavities like to great pipes whereof of those that are formed from the East towards the West by the South the furthermost are alwaies deeper and longer than those which are nearest to the East Likewise conceive such Cavities framed in the same proportion to one another from West back again to the East by the North Now I say that the deepest and furthermost cavity must alwaies attract the water out of the shallower and lesser in the same manner as the longer pipe of a sucker a Siphon as some do call it must attract all the moisture of the shorter because the parts of water being continuous and consequently cleaving to one another the lesser part must follow and yield to the greater the which through its crastitude being pressed forwards must also draw the lesser part after Since then the water is no sooner arrived into one cavity but is thence drawn into another hence it is that this tumefaction of waters is not sensible to us in the Ocean
The number of these cavities we must suppose to be fifteen on each half of the terrestrial Globe because the Sea doth in every periodical compounded course make thirty stations or so many tumefactions by which it must needs work it self into so many cavities This supposed it doth infer another assumption viz. That since the Ocean moves over so many borders or shelves of cavities it must necessarily move in Bores A Bore or more properly a Bare is a tumefaction of water underneath moving very swift and elevating the waters atop into a tumefaction proportionable to it underneath An example of Bores you have in the River of Seyne and many other Rivers where great shallows obstruct the floud of the waters underneath But of this more hereafter The Ocean then moving in a great bore must raise a tumefaction wherever it passeth This tumefaction being originally in the middle parts causes the floud by sending a proportion of waters falling through their gravity from the top to the sides as being lower situated to the coasts on both sides which it passeth Hence we may collect that where ever the borders of the foresaid cavities do respect the Coasts there the Inhabitants must have a swise appulse of the floud The Ebbe is nothing else but the waters returning from the sides to the middle parts being left lower through the recess of the Oceans bore or tumefaction but this by the way It is most certain that the Western Ocean directs its waves towards the East but whence this continual course of water is supplied may justly be doubted and although the Eastern Ocean doth constantly flow towards the West yet how and where Mar del Nort meets with Mar del Zur remains to be made to appear Their visible communication through the straits of Magallan or of Le maire or the straites of Martin Forbisher and of Anjan cannot be imagined to conduce any thing considerable towards the presupposed evacuation that of Magallan little exceeding a League in breadth or above 10 or 12 fathom in depth besides the many turnings and windings and length of near 110 or 120 Leagues hindering any considerable course of water The others not much surpassing these either in breadth or depth seem to conduce as little But to make the course clear beyond all dispute the West-Indian Earth is boared through deep underneath by the former compression of the Ocean through which immense perforation the great bore of the Sea enjoys a free passage and rowles along under the Peruvian Ocean By means of this vast perforation the Indian Earth is much elevated and in most places hath acquired the full height which it obtaineth being clome up atop the Sea by many Leagues whence it is that the Land by far overlooking the Ocean doth appear to Mariners three or fourscore Leagues off at Sea CHAP. VIII Of the course of the Sea towards the polar Coasts 1. What the Libration of the Ocean is That the Tides are not occasioned by Libration The Navil of the World Whence the Seas move towards the North Polar Why the Ebb is stronger in the Narrow Seas than the Floud and why the Floud is stronger than the Ebb in the Ocean Why the Irish Seas are sorough 2. Why the Baltick Sea is not subjected to Tides The rice of the East Sea or Sinus Codanus 3. The cause of the bore in the River of Seyne 4. The causes of the courses of the Mediterranean The rice of this Sea I. HItherto we have followed the main course of the Ocean Westward In the next place let us cast an eye towards the Northern coasts where we shall meet the Sea rowling contrarily now from the South to the North then from the North back again towards the South This contrariety must not perswade us although authorized with Scaligers subtility that the Sea is an Animal neither need we to lay hold upon that notion of the Libration of the universal waters for to salve this doubt However I will not think it much to tell you the meaning of it The Libration of the Ocean is the projection of its parts from the Center to the Circumference through a diurnal fermentation raised by the torrid rayes of the Sun or according to Libavius his droling through a diurnal-egurgitation of water out of a bottomless pit of the Ocean called its navil and projected toward its extream parts As this kind of spouting should be the cause of the floud so its returning back into the Earths tun belly or the cessation of the foresaid fermentation should be the cause of the Oceans reflux from the said parts be they Northern or Southern c. The exposition it self of this subject will evert its supposed reality for if such a fermentation were granted the Ocean must at one and the same time move to all the points of the Compass and at the same time return from the same points to the Center But what expert Mariner is there that will not testifie otherwise And where is this Center Possibly in the torrid Zone between Madagascar and Los Romeros where a very strong tide is generally observed but not moving Eastward and Westward at one time if so no Ship could pass without yielding her self to the bottom Neither can Libavius his fansie be admitted because such a Gurges spouting out would cast Ships from it at one time into all parts with an unimaginable force and likewise would attract Ships from those parts back again with no less force and swallow them down into her belly That these properties would necessarily accompany such a vast Whirl-Pool is proved by that dangerous Whirl-Pool in the North sea near the coasts of Norway by Mariners called the Navil of the world through its egurgitation casting Ships to a great distance from it and through its ingurgitation drawing them from the same distance into her throat These Hypotheses insisting upon no sparke of appearance we are forced to make choice of our precedent one whereby to demonstrate the different flowing and ebbing of these narrow Seas towards and from the Septentrional Polar There be few but knows that the Narrow Seas undergo a gradual tumefaction a rowling up of their waters being withal very swift and arriving successively from one coast to another as also a successive detumescence and decurrence of the said waters Now the reason why these waters do not accompany the Ocean from the East towards the West is their shallowness and inclosure between narrow borders For the bore of the Ocean coming rowling down the AEthiopian Ocean towards Mar del Nort is discontinued as it were in its depth through the shallow bottom of the polar Seas and therefore doth only give them a cast or throw in passing For the bore arriving and swelling gradually doth through that gradual swelling squeeze the shallow polar seas towards the Poles in passing by notwithstanding continuing its course Westward The bore being passed the Ocean beginneth to wax detumescent whereby the shallow waters being deserted
waters of the straits of Gibraltar or the Pillars of Hercules inwards This impulse of the waters inwards is much stronger at the intumescence of the Ocean but weak at the detumescence nevertheless the current of the Sea runs constantly inwards because of the constant diurnal course of the Ocean from East to VVest so that this constant current into the Pillars of Hercules is an Herculean argument confirming the constant diurnal motion of the Ocean That which causeth the floud or intumescence here is the Ocean impelling the Sea strongly underneath at its intumescence The cause of the detumescence is the water falling from underneath the Mediterranean into the universal Cavern because of the detumescence of the Ocean Moreover observe the property of the ebbing and flowing of this Sea Through the intumescence the water is impelled Eastward as well near the shores as in the middle Through the detumescence or waters falling from underneath the waters of the shores do fall towards the central or middle parts of that Sea yet somewhat westward because the Sea doth fall from underneath westward and notwithstanding the detumescence doth the middle of the Mediterranean float constantly inwards although but weakly because of the aforesaid impulse Hence it appears that the Mediterranean is an exact emblem of all the motions befalling the Ocean Touching its original it is certain that the Ocean did not form its Cavern through its constant motion because were it so that Sea would be largest at its mouth as having withstood the first violence of the Ocean 2. Because it is situated out of the reach of the course of the Ocean floating alwaies westward 3. VVhere this Sea communicates with the Ocean it seems rather to be its ending than the mouth of its narrowness and it is very probable that near the creation the extremity of Spain and the Kingdom of Fez joyned in an Istmus which since through violence of the Ocean and the pressure of the Mediterranean is bored through The rice then of this Sea must be adscribed to the peregrin Element of water breaking out of the Earth through the concussion of the third Division which afterwards was contained within a great rent or Sinus of the Earth Neither did the Euxian Sea derive its original from the Mediterranean because of the narrowness of the Channel through which they have access to each other But this with most great Lakes of the World as the Maotis Haneygaban c. were formed through accidental protrusions of the peregrin Element of water as you shall read in the next Chapter Among the various courses of the Sea we must not forget the inserting the causes of currents whose waters although communicating with the Ocean do notwithstanding make choice of a distinct motion varying withall at certain seasons Thus Mariners observe a strong current from Cabo Delgado towards the Cape of Good Hope streaming Southwest and another floating westward from Cabo das correntes to the River Aguada of Boapaz Near Aguada de San Bras the current runs towards the Land The cause is the different position and degree of depth of their Cavity which varying from that of the Ocean do suffer their waters to be squeezed to a different course Neither must any imagine that the wind is the principal cause of these currents and much less of the universal Tides of the Ocean because the stronger the wind blowes against them the stronger they float against the wind CHAP. IX Of Inundations 1. Of the rice of the great Gulphs of the Ocean The causes of Inundations That the Deluge mentioned in Genesis was not universal The explanation of the Text. 2. The manner of the Deluge That it was not occasioned through the overfilling of the Ocean 3. That there hapned very great Deluges since when and where 4. The effects of the first Deluge 5. Inland Inundations 1. THe Ocean and others of its Arms through their continual violence against the Earth do in time bore great Caverns into her body whence the great Gulphs of Bengala Persia Arabia Mexico most great Bayes and straits took their beginning and no wonder since they were moulded by the strong stream of the Ocean floating westward Neither is the Ocean satisfied of the Earth for possessing the Center for which they have both an equal claim in making such assaults upon her but is still striving to enter and begin new irruptions into her whereby it oft grows victorious of some of her Plains as appears by those frequent inundations sustained in England particularly that of Somersetshire extending to 20 miles in length and 15 in breadth whose fury had drowned several Towns and swallowed up many hundreds of men some making their escape upon deales and pieces of Timber of Houses that were washt away Rabbets fled their lodges and got atop Sheeps backs swimming as long as they could for their lives Corn and straw floated up and down in abundance being filled with Rats and Mice endeavouring their escape besides a great number of dead creatures that were seen adrift Holland many places of Asia Africa c. Among these none was ever more furious than the Deluge hapning in the year of the Creation 1656 mentioned in the seventh Chapter of Genesis whose eminence above the Earth reached to 15 Cubits destroying all living Creatures except some few only that had thitherto fed upon the fruits of the ground I must not forget here to rectifie Peoples judgments perswading themselves that this Inundation should have been universal I grant it was universal in two respects 1. To all the Earth that was inhabited by the Patriarchs and their Tribes 2. In respect to the universal damage and loss for it had destroyed all that was upon Earth excepting those that were miraculously preserved for the preservation and use of the race of Man But pray can any one rationally conceive that the height of 15 Cubits of water above those hills of Asia should have exceeded the tops of all the mountains of the world What proportion is there between those hills 15 Cubits and the Peak of Taeneriffe the Mount Venpi in Queticheu or Jekin in Chingutu or Kesing Mung Hocang Juntay Loyang Kiming where they are nine daies in getting up to the top Funghoan being all Mountains of China reaching higher than the lower clouds The Olympas Athos or those high Mountains upon the West-Indian Coasts No more than there is between a man and a steeple Or is it probable that forty daies rain should drown the whole World when a whole six months rain falling every Winter upon the East-Indies scarce increaseth the intumescence of the Ocean But observe the scope of the Scripture Gen. 7. 18. And the waters prevailed greatly and were greatly increased upon the earth c. Here the divine Text seemeth to intend nothing further than a great prevailing and increase of the waters which could effect little more than a partial Inundation for otherwise to have caused an universal one none less than
the greatest prevailing and increase of waters would have sufficed Wherefore the words of ver 19. viz. And all the Hills that were under the whole heaven were covered are to be understood only of all the hills that were covered by the whole heaven described by their Horizon And still in the popular speech when we say the whole heaven we mean no more than the Horizon that is as far as we can see round about us II. Next let us consider the manner of this great Deluge 1. It was not caused through the irruption of the Ocean into the earth because then the said Deluge would have been extreamly sudden viz. in six hours time the floud must have brought in the waters and it must have left a large Gulph where it brake in Neither was the Sea high enough to have made such an assault 2. The beginning of it was taken as the Text holds forth v. 11 12. From the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the windows of heaven and the violent rain These sudden impetuous tempests must needs have caused a great astonishment and anguish upon those who had so justly deserved The breaking up of the Fountains were the bursting of the peregrin Elements contained within the bowels of the earth especially of water air and fire out of the great deep that is the vast Mediterranean Sea by men of that Age called and accounted the great deep The great occasion of this bursting out of the waters were 1. The heavy innixe of earth in the shallows of the Mediterranean pressing the waters underneath from its Center 2. The air and fire forced through the earth of the said shallows to pass to their own Element 3. The tearing winds sent down through the opening of the windows of heaven which piercing the pores of the earth contributed not a little to the stirring up of the air and fire contained within the earth and to the vibration of the terrestrial Mass. 4. The impetuous showers of rain breaking down and dividing the earth Through this tempest the waters of the Mediterranean got above the earth and a great proportion of the tract of air brake into the earth having so fair an opportunity as at the nick of bursting to get nearer to the Center But being inclosed by water separated from its Element was by the potent compression of the said water forced to return whereby the waters must necessarily be much tumefied listed up and cast out of their mole whence they were constrained to float over the earth but the air being most returned the rain restrained and the winds directed to pass over the earth the waters setled and retired into their Cavern leaving the earth very much disposed to germination of plants and so the stopping up of the Fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven was accomplished III. Not many years after there hapned another deluge somewhat less than the former caused through the bursting up of those waters that now constitute the Mare majus or Euxiun Sea and the Lake Maeotis Some hundred years after another deluge came upon Persia and Tartary by the bursting up of the Hircanian or Caspian Sea The West-Indians have successively retained in their memory a great Inundation which they imagine was universal came upon them through the bursting up of the Lake Haneygaban or Perime in Guiana Through these before-mentioned deluges a great part of the Island Cea half of the Town Tyndarida in Sicily Acarnania being drowned in the Gulph of Ambracia and Achaia in the Gulph of Corinsh and other great Countries must have been swallowed up and laid even with the bottom of the said waters as likewise hapned to Pyrrha Antissa Elice Bura and many other places others must have appeared through the thrusting up of that Land in whose stead the waters succeeded This occasioned the new appearances of Delos and Rhodus of Nea situated between Lemnus and the Hollespont of Abone Thera Therasia Hiera and Anaphe IV. Through the said discontinued and unequal bursting up of the waters and breaking of the land Sicily was separated from Italy Cyprus from Syria Besby from Bithynia Atlas and Macria from Euboea Euboea from Boeotia Leucosta from the Sirenian Promontory and many other Islands comprehended within the Mediterranean from the Continent Likewise have many Sea port Towns in Europe been separated from the Continent as witness many Ships that have run a ground upon their steeples and houses Thus in the year 1421 many Towns and Villages of Holland and Freezland were swallovved up by the Sea and the Sea-men to this day are forced to take notice vvhere such and such of their Tovvns vvere drovvned for fear of inhabiting them again The vvaters through their pressing vveight do sometimes decline from one place vvhich they then leave dry to another vvhere they have moulded a deeper Cavern by such an occasion vvere the Islands of Antissa left dry and so united to the Continent of Lesbos Zephyrius to Halicarnassus Ethuso to Mindus Dromiscon and Peres to Miletus Narthecusa to the Parthenian Promontory Hybanda Epidaurus Magnesia and Oricon to the Continent The same hath arrived to many other places namely that some part of a shore hath been deserted through the Seas declination as hapned to the Country about Ambracia Ephesus the Plain of Arabia and above Memphis as far as the AEthiopian Mountains having been all over covered by the Sea in such a manner that Ships vvhich had been cast avvay upon the sands near to that shore vvere after some hundreds of years found some miles off from the Sea deeply covered vvith earth by length of time cast upon them partly from the adjacent hills by the vvind and partly by the heaving up of the sand through the seas diurnal Tides Hence vve may easily knovv vvhence that Mast came that vvas found vvith a Pulley to it sticking out of the top of one of the steep hills of Spitsberg in Greenland near vvhere they usually fish for Whales Before I go further I must convince those of their mistake that state Earthquakes the occasion of the disappearance of some Islands and appearance of others formed through the violent and unequal bursting up of earth 1. Let them take notice that Earthquakes are fresh enough in mens memories in the West-Indies and those great ones too yet they never or very seldom have protruded any Islands there neither is their eruption large enough for to compass such an effect 2. Earthquakes happen most through the Earths belching up of wind that hapned to be inclosed vvithin her belly but it is impossible that a wind should drown a Country or raise an Island Possibly you may reply That together with a wind there oft bursteth out a floud of water I grant it and what is this else but a Deluge Thus many Towns and Villages in Holland and Friesland have been formerly swallowed up by such deluges as their great Lakes are still testimonies of and
cause of the multitude of Hills in some Countries and scarcity in others 8. How it is possible for the Sea to penetrate into the bowels of the earth I. THe opinion of Fountains scattering out of the earth and supplied by waters rained down and collected within Caverns of the earth as it hath vulgarly taken place among many so it is very suspitious experience tells us that many perennal Fountains spring forth out of sandy and every where about dry Mountains whereunto notwithstanding but little is contributed by the moisture of the heavens since the rain falleth but seldom as in AEgypt and other places and the Sun is very hot the Country very dry insomuch that did the rain fall in twice that quantity it would scarce be sufficient to irrigate the soile much less of supplying moisture for Fountains 2. Many Fountains draw their water very deep near a hundred foot yea two or three hundred deep out of the earth Whereas rain seldom penetrates deeper into the earth than ten or eleven foot 3. Some Fountains break forth out of Rocky Mountains which are uncapable of imbibing rain Ergo their rice and continuation are not from rain II. The opinion of Aristotle is much more absurd asserting subterraneous air converted into water to be the cause of Springs since we have formerly made it appear that the conversion of air into water is impossible or were it not it would seem very irrational to suppose the earth to be so hollow as to be capable of containing such an infinite quantity of air as to continuate the course of a Fountain because a great quantity of air condensed as they call it would produce but little more than a drop III. 1. In brief Fountains owe their beginning and continuation to great quantities of water collected within great Caverns of the earth This the diggers of Mines confirm to us who sometime through digging too deep meet with great and sudden burstings out of waters which oft do prove perennal Such mischances have hapned not once in the Coal-pits near Newcastle to the drowning of many a man Moreover there are no great hills but which rest upon great gulphs of water underneath them insomuch that a hill is nothing else but the raising of the earth through a great gulph of water lodging underneath it Hence it is that hills are generally the store-houses of Rivers and their sides or tops their Springs How many slouds of water are there discovered to break out of the sides of several great hills in Kent Surrey and innumerous other places of the world Whence should those pregnant Pewter Mines in Cornwal or Lead Mines in Derbishire and all other Mines in the world be supplied with a sufficient quantity of water for their matter were it not that the hills afforded it out of their Caverns Whereout should all those vast stony and rocky Mountains of the Universe consist but out of water derived from the Earths bowels Whence should those great perennal Rivers that spout forth from under the Alpes and Peruvian Mountains take their rice but from those gulphs of water whereby they are raised to that height Whence should all the water of those great Lakes upon hills arrive As that between the middle of the three tops of the hill Taihu in China whose depth was yet never fathomed and that upon the Mount Jenkin near the City So being of no less depth and near a quarter of a Mile in compass likewise that of Tieuchi near Mien that deep Lake upon the Mount Tienlu called the Lake of the Drake because it is so horrible through its depth and commotion that if any should cast a stone into it it would render a great noise like unto a thunder besides many others in Europe as those in Ireland c. In fine do not all the greatest Rivers of the world viz. Ganges Nilus Senaga Nuba Tana Nieper Morava Garumna Thames c. yea and all others spout out of hills or are they not derived from Lakes Lakes usually are environned by a Plain because those waters which should thrust up hills about them are collected in an open Cavern Notwithstanding are the same waters of Lakes through the ait's pressure forced underneath into the earth where at some distance they do cast up hils for to disburden the earth whereat they spout out Rivers for a Lake is uncapable of it self to spout out a River because being situated low wants force to spout it out from it whereas waters that are protruded and continually impacted and crusht very thick or close into Caverns of hills do by a renitency press against the earth above and below and swallow up the air contained within the said Caverns into their substance and the earth doth reciprocally press against them but the air being thin smooth and glib is at last violently protruded by both their gravities which erupting with a great force and discontinuation of the earth doth make way upwards for the water to be pressed out the easier by the earth with such a force as may square to the protruding of a long River Wherefore it is necessary that Rivers should derive either immediately or mediately from hills Thus immediately the Rhein springs forth out of the Mount Adula aliás Vogel The Danow out of a Mount within the black wood some 6 Leagues off from Tubingen The Necker out of another near the same Town The Garona out of one of the Perinean Mountains The Jaxartes out of the Sogdian Mountains as Ptolomy names them The Dnieper out of some Mountains near Dnieperco The River of Jordan out of two Issues of the Mount Lebanon viz. Jor and Dan both which meeting communicate in one name of Jordan The River Euphrates out of the Mount standing in the midst of the Garden of Eden The Boetis in Spain out of the Mount Orespeda near Castao The Anien out of the Mountains among the Trebani the Zepusium out of some Mountain in Poland and so a million of others Mediately The River of Nile descends out of some Hills that draw their water out of the Lake Zembre The River Niger salies vigorously out of some hills near the Lake Borno whose Caverns are filled the length of threescore Leagues under ground by streams flowing out of a Lake between Guidan and Vangue The River Nuba out of Mountains deriving their water from the Lake Nuba and in like manner many others Touching narrow short Rivers that flow from their head downwards to a low place they may draw their rice immediately from a Lake because they need not that vigour of impulse IV. Holland and Zealand although very rich in water yet are poo◠in Mountains because their ground is so much thorow soakt and masht with water that being changed into a mud it would sooner break into crums than be raised up into hills Wherefore the name of Holland was very aptly imposed upon that Countrey since that underneath it is hollow filled up only with water the
ground swimming atop it in the forme of clay or mud they having little or no sandy ground within their dikes or bankes Hence it appears that towards the constitution of a Hill these conditions must be required 1. A great quantity of water must be bored underneath the Earth for a small quantity would prove invalid to lift it up 2. They must form their Cavern very deep for near the Surface they would sooner break through than raise the earth 3. The ground under which they bore must be very dense dry and sandy for to keep in the water for were it moist or loose it would not rise but sooner break Besides this density and sandiness of the earth doth serve to concentrate and conclomerate the earth into one body whereby it is gradually raised and lifted up From this discourse observe why hills are sandy and dry although containing such a bulk of water underneath them viz. because of the closeness or density of the minima's or sands of the earth compelling the water under them 2. The reason why all hills do not emit fountains of water is because the water is lodged very deep under them or because of the extream density of their terrestrial minima's V. This cannot but confute that improbable opinion asserting hills to be formed through the violence of the waters after the Deluge carrying great pieces of the earth along with them in returning to their receptacle another reason against this is because great torrents tumbling down with a tempestuous fury and causing an Inundation or Deluge wherever they touch scarce leave any sign of inequality of the earth behind them 2. Here may then be demanded from them how and whence those hills before or after the Deluge of Noah or of Ogâ—ges or Deucaleon it is the same received their formation Hills there were before for besides the Bible Josephus Abydenus Berosus and others make mention of a very high hill in Armenia major called Barin by others Chardaeus whereupon a pious man should have saved himself in an Ark. So Ovid speaks of the Mount Parnassus whose height should have preserved Deucaleon with his wife Pyrrha from the rage of the Deluge Others to save the matter have conceited the Stars to have attracted lumps out of the earth and so raised them into hills but this opinion is so absurd that it needs no confutation The Vulgar observing most hills to be sandy do beyond all reproof believe that they are nothing else but congestions of sand or earth heaped up by the winds I shall not think it much to insert their judgment touching a very high hill in Holland situated a mile off from the Hague towards Shiveling and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called the High Clift which about a hundred years ago they say was of that height that one might have washt his hand in the clouds upon the top of it but now is diminisht to one third to what it was and I my self can remember that it was much higher than now it is The cause of this diminution they adscribe to the winds blowing down the sands out of which they say all those small hills that are about it were formed But to rectifie their apprehensions who can rationally judge that winds are forcible enough to remove hills of that weight and bigness or that winds should be strong enough to heap up such a Mountain Any one would sooner imagine the winds to blow them down If then winds have not the power to raise a Mountain certainly they are too weak to pull one down Or thus If winds be so powerful why did they not blow down such hils before they came to that height 2. Hills in many Islands of the West-Indies are raised much higher where the winds are much more out ragious Wherefore the cause of the diminution of the fore-mentioned High Clift must be adscribed to the removal of the water underneath whereby the hill doth gradually sink and grow lesser and boring further into several places about hath raised those other hills VI. But since hills are so numerous Lakes and Rivers not scarce a disquisition must be made whence and how such a vast quantity of water doth redound within the bowels of the earth The peregrin Element of water within the earth bears no proportion of affording a competent moisture towards the casting up of so many monstrous Mountains or scattering such large perennal Fountains and Rivers or of depressing the Surface of the earth by such vast Lakes Wherefore I say nothing appears full enough to effuse such dimensions of water but the Ocean alone whose belly being oppressed with an inexhaustible plenitude is constantly irritated to vomit up its superfluities into the weaker and lower parts of the earth Reason will incline us to this truth that must be the original of waters whereinto they are disburdened for otherwise if the Sea did retain all those waters evacuated by Rivers it would manifestly increase but since it doth not it is an argument that the Sea expels as much as it receives but that is the Ocean Ergo. 2. Many Lakes Fountains and Rivers although remote from the lips of the Sea do notwithstanding participate of the flowing and ebbing thereof as that Fountain in the Island Gades another near Burdeaux c. ergo the sea doth press water thither 3. The divine words of Solomon confirm the same to us Eccl. 1. 7. Unto the Place from whence the Rivers come thither do they return again but that is into the Sea Ergo. 4. The ancient Church-men do also subscribe to this viz. Isidor lib. 3. de Orig. Cap. 20. Basil. Hom. 4. Hex Jerom upon Eccles. 1. Damasc. lib. 2. de sid orth c. 9. Hugo de S. Vict. upon Gen. Dionys. upon Prov. 8. c. The manner of the Seas conveyance or passage to the innermost parts of the earth is by screwing pressing and penetrating through the lowermost parts for there the Sea is most potent exercising its weight refracted to the sides whereas atop it is too weak or were it strong enough it would break forth before it had passed any considerable way Besides its own weight the saltness of the Sea doth very much conduce to the intending of its force for those salin particles are apt to undergo a dividing and cutting pressure VII Places that are bordering upon the Sea are alwaies and every where cast up into high hills or mountains because they receive the first impulse of the Sea waters pressing underneath Hence it is that every where about the Coasts are encompassed by hills Mountains are oft higher and greater within the Land than near the Sea because they are raised by the meeting of great quantities of water impelled from two Seas So the Alpes are cast up by the water impelled from the Venetian Gulph of the one side and the Tyrrhenian Sea of the other both meeting under them The Peak of Teneriffe is thrust up to the height of threescore miles through casting up all that
ground into whose room a great depth of water is succeeded undermining it all about The Island Ferro is not irrigated atop with any fluent moisture as Lake River or Springs except only with the abundant droppings of a tree drawing moisture from a great depth or by collecting the dew of the air which sufficeth to quench the thirst of all the Inhabitants and their Cattel because consisting throughout of high Mountains their sand lying very close deep and heavy doth detain the water underneath them The earth is much more depressed under the torrid Zone and as much more raised towards the Poles because the Ocean being gathered into a vast body under the forementioned Zone depresseth all the land under it and near to it with one collected and united force of weight towards the Poles which doth undoubtedly assure me that under both Poles Artick and Antartick the firm land doth stick out far above the waters And questionless Greenland is protracted quite throughout the Northern polar Region The Mountain Serra Leona in AEthiopia bearing up to the height of the clouds wherewith the top is alwaies beset although raised within the torrid Zone is suffulted by a great gulph collected through the meeting of two or more parts of the Sea under ground And whole Africa seems to be inflated into high mountains from the limits of AEgypt until the farthest part of the Atlantick mountain through communication of Lakes which again arise out of the concourse of waters propelled from the Mediterranean Eruthrean AEthiopian and Atlantick Seas Arabia is likewise lofty through hills vaunting upon waters immitted from the Persian and Arabian Gulphs Muscovia and Lithuania are for the greater part Champian Countries because their soil is too much soakt for to be raised up into hills 2. By reason of the multiplicity of Lakes and Rivers through which the subterraneous waters are vented Sweden Norway Scania are very abundantly watered with Lakes and Rivers the Sea upon those Coasts exceeds in depth the length of Ships Cables The reason is because those waters are very much intended in their pressure downwards through the vast number of cold and frosty minima's raining down from the North Pole VIII Before I digress from the subject of this Chapter I am only to shew you the possibility of Marin waters their pressure out from the depth of the Ocean in to the innermost parts of the earth This I shall easily accomplish in mentioning that the force of fresh waters within the land have moulded through the ground the length of many Leagues if so the same is much more possible to salt water The River Niger bores through a heavy dense and deep ground the length of 60 miles before it evacuates it self into the Lake Borno The River Nuba doth likewise force a Cavern many miles long into the earth The Spaniards vaunt excessively of a long Bridge whereon ten thousand Goats and Sheep reap their pasture and is nothing else but the passing of the River Anas alias Guadiana the dimension of 8 or 9 Leagues underground beginning to disappear near Medelina The Tigris runs her self under ground on one side of the mount Taurus and comes up again on the other side and beyond the Lake Thorpes hides it self again within the earth 18 miles further Camden in his Britannia makes observation of the River Mole in Surrey diving under ground near white hill and appearing again a mile or two thence near Letherhed bridge Historians tell us that the Alphaeus floats secretly under ground as far as Sicily where with its appearance makes choice of a new name viz. Arethusa famous for gulping up of offals that had been cast into the Alphaeus at the Olimpick Games usual every fifth year The Danow runs some miles under ground before it flows into the Sava Upon the top of the mount Stella is a certain Lake near 12 Leagues distant from the Sea which oft vomits up wracks of Ships that were cast away at Sea CHAP. XII Of the causes of the effects produced by Fountains 1. Whence some Fountains are deleterious The cause of the effect of the Fountain Lethe of Cea Lincystis Arania The causes of foecundation and of rendring barren of other Fountains The causes of the properties of the Fountain of the Sun of the Eleusinian waters of the Fountains of Illyrium Epyrus Cyreniaca Arcadia the Holy Cross Sibaris Lycos of the unctious Fountain of Rome and Jacobs Fountain 2. The causes of the effects of Ipsum and Barnet Wells 3. Whence the vertues of the Spaw waters are derived 4. Of the formal causes of Baths 1. THe Fountains of Thrace Arcadia Sarmatia Armenia Lydia and Sicilia are deleterious through the permixtion of crude arsernical juyces transpiring out of the earth The same causes operate the same effects in the Founts of Wolchenstein Valentia Berosus c. The Lethe of Boeotia owes its effects to crude Mercurial vapours immixt within its substance Another in the same Countrey produceth a contrary effect through a succinous exhalation The Fountains of Cea and Susae differ little in causality from the Lethe The Lincystis inebriates the brain through repletion by sulphurous exhalations The Fountain of Arania makes use of crude nitrous juyces for the accomplishing of its effects The Fountain which Solinus affirms to conduce to foecundity must be a thorowly attenuated and well concocted water like to that of the Nile The other opposite to this in operation must be very Saturnal A sulphureous Nitre or a mixture of Sulphur and Nitre into one close juyce dispersed through the waters of the Fountain of the Sun among the Garamantes renders them very cold in the day time because the Nitre then predominating condenseth and incrassates the waters the more because its sulphureous parts which do otherwise rarefie them are through the Suns beams extracted disunited and dispersed Whereas in the night season the sulphureous parts benâ—g united through the condensing cold of the night and condensation of the nitrous particles turn into an internal flame causing that fervent heat The Eleusinian waters are irritated to a fermentation of heterogeneous mineral juyces through the percussion of the air by a sharp musical string whereby through continuation the waters are likewise percussed and its contenta stirred In the same manner is the next related fountain cast into an exestuation through the shrill acute vibrating and penetrating percussion of the air by the lips whereas the walking about stirring the air but obtusely cannot effect such a penetrative or acute motion The Fountain of Illyrium contains secret Vitriolat sulphureous flames within its substance whereby it proves so consuming The Fountains of Epyrus and Cyreniaca vary in heat by reason of the greater or lesser dispersing and rarefying or uniting and condensing of their sulphureous flames Springs remain cool in the Summer through the rarefaction of their fiery spirits exhaling and passing out of the ground in the Summer they produce a small warmth through the condensation of their igneous
particles in the Winter That Fountain of Arcadia exerciseth such a penetrable concentrating force upon Gold and Silver through the quantity and strength of its nitrous spirits which are only obtused by a Mules hoof through the Lentor and obtuseness of its body and therefore may easily be contained in it The Fountain of the Holy Cross appears red through the admixture of red bole The overflowing of Fountains for a certain space depends upon the pressure of a greater quantity of water thither which in the Summer time may prove more copious through the attenuation of the water and rarefaction of the earth The reason of their detumescence after their repletion is the waters further impression towards other parts or repression thither whence they came through the expiration of the air flatuosities out the mouths of the Fount whence the earths gravity depresseth them back again Those that increase and decrease with the course of the Moon or rather of the Ocean vary through the change of the universal Tides of which hath been sufficiently treated above Touching the Lithopoetick vertue of waters it is much agreeing with that of the earth of which above The Sibaris causeth sneezing through its acre and vitriolat spirits Some waters are apt to change the temperament of the body into a cold or phlegmatick disposition causing the hair of Cattel to be protruded with a faire colour others into a cholerick habit causing the hair to be of a reddish colour The Fountain Lycos is unctious and therefore serveth to burn in a Lamp Whether to adscribe the egurgitation of that oyly Spring discovered near the Incarnation of our Saviour to the collection of unctious exhalations permisted with water or to a miracle both being possible I leave to the inclination of your belief But the disclosing of a false swearer if there be a Fountain of that vertue is an extraordinary impression of God upon the waters Jacobs Fountain changeth in colour and motion through the fermentation of various heteregeneous bodies contained within it II. Wells are distinguished from Fountains in that the former do oft appear in a plain or valley as the foot of a hill are subject to fill up and after to be dried up again Neither do they spout out water with a force like unto Fountains Ipsum and Barnet Wells operate their effects through a thick Chalchantous or Vitriolat juyce which through its sulphureous particles irritates the belly to excretion and through its subtiller spirits to urine By the way you must not imagine that their admixture is right and true Vitriol for in distillation by the colour of the subsidence it doth appear otherwise Neither is the taste a perfect vitriolat taste or their operation so nauseous as Vitriol dissolved in water Besides those juyces are indisposed to concretion into Vitriol since these are more sulphureous and less digested Nevertheless they are somwhat like to Vitriol in taste operation and grayness of colour as being nearest to green Although the main effect is adscribed to a Vitriolat like juyce it hinders not but that some Ferrugineous and Aluminous juyces may be commixt with them Tunbridge waters are impregnated with a thin chalchantous spirit wherby they are usually pierced through with the urine except in some delicate fine bodies whose bellies partake likewise of their effect III. Among the Spaw waters as Pouhont and Savenier agree in vertue with those of Tunbridge so likewise in their causes And Geronster with Ipsum Nevertheless Hendricus van Heer doth not forbear lib. de Acid. Spadan cap. 5. imputing their effects to red Chalck which he found together with some Oker and a little Vitriol upon the bottom of the body of the Still after distillation of the waters I wonder how he guessed those substances so readily which had nothing in them like to the said bodies but their colour Besides the red chalck he named the mother of Iron A wise saying In effect those subsidences were nothing else but the caput mortuum of the forementioned chalchantous juyces whose subtiller parts being abstracted and exhaled left the courser insipid like to what the caput mortuum of Vitriol useth to be But pray who ever knew â—ed Chalck or Oket to be eccoprotick or diuretick Particularly he found Geronster to leave dregs which being cast upon a red hot Iron would not yield to liquefaction Ergo it must be steel he concluded Neither would his Oker or Chalk have melted presently because they were deprived of their Sulphur But will the infusion of Steel purge by stool and urine like those waters Certainly no. Ergo their purgative ingredient must have been a crude chalchantous juyce Fallopius beyond him attests to have found Alume Salt green Vitriol Plaister Marble and chalk in those waters which they cal Physical waters a meer guess these partaking in nothing but colour and scarce that with the forenamed Minerals Doubtless nature had never intended them for such bodies Touching the commistions of these juyces with the waters they do immediately mix with them as soon as they are exhaled out of the earth which had they been intended for those pretended kind of Minerals nature would have lockt them up in a matrix IV. Baths derive their natures from the actual hidden flames of a thick and dense sulphureous and chalky matter the proportion of which do cause a greater or lesser ebullition The waters of the Rivers descending out of the Alpes breed such congestions under the throat through a permixture of coagulating and incrassating particles to wit of nitrous juyces Touching the other properties of Rivers we have already treated of them and therefore judge their repetition needless CHAP. XIII Of the various Tastes Smells Congelation and Choice of Water 1. Various tastes of several Lakes Fountain and River waters 2. The divers sents of waters 3. The causes of the said tastes That the saltness of the Sea is not generated by the broyling heat of the Sun The Authors opinion 4. The causes of the sents of Waters 5. What Ice is the cause of it and manner of its generation Why some Countries are less exposed to frosts than others that are nearer to the Line 6. The differences of frosts Why a frost doth usually begin and end with the change of the Moon 7. The original or rice of frosty minims Why fresh waters are aptest to be frozen How it is possible for the Sea to be frozen 8. What waters are the best and the worst the reasons of their excellency and badness I. VVAter besides its own natural taste of which we have spoken above is distinguished by the variety of adventicious tasts viz. some are sharp and sowre as the Savenier Tunbridge waters and those near Gopingen in Suevia and others near Lyncestus in Macedonia Others are of a sweet taste as the water of the River Himera in Sicily Those of the River Liparis have a fat taste Some waters in the Isles Andros Naxos and Paphlagonia do taste like wine The
salin ones IV. Sents are materiated out of the subtiller parts of the matter effecting tastes wherefore all waters that are discernable by tastes emit their subtiller parts for sents but of this abundantly before whither I must direct my Reader V. Ice is water congealed or incrassated indurated or rather reduced to its natural state That which congeales the water or reduces it to its natural state is the absence or expulsion of those Elements that render it fluid viz. fire and air These are expelled by frosty minima's falling down from the Poles and compressing or squeezing them both out of the body of water whence it is also that all waters swell through the frost viz. through their repletion with the said minima's These are nothing but Unites or points of earth adunited to so many unites of water freed within their body from all air and fire and detruded from the Polars towards the earth whither they are vigorously forced down in a very close order into the Surface of the waters where arriving they press out the air and fire which being expelled the superficial parts of the water cleave naturally to one another about those frosty minima's The first beginning of a frost is taken from the first decidence of frosty minima's which in their passing cause a vehement compression and lighting upon our tact make us give them the name of cold because they compress our external parts with a smart continuous compression thence falling upon the water if in a smal quantity only do thicken it a little if in a greater do forcibly expel the air and fire which being expelled a concretion of the water near its Surface must naturally follow If now it grows no colder and that these minima's fall in no greater quantity the Ice continues at a stand but if otherwise then it proceeds to a greater induration and a larger concretion And the deeper the waters do thicken the more acute the cold must be or the greater quantity of acute and dense minima's must follow for to further and continuate the said concretion because unless they are acuter than the former they will not be minute enough to pass the small porosities remaining in the Surface of the Ice Ice swimmeth atop the water as long as it freezeth not because it is less weighty for it is heavier but because its continuity and concretion together with the support of the air tending from the ground of the waters towards its own Element do detain it When it thawes the Ice sinks down because it is somewhat discontinued and melted and by reason of the same proportion of air descending and bearing down upon it that was ascended before Notwithstanding the thaw people do oft complain of a great cold two or three daies after and especially in their feet which is nothing else but the same frosty minima's repassing out of the earth and water towards the Element of air for to give way to the melting entring air and fire The frosty minima's that begin to fall with a red Evening sky denoting the clearness of the air and passage do oft bring a furious cold with them because finding no obstruction they fall very densely and acutely upon us but those that fall through a cloudy air seldom cause violent colds because they are partly detained by the same clouds Hence it is that most Countries that are beset with water as Islands peninsuls c. and thence attain to a nebulous air are warmer than other Countries although the former be remoter from the Ecliptick than these because their clouds obstruct and detain a part of the frosty minima's and break the rest in their motion downwards Whence it is also that England is less cold in the Winter than most parts of France or Germany although both are of a less Northern declination than it The same clouds do likewise in the Summer break the violence of the fiery minima's descending whence it is also less hot here than in the forementioned places no wonder then if Geographers do so much extoll this Island for the temperature of its Climate VI. This language is supplied with a very apt distinction of frosts viz. a black frost a gray and a white frost The first of these is felt to be of the greatest fury insomuch that if it proveth for any time lasting it deads the roots of young plants and old trees kills all Vermine and penetrates through the very periostium of Animals and depth of Rivers It derives its violence from the extream number of the descending frosty minima's whose density makes the Skies even look black again A gray frost is between a black and white one consisting likewise of a dense proportion of descending minima's A white frost is the incrassation of vapours in the lowermost region of the air Among these a black frost is of the least continuance because the frosty minima's tumbling down in such vast quantities are soon purged out of the air Here may be inquired why a frost usually begins and ends with the change of the Moon For solving of this you must observe that the causes of the decidence are 1. Their great number 2. Their congregating or congress Touching the first unless their number is proportionable to bore and press through the clouds and resistance of the air they are uncapable of descension for to cause a congelation and although their number be great and dispersed they are nevertheless retained through the over-powering of the clouds Wherefore it is necessary a great quantity should be united into heaps and so make their way through To these principal causes add this adjuvant one viz. The compression of the Moon she at her changes driving the frosty minima's more forcibly towards the Poles through which impulsion they are withal thrusted one upon the other and united into a body whence it is that they at those times do oft take their beginning of decidence Again the Moon near the same terms impelling the clouds and thick air thither doth prove as frequent an occasion of dispersing those frosty minima's especially if much diminished of their body through preceding decidencies Moreover these frosty minima's although they are sometimes broken dispersed in their decidence through the said impulses yet sometimes they do recover a body and make a new irruption downwards And thence it is that oft times a frost holds for a day or two then thaws for as long and afterwards returns to freezing again VII In the next place I am to set down the original and rice of these frosty minima's You may easily apprehend that the Sun in the Torrid Zone and somewhat in the temperate one doth dayly raise a vast number and quantity of vapours consisting of most water then air next fire and earth which through the diurnal motion of the air are carried along from East to West And through daily successions of new vapours they are compelled to detrude their preceding ones towards the Poles whither they seem
most to tend through the disposition of water and earth contained within those vapours and the greater force of the heavens driving them towards the Poles as the weaker places for there motion is least observed where being arrived are by the privative coldness of that Region assisted to free themselves of the fire and air the water now cleaving to the earth and divided into millions upon millions of minima's make up a dense body whence through the depression of the air they are devolved down to the earth Waters that are least in motion less fiery and aerial are most disposed to concretion Hence fresh waters are aptest to be frozen Whereas the Sea is seldom reduced to concretion because of its continual motion expelling the frosty minima's as fast as they are received or precipating them to the bottom or by melting their body through the fiery salin and aerial particles contained within it Notwithstanding is the Sea reduced to concretion in some Climates viz. within the Polars where you have the Oceanus Glacialis or Icy Ocean whose Ice is in some places 60 or 80 fathom deep in others reaching from the bottom of the Sea to the top insomuch that the tops of many of those Icy mountains stick out as far above the Surface of the liquid Sea as the same Sea is deep underneath The properties of that Ice is to be clear and transparent like glass Herodotus doth likewise make mention of the freezing of the Bosphorus so Beda lib. de natur rer c. 9. writes that within a daies sail from the Isle Tyle towards the North the Sea is frozen Olans Magn. tells us of the Gothiek Sea being frozen But this hapneth because the Sea thereabout may be deprived of its saltness yea some assert that those mountains of Ice are most fresh water concreased which being precipitated to the bottom through the density of the frosty minima's constantly descending like showers under the Pole the remaining Surface of fresh water is soon congealed Before I close this Paragraph I shall only adde the cause of a strange passion befalling the Glacial Sea where sometimes of a sudden and in a moment a whole mountain of Ice is melted away causing a dangerous current subverting or carrying away many a ship and yet the frost continueth The cause of this is not the broyling and melting heat of the Sun for the Sun is never so kind there but the union of those fiery salin particles precipitated as we told you above by the frosty minims down into the mud whence working or bursting with an united condensed force upwards do occasion such sudden degelations VIII Lastly Waters in respect of wholsomness differ very much in excellency and choice Spring water and those of Rivers are commended above others of Pools Lakes and Pit waters because these latter through their standing still contract a muddiness and filth out of the earth and sometimes noxious particles co gulated out of exhalations transpiring out the said mud besides that they are disposed to putrefactions through the abundance of peregrin bodies protruding venomous herbs and generating Toads Frogs Leeches Snails Eeles and other filthy Insects Snow waters are no less noxious than the former because of their crudity nitrosity and thickness Waters gathered and kept in a Leaden Cistern through Leaden or Tin spouts are crude and windy because they descend out of the cold region of the air Moreover as Galen doth well except they contract a pernicious quality from the Lead Wherefore Fountain or River waters carry the bell before them all but which of these two excells the other we must next distinguish Fountain waters as they spring out of the mountains are yet filled with wind and earthy minima's and therefore must yield to River waters I mean such as are derived from a Fountain In these the waters through their rapid streams depose those earthy crude and windy bodies which they brought along with them out of the Fountains Cavern and are attenuated and clarified through the Sun beams and lastly depose their dregs into the earth through being strained through its dense and clear sands And among these there is a great difference those that take their rice from a standing water or a Lake and flow through a muddy ground are much inferiour to many fountain waters But others that stream rapidly from a bright fountain and take their course through a pure sandy or gravelly ground and meet the East Sun are the best River waters in hot Countries where the air is clear are preferred before others in cold Climats Hence Rivers of a Continent take place before those of an Iland because the latter is generally beset with a nubilous air filling the said waters with mud and keeping off the rayes of the Sun from concocting them Wherefore River waters in the Southeast parts of France are esteemed before any in England those of the Southeast parts of Spain before others of the same Continent where the River Tago is much extolled for its wholsomeness of water In Persia the Choaspis affords the best waters In India the Ganges c. The Rivers of Thames affords the best water in England but further up towards the Woodmongers Gallows Oxford not about London where the ground is muddy besides that it is infected by the Tides flowing out of the Sea with many saltish particles dirt dung carkasses c. There must also notice be taken of the rice of a River viz. That it do not spring out of a Mine and of the Countries through which it passeth whether Chalky Gravelly or Clayish Insumma waters that are the lightest thinnest clearest and most limpid of no strong tangue but of a sweet pleasing rellish are the best The weight of waters is known by weighing one with the other in Scales By letting them run through a small sieve or thick close linnen their tenuity is known by dropping them upon a Looking-glass whereof that which drops the least drops and makes the greatest splatch is the subtillest by distillation boyling dissolving Salt or Soape in them by their shaking smalness and number of streams by the swimming of a piece of wood in them viz. that wherein it smimmeth deepest is the lightest and thinnest c. CHAP. XIV Of the commerce of the air with the other Elements 1. How the air moves downwards What motions the Elements would exercise supposing they enjoyed their Center Why the Air doth not easily toss the terraqueous Globe out of its place How the Air is capable of two contrary motions 2. That the Air moves continually from East through the South to West and thence back again to the East through the North. 3. An objection against the airs circular motion answered 4. The Poles of the Air. 5. The proportion of Air to Fire its distinction into three profundities 1. AIr is a debtor for its name to aer in Latine which again to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lift up because it was lifted up as it were
from the Chaos How it was freed from the oppression of the weighty Elements I formerly declared The remainder is to treate briefly of its commerce with the neighbouring Elements viz. with Earth Water and Fire Daily observations make appear to us that a cavity is no sooner ready to open within the Earth or Water but the Air is as ready to strive to enter not only for to fill up that vacuity but out of an eagerness strife and necessity for to gain a Center for its whole body For how can any body enjoy rest without being sustained by a foundation That which is alone apt for such a work is the Center which is a Basis upon which all its parts do rest I prove it The parts of a body being met about the Center cannot use any force or violence against one another because they are of one nature and therefore agree in the same effect Which is of resting about a Center Hence it is That the air besides its own interest being streightned atop through the fires inclination also for to recover its Center doth so much infest pierce attenuate and divide all bodies that lye in the way to its Center and that so vast a proportion of air is entered into the body of water as from a solidity to reduce it to a perfect fluor And although the body of air as I have stated before is of that softness yet through succession of its parts and want of vacuities whereinto to convey it self it cannot yield to any compression into it self but being successively backt by its own parts and those of fire is capable of working the same effects which the hardest body can But now supposing the air to have accomplisht its aime let us inquire what motion it would then exercise Certainly of it self no other but it s continuous lightness whereby it would maintain its parts diffused from its own center into the greatest tenuity imaginable Likewise the other Elements would exercise no other action but the maintenance of their bodies in the greatest density crassitude or rarity and that through the use of their formal contiguous weight continuous weight contiguous levity and as the earth through her concentration would not leave the Circumference although tending hence thither so neither would the light Elements desert their Center although moving thence hither Wherefore let me advertize you in time not to mistake my former definitions of Levity or Gravity implying the former to move from its Center to the Circumference that to move here from the Center is not to leave it but to move thence as from a Basis But now the air being dispossest of its genuine Center is forced to make use of a violent Center situated about the extream parts of the earth and water and thence its parts do take their original to the circumference not leaving their force in the mean while of pressing violently downwards Here may be inquired why the air seeming so far powerful above the earth and water both in extent of compass and energy or activity of parts that its extream subtility should seem more than potent enough to pervade dispossess that small clot of water and earth doth not become victorious I resolve you The energy of the air is much refracted through having its Center upon which all its strength doth consist divided into that dimension which the Circumference of earth and water do make or otherwise it would soon toss that small footbal out of its place and make no more of it than the Heavens may seem to do of the Moon So fire although a great part is flaming and burning hath not the power of invading the earth as many do imagine it would do were the Heavens all a burning fire because it is much more refracted in its Center through the Surface of the air Do we not see that a Durgain is able to wrastle with a great Giant because his low stature doth put him in a capacity of taking the other about the middle where he easily lifts him from his Basis or Center But possibly it may seem strange to you that the air should exercise two contrary motions one upwards and another downwards 2. You may likewise demand how fire can apply any force to earth or water since it is extended into its greatest rarity and possesses a place full large enough to contain its body and consequently is not violently detained To the first I answer That naturally a thing cannot obtain two contrary motions but violently it may As to the second This violence is caused here below 1. Through the incrassation of the air that is water ascending and mingling with the body of air doth force so much of it to strive for another place as it hath taken up of the air which since it cannot procure upwards is forced to effect downwards upon the earth and water and make a violent irruption upon them 2. The air being essentially thin in the second Region as well as it is above must of necessity press down upon the incrassated air because all its parts being to take their suffulsion and Basis from somewhere which it doth from the hither extremity of the air and not proving strong enough to sustain such a force must necessarily depress into the water and earth where neither of these finding themselves strong enough about their surface do necessarily yield and give way to the air pressing downwards for a Basis. The same contrary motion is apparent in a man who is to lift some weight from the ground upwards First he must move all his strength towards his feet which is the Center whereupon this weight must be sustained and lifted up from then doth he reflect all his strength upon that Basis upwards where we observe his center to make a hole into the earth because it is not firm enough to sustain his pressure even so it is with the twofold motion of air which you may easily apply to this in every particular II. The airs innixe being shoved off or refracted through the repercussion of the weighty Elements chooses to turn round that is to bear to the sides rather than to retort into it self And that which irritates this with no obtuse spur is the fire forcing circularly upon the air 2. The universal waters flowing from East to West is no small cause of directing of the airs motion towards the same aime because the air reflecting against the waters flowing from underneath must needs be shoved off thither whither the water flowes I prove it cast a ball from the shore upon a piece of Timber driving down a rapid River its refracted motion will tend towards the drift of the said River 3. The fire moving from East to West and forcing upon the air must beyond all scruple prescribe the air a road in its motion In the next place I prove that the air is agitated in a circular motion 1. If waters that are thick are impelled to a circular
with bodies discontinuating its substance doth press those heterogeneous bodies together into clouds through its vertue of moving to an union and not through its coldness for air of it self where it doth in any wise enjoy its purity is estranged from cold and is naturally rather inclined to warmth The reason why clouds are less apt to concrease where the Sun hath power is because the parts of the air there are weakned through the rarefaction and discontinuation by torrid minima's These clouds according to their mixture vary in continuation viz. some are thicker and more concreased than others which through their greater renixe are propelled from the others of a less renitency Clouds containing much earth and thence rendred dense appear black if they are much expanded according to their diduction they refract the light variously appearing red white blew c. The clouds through their gradual proportion of renitency being disrupted and sinking gradually under one another refract the light of the Sun according to their graduall situation seeming to be illuminated with several and gradual colours whose appearance is called a Rainbow viz. The lower being more thick and dense than the rest refract the light blackish that above it being less dense brownish that above this purple or greenish the other reddish yellowish c. A Rainbow is not seen by us unless we be interposed between the Sun and the Clouds reflecting and refracting that is we must stand on that side of the clouds that is irradiated In Thomas's Island the Moon doth sometimes cause a light kind of a Rainbow after a rain Touching the figure of a Rainbow it is semicircular because the air is expanded in a circular figure and moved circularly towards us Many do make a scruple whether there ever appeared any Rainbow before the Floud gathering their ground of doubting from Gen. 9. 13. I do set my Bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a Covenant between me and the earth Hereunto I answer That these words do not seem to make out any thing else but that God did assume the Bow for a sign rather implying that the Heavens had been disposed to the susception of Rainbows from the Creation For even then were the Heavens filled up with clouds fit for the reflection of such a light That a Morning Rainbow doth portend wet and an Evening one fair weather is vulgarly reported which nevertheless is very uncertain For the most part it either doth precede rain or follow it The reason is because the forementioned gradual declination and incrassation doth cause a rain Rain is the decidence of clouds in drops Clouds although incrassated and condensed gathered and compressed by the ambient air striving to be freed of them yet cannot be expelled and protruded all at once because their extent is too large and their circumference obtuse whence they are unfit to be protruded at once unless they were most condensed into an acute or cutting Surface Why they cannot be compressed into a less compass and a greater acuteness is because of a great quantity of air contained within them Touching their diruption into drops it is to be imputed to the external compression of the clouds squeezing the internal air into particles which as they burst out do each protrude a drop of rain Or thus Suppose the clouds at such times to be puft up with bubbles of internal air and the diruption of each bubble to send down a drop of rain Oft times with rain a great wind blows down along with it which is nothing else but the air pent within the said clouds and bursting out of them A windiness doth oft hold up the rain because it shatters and disperses the parts of the said dense clouds wherby their consistency is broken Rains are very frequent in the Autumn and the Winter because the Sun casting its rayes obliquely towards those Countries where the seasons of the year are manifestly observed doth raise a greater abundance of vapours more than it can dissolve or disperse besides a great number of clouds are sent from other places where the Sun doth through its Summer heat raise such a great quantity of vapours which meeting and being impacted upon one another and etruded cause great rains at those times of the year The Moon hath also great power in dissolving a cloud into rain for she sending down and impelling great abundance of dense weighty minims doth very much further the descent of drops Frosty minims exercise a strong vertue in stifning the air whereby it is rendred more firm to contain the clouds and hinder their precipitation besides they do also disperse the clouds through their effective crassitude Whence it is that it rains so seldom in frosty weather But as soon as the thow is begun likely the clouds meet and fall down in a rain Which if sometimes pouring down in great showers is called a Nimbus if in small drops but descending close is called an Imber The cause of this difference depends upon the density of the clouds and the proportion of air pent within them Those rainy clouds do sometimes contain a great quantity of earthy minims which meeting are through a petrisick vertue changed into stones raining down at the dissolution of the said clouds Other contents consisting of reddish or whitish exhalations drawn up from the earth may give such a red or white tincture to the clouds which when dispersed into rain may appear bloudy or milky Frog or Fish-spawns have sometimes been attracted up into the air being inclosed within vapours where within the matrix of a close cloud they have been vivified and afterwards rained down again A Nebula is a small thin cloud generated in the lower Region of the air out of thin vapours The reason why those vapours ascended no higher is because they were concreased in the lower parts of the lower Region of the air through the force of the air in the night being rendred potent through the absence of the Suns discontinuating raies A mist is the incrassation of vapours contained in the lowermost parts of the air The dew is the decidence of drops from subtil vapours concreased through the privative coldness of nocturnal air III. Snow is the decidence of clouds in flocks whose production depends upon the concrescence of drops by frosty minima's and their attenuation through aerial particles whence they are soft and do reflect the light whitish It usually falls after a degelation when the congealed clouds are somewhat loosened It dissolves or melts through deserting the frosty minima's Hail is the decidence of drops in hard small quadrangular bodies Their congelation is also occasioned through the detention of frosty minima's within the drops of water Their hardness is from a less commixture of air whence the water doth the more enjoy her own crassitude and hardness IV. Wind is a violent eruption of incrassated air pent within the clouds puffing disrupting and taring the Element of air asunder Hence when
Suns continual torrid beams and the multitude of waters underneath It is reported that in the Northern Countries winds are sometimes so furious that they cast horse and man down to the ground and in Tartary the winds blow so violently though in the Summer that there is no travelling at such times Likewise about China and Japan tempests are out ragious beyond belief Tercera one of the Azores or Flemish Islands suffers such violences from winds that the bars of Iron that are fastned to the houses although of the thickness of an arm or two are grinded away to the smalness of wier and holes are eaten into the Rocks about the said Island of the bigness of a horse through such tempestuous winds 5. Statarian winds rage commonly every Fryday in the Indies insomuch that Ships are provided with an Anchor more on that day on the Sunday it groweth calm again It will not be amiss to add the cause of the variation of winds perceived by Ships that are in sight of one another and why the wind at Sea differs oft a point or two from the wind at Land viz. Because the wind bursting out low doth reflect against the tumour of the Sea interjected between the two ships or against the Promontories and Hills of the Lands reflecting the wind some larger others narrower The Seas grow oft very turbulent and incensed 1. Through the eruption of winds descending from above and piercing through their body which they raise into high waves by their swelling and strife of passing 2. The said winds do raise other winds and flatuosities within the body of waters partly out of their own substance and partly out of their mud The Sea is much more disposed to disturbations in some places than others As off the Cape of Good Hope likewise between China and Japan where Sea-men oft are forced to pawn their ships and lives to the Ocean CHAP. XVI Of Earthquakes together with their Effects and some strange instances of them 1. What an Earthquake is The manner of its generation The Coucomitants thereof 2. The kinds and differences of Earthquakes 3. The proof of the generation of Earthquakes 4. Their Effects upon the air I. SInce we have lately discoursed upon eruptions of incrassated air out of the clouds we shall next insert a few words touching the eruption of incrassated air out of the Earth whose egress causeth that which we call an Earthquake and is nothing else but the trembling of the earth ordinarily following or preceding the bursting thereof through subterraneous winds vio ently breaking forth The manner of its production is thus A proportion of air and water being lodged in a Cavern underground is further attenuated into subterraneous clouds thence into vapours and thence into incrassated air through fiery minims entring and penetrating through the pores of the Earth whereupon the earth pressing strongly suffers a diruption in the same manner as we see a bottle filled with water being close stopt and exposed to the fire is broke through the force of incrassated air or attenuated and rarefied water within Whence we observe these concomitants to be necessary in an Earthquake 1. A strange great noise 2. A trembling of the Earth 3. A great blast 4. A spouting out of water 5. Sometimes an unequal discontinuation and excavation of the Earth 6. Sometimes a flame II. The kinds of Earthquakes are taken 1. from their effects and manner of motion some causing a shaking or quaking of the earth named by some an Inclination by Aristotle a Tremor through which houses walls or other buildings are weakened in their foundation and thence are occasioned to fall down thus many Cities of Asia in the fifth year of Tiberius of Bithynia near the extream passion of our Saviour the City Nyssena Bâle and particularly Ferrarae a City in Italy were demolished this last was surprized on Martins day in the year 1570 beginning about ten a clock at night with most terrible sounds as if the City had been battered with great pieces of Ordnance next a very horrible shaking or trembling followed raising all the Citizens out of their beds putting them to their beads pouring out their prayers thrice louder than ordinary and forcing them to quit the City and to behold the ruine of their houses in the fields The Palace of the Duke and other great buildings yielded to this violence many were frighted out of their lives others killed through these prodigious accidents not ceasing before the next day at night No less were the Citizens of Constantinople amazed by those most raging Earthquakes in nothing less terrible than the former described by Agath lib. 5. de la guerre Gothique The strange kinds of noises sounds thunder whistling howling cracking that were then perceived are incredible Campania in the time of the Consulship of L. Cornelius and Q. Minutius was infested with a trembling for many daies together Many do write of such Earthquakes as these that lasted a month a year some two years but by fits I suppose In Parthia above two thousand Villages have been demolished by Earthquakes besides many others in Sicily in the 16th year of Charles the fifth in the month of April In October of the 18th year of his Reign another hapned near Puteoli in Campania Others have been observed only to cause a single elevation or puffing up of the Earth afterwards sinking down again without the appearance of any other violence and are by Aristotle named Pulses By these the earth and houses upon it have been lifted up to a great height and sunke down again without the displacing of one single stone Thus the houses of a Town in Switzerland called Friburg were twice at several times lifted up in the year 1509 once in the night the other time in the day By the same accident some houses about Burdeaux in the year 1545 in the month of August were lifted up and sunke down again into their former places Others cause a bursting and excavation of the earth swallowing up its whole Surface where it bursted with the Houses Men and Cattle upon it as when a part of the Island Lango or Coos famous for being the Country of Hippocrates was swallowed up at which time the Inhabitants were not a little amazed by an incredible thunder and fury of its commotion Camden gives a relation of a very stupendious Earthquake that befel the east part of Herefordshire in the year 1575 in March where the earth and a rocky hill called Marcley hill was removed to a far distance thence with the Trees and all the Sheep that were upon it Some other Trees were cast out of the ground whereof many fell flat upon the ground others hapned to fall into the seams of the Hill and closed as fast as if they had taken their first root there The hole which this eruption made was at least 40 foot wide and 80 yards long lasting from Saturday in the Evening untill Munday at noon Likewise a whole Town was
swallowed up in the Island AEnaria another in Thrace one in Phaeuicia beyond Sidon and another in Eubaea Others protrude a great piece of earth and cast it up into a kind of mountain but a very uneven one as for instance the mount Modernus near the Lake Avernus This sort is called Egestion Some cast forth a flame withall as hapned in the Mount Vesevus alias the Mount of Somma in Campania and the Mongibell in Sicily Earthquakes have sometimes removed two opposite fields and placed them in one anothers room as those two fields in Italy where the Marrucini were seated in the Reign of Nero. For Rivers to burst out as the River Ladon in Arcadia did and others to be stopt up by earth cast into them by such accidents is very possible Oft times Earthquakes make way for Deluges which may be also incident upon the earth at the bottom of the Sea or near to the shore or may happen to the same places without a deluge whereby the waters have been swallowed up and Ships left dry upon the shore as that which hapned in the time of Theodosius or that vvhen M. Antonius and P. Dolabella vvere Consuls leaving great heaps of fish dry upon the sands In the Reign of Emanuel there vvas a very great Earthquake perceived about Lisbon Scalabis and other Tovvns of Portugal vvhereby the vvaters of the River Tajo vvere so much diffused that the bottom appeared dry There is another kind of Earthquake called Arietation vvhen tvvo subterraneous vvinds vibrate against one another Sometimes this hapned vvithout any dammage there being some earth betvveen to hinder their conflict other times meeting in cavernous places have subverted mountains and all that vvas upon them as those mountains near Modena vvhich Pliny lib. 2. Cap. 83. relates to have been bursted against one another vvith a very hideous noise subverting many Villages and swallowing up a number of Cattel yea whole Countries and Armies have been devoured by these kinds of accidents 2. From their duration some lasting a day a week a month c. 3. From their violence some inferring little or no dammage others being contented with nothing less than ruine 4. From the sounds that accompany them being various as I have related before 5. From their places Some more frequently infesting Islands others the Continent Thus Sicily AEnaria Lucara the Moluccas Islands Tyrus Eubaea Phrygia Caria Lydia Italy and many Countries in the West-Indies have very oft been molested by Earthquakes Cold Countries as the Septentrional ones or others that are very hot as AEgypt are very seldom invaded by them 6. From their efficient some being extraordinarily raised by the Almighty out of his wrath for to punish the sons of men for their sins an instance of this we have in 2 Kings 22. Likewise that which hapned about the time of the Passion of Christ supposed by many as Didymus and others to have been universall and to have shaken the whole Earth but since Ecclesiastick Historians make no mention of it none is bound to give credit to the foresaid Supposition However beyond all dispute it was a very great one if not the greatest that ever the earth underwent Neither is Paulus Oros to be thought more authentick relating lib. 7. hist. Cap. 32. an universal Earthquake in the time of Valentinianus since the holy Scripture and Reason do tell us that the Earth is altogether immoveable 7. From the consequents viz. Some after the earths eruptions are followed by vehement winds emptying out of her others by hot boyling waters others again by damps and stinking sents also by vomiting up of stones clots of earth and other strange bodies 8. From their extent some reaching farther others nearer Thus there hapned an Earthquake in the year 1577 on the 18th day of September that began from Colmar in Switzerland and reached as far as Bern being near upon 60 miles distant c. III. Now it is requisite I should proffer proof for the forementioned causes of Earthquakes 1. I prove that they are caused by winds because they alone are of a capable force to burst out suddenly through the earth 2. Because winds bursting out of the earth do alwaies precede and consecute Earthquakes whence we may certainly collect when waters in Pits and Rivers begin to be turgid and continually raised into a great number of bubbles that an Earthquake is near at hand as appeared by the swelling and bubling of the River Po a little before the before alledged harthquake of Ferrara 2. That these winds are principally raised out of peregrin water collected within a Cavern of the earth is evident by the great spouting out of water that doth follow the eruption 3. It is further made evident in a bottle half filled with water and exposed to the fire which doth also make good to us that the Sun through its fiery minims doth press in a great proportion of air into those subterraneous waters whereby they are attenuated whence those waters that are cast forth presently after the diruption are also rendred boyling hot so that Countries remote from the energy of the Sun are seated beyond danger of having winds generated within their bowels however subterraneous fires may supply the office of the Suns beams in attenuating the waters into winds by impelling air into them whence it is that near the mount Hecla in Iseland concussions and arietations happen frequently Earthquakes are disposed to eruption in the night season as much as in the day because as the erupting force of the internal winds is intended by the Suns rarefaction so is the compressing vertue of the Earth intensed by the more potent sinking down of the air in the night being freed from the discontinuating fiery minims and by the decidence of the weighty minims inherent in the Air. The Spring and Autumn are Seasons of the year qualified for the attenuating and rarefying of the peregrin waters whence also they prove most frequent near those times Why Hills and hilly Countries are subject to tremors and concussions and other moist ones as Holland and Zealand less may easily be understood from our discourse upon the generation of Hills IV. That Earthquakes portend Famine Pestilential Feavers and other contagious diseases is believed by most Grave Authors but whence such a putrefaction causing the said distempers should arrive to the air cannot vvell be deduced from their assigning exhalations to be the causes of Earthquakes since they hold them to be hot and dry being qualities according to the Peripateticks resisting and expelling putrefaction beyond any wherefore it will be most agreeable to hold with us that it is derived from those moist damps and vapours that are the material causes of the disrupting winds CHAP. XVII Of fiery Meteors in the Air. 1. Of the generation of a Fools fire a Licking fire Helens fire Pollux and Castor a Flying Drake a burning Candle a perpendicular fire a skipping Goat flying sparks and a burning flame 2. Of the generation
sudden an alteration Wolfgang Meverer in his Com. Meteor p. 140. makes mention of a man being suddenly seized upon on the way between Leipsich and Torga and lifted up into the skies by a lightning never appearing again to any Wine hath sometimes been bound up together with a thin skin through the like accident the cask being broke asunder This doubtless depended upon the incrassation and condensation of the external parts of the Wine through the compressing force of the Lightning impelling the aerial and igneous parts to the Center Wine thus affected becomes very noxious and poysonous through the infection of the Celestial sulphur I must not forget to insert a word or two touching Thunder stones differing in hardness and figure some being Pyramidal others Globous Oval or like to a wedge c. Touching their generation Authors are much at variance Sennert opiniates that they are generated upon the Earth through the great heat of the Lightning melting and afterwards concreasing the sands into a very hard stone A gross mistake 1. These stones are observed to fall down from the Heavens after a thunder with such an acute pressing weight that they are forced according to Pliny lib. 2. c. 55. five foot deep into the earth according to others 9 yards and some would have them press to the Center of the Earth but that is ridiculous 2. A stone of that hardness is not generated in so short a time 3. These stones must then be supposed to be generated without a matrix But to the matter They are generated within very dense and thick clouds whose denser and thicker part is sequestred into a closer seat for a womb where after some time it concreases into a stone And lastly its greatest hardness is accomplisht through the intense heat of the fire united within the same clouds and happens to fall down through the great concussion and disruption caused by a Thunder III. To these Igneous Meteors a Comet is likewise to be referred touching whose seat and production a deal of dispute is made But before I direct my Pen to those particulars it will not be amiss first to set down its description A Comet or blazing Star is a fiery Meteor that is a mixt body of no long duration sublimed into the air generated out of some dense fiery and thick airy parts contained within the clouds of the second region of the air It chuseth a difference from its figure colour time motion duration and place whence some are globous beset round with fiery hairs and therefore are called Cometae criniti Or others seem to be barded whence they are termed Cometae barbati Or others again appear with a tail and for that reason are named Cometae caudati Some appear in a light golden or yellow flame others redish bloudy dusky red c. Some are moved slowly others swiftly some are moved more regularly than others Some appear in the Spring others more frequently in the Autumn rarely in the Summer more rarely in the Winter Some are of a weekly or monthly duration others remain six months in sight Commonly they keep their station without the tropicks and but rarely some do appear within the Tropicks But in reference to their place of production many believe their seat to be in the Elementary Region viz. The upper Region of the air that is according to their meaning near the Concave of the Moon where the actual flame of the Stars may the better kindle them judging the coldness of the second Region to be very unapt for the generation of these bodies Others again allott the Celestial Plage for their reception And among these Anaxagoras and Democritus thought them to be the appearance of several Planets united in company and in their lights Pythagoras asserted them to be Planets but none of the seven Common ones that had remained hidden all this while under the beams of the Sun and through their digress from him came now into sight in the same manner as oft befals to Mercury The first opinion owned by the Peripateticks doth somewhat thwart their own Tenents 1. They asserted that the kindling of all the preceding fiery Meteors was occasioned through the intense coldness of the air in the second Region effecting a violent commotion upon exhalations contained within its jurisdiction whereby they were inflamed or took fire and that in the night because its season doth superadd somewhat to the cold Whereas here they contradict themselves and maintain the second Region to be too cold for to kindle a flame 2. There they proclaime the Solar or other intense heat to discusse and disperse the exhalations in the torrid Zone and therefore fiery Meteors appear seldom there here nothing but a flaming actual heat will do it What inconstancies are these 3. Can any one probably imagine that such great heaps and mountains of exhalations as the great Mole of a Comet requires at that distance should be attracted to the highest Region of the air It is a question whether the whole Earth can afford so much sulphureous matter were it all exhausted Or if she could would that intense coldness as they imagine of the second Region of the air or those thick dense clouds of the lower Region give passage to such numerous and thick passengers Or do you not think that they would be sooner discussed through the intense heat of the upper Region than concrease into a body Neither can Astronomers with their Telescopes discern in them such a propinquity to the fiery Region or Moon but to the contrary a very great distance As for Democritus his opinion it is scarce worth the time to confute it but let me confirm my own I say they are generated in the second Region of the air not that second Region which the Peripateticks have chalckt out but the middle between the lower and upper Region where those stiff and permanent clouds are swimming not beginning from the tops of the mountains but from the tops of the Erratick clouds The said permanent clouds move with the body of the air from East to West and so do the Comets 2. The permanent clouds are alone capable of condensing and uniting those subtil exhalations that are escaped the thick dense clouds of the inferiour Region into a compact flame durable for a certain term of daies weeks or months according to the seat of that Region and the quantity of exhalations Neither is this flame apt to spend it self much because it is as it were partially catochizated through the privative coldness of the air and positive coldness of its clouds 2. It is supplied with pure incrassated air not infected with many dense terrestrial or thick waterish particles Touching its hairs they are nothing else but the light of its flame illustrating or obtending the air contained within those clouds in so many streaks for it cannot obtend it equally all about because it is permixt with water whose crassitude will not bear obtension wherefore it divides
the first smart impulse The truth of the foresaid reason and manner is apparent in shooting a pole through the water where we may see the water at the farther end raised into a tumor which running about the sides to the other end causeth its propulsion Whence it is also that when there appears no more of the tumor of the water before the pole its motion doth instantly cease XI Disruption or bursting is a sudden separation of the parts of a body through a violent force moving from within This we see happens oft in Canons when over-charged or in bottels filled with water being frozen in the Winter o. Wine in the Summer being close stopt The cause of these latter must be imputed to frosty or fiery minims entring through the pores of the bottels in greater quantity than their capacity can take in and disrupting them for to avoid a penetration of bodies Bodies are oft said to burst through driness as Instruments c. but very improperly since it is the fiery or frosty minims entring their pores and filling their capacities and afterwards disrupting them because of avoiding a penetration of bodies So Instrument-strings are apt to break in moist weather because their continuation is disrupted through penetration of moist bodies into their pores Undulation is a motion whereby a body is moved to and fro like to water shaken in a basin or to the motion of a Bell. The cause is likewise adscribed to the first motion of the Impulsor which being terminated at the end of its return is beat back through the direct descent of the air impelling it by reason it lieth athwart Recurrent motion being but little different from this I shall therefore say no more of it The cause of reflection is the return of the impulse impressed upon the air or water both being media deferentia perpendicularly or obliquely upwards from a hard and plane reflecting body Of refraction the cause is the shuving off of the impulse downwards by the shelving sides of an angular hard body CHAP. XXI Of Fire being an Introduction to a New Astronomy 1. The Fires division into three Regions 2. The qualification of the inferiour Region What the Sun is What his torrid Rayes are and how generated 3. How the other Planets were generated 4. How the fixed Stars were generated 5. A further explanation of the Stars their Ventilation That there are many Stars within the Planetary Region that are invisible Of the appearance of new Stars or Comets Of the Galaxia or Milk-way 6. That the fiery Regions are much attenuated I. THe ground of the fires tending downwards you may easily collect from what I have set down touching the waters and airs commerce with the other Elements It s profundity we may likewise divide into three Regions The first whereof containing the Planetary bodies the next the fixed Stars and the third consisting most of purefire II. The inferiour Region through its nearer approximation to the air and its immersion into it is cast into a subtil flame whose subtility doth effuge our sight and Tact. The Sun is a great body generated out of the peregrin Elements contained in the inferiour igneous Region consisting most of condensed fire and incrassated air extended and blown up into the greatest flame and conglomerated within the greatest fiery cloud These igneous clouds are like to the windy clouds of the air which as they do daily blast down wind upon the earth so do these cast fiery rayes among which that which surrounds the Sun doth vendicate the greatest power to it selfe The manner of casting of its fiery rayes is the same with that of winds viz. The Region of fire forceth up every day or continually a great quantity of air somewhat incrassated and condensed into its own sphere through its descending force striving for a Center This incrassated and condensed air is impelled violently into the body of the Stars by other subtil flames as being more forcible to drive the said adventitious matter from them because their parts are so closely ingaged that they can scarce slow a minim without a penetration Wherefore they must necessarily be impelled gradually into the bodies of the Stars because these are mixt bodies that give way so much in themselves by expelling fiery or torrid minima's down into the air as to be capacious enough of receiving so many airy particles as the Elementary fire doth force up every moment But before I proceed in unfolding the manner of the Celestial mixt bodies their ventilations I must insist somewhat further upon their constitution III. The Celestial mixt bodies are not only like to clouds in their daily and minutely ventilations but also in their constitutions viz. The inferiour ones as the Planets are constituted out of the courser and more mixt matter of the finer cloudy air in the inferiour Region of the Element of fire like the clouds of the inferiour Region of air are constituted out of the courser part of vapours Their coagulation is effected through the force of the fiery Element crushing their matter from below upwards and again is repelled back from the superiour parts of the said fiery Elements because through its being pressed up are scanted of room and therefore do press downwards not only for room but also because of reuniting where they are divided by the said coagulated bodies Now it may easily appear to you 1. Whence that rotundity or rather globosity doth arrive to them viz. because they are circularly crusht 2. Because the air and fire of the said Planets do naturally spread themselves equally from the Center to the Circumference whence a circular figure must needs follow Also 3. That Stars are nothing else but the thicker and denser part of the Heavens coagulated into fiery mixt bodies to wit flames 3. That as they do decrease by Ventilation every day so they do also increase by the introsusception of new aerial particles 4. That they must necessarily be very durable because of the duration of their causes For as the great force of the inferiour parts of the igneous Heavens never desist from striving for the Center and do every day cast up great proportions of aerial matter so do the superiour parts never cease from compressing them into the bodies of the other condensed flames being disposed as I said before through their ventilation to receive them 2. Because the aerial parts being got into the Center of the flames cease from all external Local motion striving only to maintain their Center in rest IV. Fixed Stars are generated out of the subtiler parts of the forementioned aerial evaporations being through their less resisting gravity redounding from water earth in them rendred capable of being screwed up higher to the second Region where they are coagulated through the same motions of the Heavens that Planetary clouds are These are responding to the permanent clouds of the second Region of the air which as they are spread into more large
extended bodies wherein many knobs seem to be unequally coagulated through the unequal proportion of the mixture of the vapours even so are these evaporations coagulated into long large bodies within which again other coagulations are effected of unequal proportions rising like so many knobs of various magnitudes which constitute the fixed Stars well deserving the Epithete of being fixed or fastned in those vast igneous clouds We diduct hence 1. That the fixed Stars are smaller than the Planets because their matter is the overplus of the Planets 2. That they were formed after the Planets because their matter must be arrived to the first Region before the subtiler parts could appel to the second Region for the matter of others 3. That the difference between the loose and fixed Stars is no other than that these latter consist of a more compact flame than the others and thence we may also collect them to be more durable V. But to make pursuit of the manner of ventilation of the Stars The fiery minims striking down vehemently upon them because they are screwed up more and more by the continual access of new coagulations impelled into the said Stars must necessarily be intended in their force upon them for to recover their place and continuation These then striking from all sides through those Celestial mixt bodies do expell shake down and effuse continually great showers of those torrid minims consisting of condensed fire which are accelerated likewise in their descent through the depression of the air These as they pass do heat the air especially in the lower Region because of the density of the clouds and air staying their beams And 2. Because of their reflection from the earth These fiery showers do scarce reach any farther than the temperate Zones Where they rain down perpendicularly there they leave marks of their heat where obliquely there of warmth only but the air within the Polars is not sensible of so much as their warmth These showers do fall down sometimes in a greater confluence than others whence they cast a greater heat which happens through their meeting and being united with more aerial matter or igneous clouds or else through want of shelter under dense clouds in the air or thirdly by uniting their showers with those of other Planets Hence we may observe That the Sun is the hottest body in the Heavens and therefore the loosest and the softest 2. That the Moon and the other Stars consist of a less soft consistency 3. That the fixed Stars as they do heat but little so they dissolve but little and therefore must be of a yet less soft consistency 4. That the fiery clouds being supposed globous and therefore profound do harbour many invisible lights whereof some do happen sometimes to be detruded out of their seat downwards that is towards the earth through the continuated and exuperant force of the superiour parts of the Element of fire This is seldom observed but in the lower Region of the fire because that Element doth use its greatest force there as being near to the place of strife for its Center and most pincht there by the obtruded igneous clouds These new appearing Lights do sometimes keep within sight for eight or ten Months some longer others shorter and afterwards disappear again whence they come under the notion of Comets agreeing in nothing with them except in their disappearing after a certain times lustre The cause of their disappearance I impute to the bearing up of the air upwards by the inferiour fiery rayes and carrying those dislocated Stars out of sight again where they are included within a dense igneous cloud 5. New Stars are oft generated within the bulk of the foresaid clouds whose smalness and close inclusion doth render them invisible Others again are dissolved through being over-powered by the force of the fiery Element 6. The Galaxia or milky-way is nothing but a great number of small dusky lights or inequalities coagulated out of the grosser part of the peregrin Elements of the lower igneous Region VI. Lastly Like as you see that the Element of water which naturally consisteth of the greatest thickness is reduced to that tenuity through such a great proportion of air and that the air is from the greatest tenuity incrassated through such a quantity of water and earth into clouds throughout its whole body even the same we must imagine of fire viz. that it is reduced from the greatest rarity to a condensation and attenuation into large igneous clouds throughout its body through the vast admixture of air somewhat incrassated and condensed These clouds in the lower Region are diducted and separated into many thick and profound ones in the second Region into those of a great tenuity but more cohering Thus we have briefly exposed to your view the commerce of fire with the other Elements and for your better understanding have caused this Scheme to be inserted where you have the universal flames striking downwards for a Center whereas after the first knock it flamed upwards in the Chaos because it moved from its own Center The proportions of fire and air to both the other Elements although not very exactly cut according to my Copy yet comes near to it The Stars are there represented according to their several Regions wherein they are seated The motion of the heavens is likewise there exhibited as we have demonstrated it in the preceding Paragraphs All which with many others insisted upon in this and the subsequent Chapter you have here plainly proposed CHAP. XXII Of the Motion of the Element of fire 1. Where the Poles of the Heavens are 2. The Opinions of Ptolomy and Tycho rejected 3. That the Planets move freely and loosely and why the fixed Stars are moved so uniformly 4. The Suns retrograde motion unfolded and the cause of it 5. How the Ecliptick AEquator and the Zodiack were first found out 6. The manner of the fiery Heavens their ventilation 7. Whence it is that the Sun moves swifter through the Austrinal Mediety and slower through the Boreal How the Sun happens to measure a larger fiery Tract at some seasons in the same time than at others 8. Whence the difference of the Suns greatest declination in the time of Hipparchus Ptolomy and of this our age happens 9. An undoubted and exact way of Calculating the natural end of the World The manner of the Worlds dissolution The same proved also by the holy Scriptures The prevention of a Calumny I. I have formerly discoursed upon the motion of the Heavens from East to West assigning the violent detention from their Center for the cause of it I shall repeat nothing more of it than put you in mind that nothing can move circularly except upon two immoveable points which are therefore named the Poles from sustaining their body The immobility which we observe in this our Hemisphere near the Bear Stars perswades us to take it for the North or Arctick Pole to which the South
the way VI. Before I go on any further I will prove that such a vast measure of fiery winds blows down from each of the Polar Regions for six months together It is certain That a great proportion of fiery clouds is cast from the middle or Equinoctial of the fiery Heavens towards the Poles because there they are the strongest as appears by their strong and swift motion measuring more way by far there than about the Polars wherefore the greatest part of those fiery clouds must necessarily be detruded towards the Polars as being the weaker parts of the heavens and therefore the apter for their reception These clouds being obtruded thither in great quantities are compressed by the force of the Superiour heavens whereby the condensed fiery minims break forth in great showers which blowing constantly for six months do alwaies blow the Sun from them towards the opposite side 2. If clouds of the air are most detruded towards their Polars and blow thence constantly for a long season as Mariners tell us they do Ergo the same must happen in the fiery Region since the efficient causes and materials are corresponding 3. The fiery Region pressing strongly about the middle parts must needs cast up most air towards the Polars 4. Before there can be an eruption of these fiery clouds there must a certain abundance or proportion be collected through whose over possession and exceeding swelling they may sooner give way to burst out and then being opened they continue their fiery winds for six months and by that time they are quite evacuated In the mean time the other Polar side is a filling and is just grown swell'd enough for to burst out against the other is exhausted Here may be objected That whilst one Pole is evacuating it should attract all the matter from the other Pole because it gives way whereas the other cannot I answer That those fiery clouds through their giving way are still daily somewhat supplied by the continual casting up of the heavens for otherwise their ventilation could hardly be so lasting but however that is sooner evacuated than the clouds can be shut up again so that the ventilation lasteth untill all its contained matter is expelled 2. It is impossible that the air should be attracted from the opposite side since the greatest force of the middle parts of the inferionr Region is between which screweth the matter up equally towards each Pole VII The Suns deficient motion that is when he is accidentally moved through the succession of the Constellations of the Zodiack if compared to himself is observed to be regular that is in comparing one tropical or deficient course with another both do agree in the measure of space being over-runned in an equal time viz. of 360 Solar daies and in an equal Velocity moving in the same swiftness through the same Constellations in one year that he doth in another But if the particular motions of one defective or tropical course be referred to others of the same annual motion we shall find that the Sun is more potently withheld under the Meridional Signs than under the Septentrional ones That is moves swifter through the Austral Mediety in the Winter consuming but 178 daies 21 hours and 12 minut in that peragration and flower through the Boreal Signs in the Summer spending 186 daies 8 hours 12 minutes computing with the Vulgar 365 daies 5 hours 49 min. 16 sec. in the year so that the difference is 7 daies and 11 hours 2. The Sun appears sometimes at some seasons of the year higher then at others that is sometimes nearer to us and other times farther from us or otherwise the Sun is at the highest and farthest in the Summer in the month of June being then in Cancer and at the lowest or nearest in the moneth of December being then in Capricorn VIII The greatest declination of the Sun hath formerly in the daies of Hipparchus Ptolomy been observed to be of 23 deg 52 mi. which according to Copernicus his observation is reduced to 30 min. by others since to 28. The cause is evident and is to be imputed to the Suns or rather the fiery Regions gaining upon the inferiour Elements namely the water gains upon the earth and diducts her mole the air gains upon them both and insufflates their bodies and lastly the fire gains upon the air through which means it must necessarily incline nearer to the Center of the Earth which approximation must cause a diminution of the Suns declination For instance suppose the Sun in Hipparchus his time to have been at the height of o being then in his greatest declination from the Equinoctial a b if then since through the fiery Regions having gained upon the other Elements the Sun is descended from o to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being there nearer to the Center of the Earth his greatest declination in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs be less to ε than it is from o to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IX Hence we may easily collect the duration of the World thus If the fiery Region hath gained from the time or years of Ptolomy to Copernicus so many minutes of the other Elements in how many years will the fire gain the restant minutes This being found out by the rule of proportion will resolve us when the World shall be returned again into a confusion or Chaos so that you may observe as at the beginning of the world the weighty Elements did gradually expell and at last over-power the light ones so the light ones do now gradually gain upon the weighty ones and at last will again over-power them and so you have a description of the long year consisting of 20 thousand Solar Circuits gaining near a degree every 68 years but towards the latter end will prevail much more because the nearer they incline the more forcibly they will make way And so you see all things are like to return to what they were viz. The immortal souls of men to God and the Universe in o the same Chaos which as I said formerly will abide a Chaos to all Eternity unless God do divide it again into a new World and raise new Bodies for the Souls that have of long been in being At the latter end of this descent you shall have Christ descending in the greatest Triumph Glory and Splendor appearing in a body brighter than the Sun Here must needs happen a very great noise and thunder when the Elements do with the greatest force clash against one another which cannot but then strike the greatest amazement and anguish into the Ears of the Wicked This Doctrine may prove a plain Paraphrase upon those mysteries mentioned in the Revelation of St. John For instance Chap. 9. v. 1 2. where a Star is described to fall down from heaven namely the Sun opening the bottomless pit and raising a smoak viz through his burning and consuming rayes c. No wonder if mens fancies are so strongly missed in
constructing the obscurities of the late quoted Book of Divine Predictions some imagining a plenary abolition of the Elements others their conversion into a hell for the damned some thence deducting Christs Personal Reign before the consummation of the World others judging quite contrary what strange phanatick deductions and constructions do some Spirits suggest to themselves expecting every moment a subversion of the world and alas God hath ordained the World to run out its natural course which doubtless He will in no wise contradict and how long that is like to last may be infallibly proposed from what I have here stated where we cannot but note that all those depravate conceptions do derive from mens ignorance in Philosophy and Nature Gods great work But me thinks I see some ready to condemn me for stating assertions touching things of the Divine Purpose and such as God hath reserved within himself and therefore none ought to dive into those secret Counsels I answer That we are to make a search into all things as far as our parts will bear us out in and we are commanded so to do because we may the more admire God in all his Attributes 2. God hath given a man power of searching into all intelligible things and therefore ought to make the greatest use of it he can 3. It is impossible for man so much as to make an attempt to search into Gods Secrets because God hath limited him with a finite power So that there is little fear that any should search into any such mysteries But this by the way CHAP. XXIII Of the Magnitude and distance of the Sun and Moon and the motion of the other Planets 1. That the Magnitude of the Sun hath not been probably much loss certainly stated by any The Arguments vulgarly proffered for the proof of the Suns Magnitude rejected 2. That the Sun might be capable enough of illuminating the World were he much lesser than the terraqueous Globe than I suppose him to be 3. That the shadow of the Earth is to some extent Cylindrical 4. That the Sun existing in the AEquator doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the Earth 5. Concerning the diminution or increase of the shadow of the Earth within the Polars together with the cause of the Prolongation and Abbreviation of the daies That the Sun is much bigger than he appears to be 6. What the spots of the Sun and Moon are and their causes 7. That the Arguments proposed by Astronomers for rendring the Moon lesser than the Earth and proving the distance of the Sun are invalid 8. That the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth 9. Several Phaenomena's of the Moon demonstrated 10. Concerning the motion of Venus and Mercury 11. Of the motion of the fixed Stars and their Scintillation 1. THe body of the Sun is by far exceeded in mole and bigness by the weighty Globe but before I insist upon the proof of this I will repeat the Arguments produced by those who assert the Sun to be many times bigger than the said Globe In the first place I must take notice of the great variance which there is between those great Coryphaeans in Astronomy touching the Magnitude of Stars many of them differing from each other in their compute 10 12 or more Diameters of the Earth which is accounted but a slight disagreeance Now if these Grandees are disagreeing from one another in so many thousand Leagues in defining the Magnitude of a Star what shall we judge of their most certain as they pretend demonstrations 2. Let us examine their Instruments whereby they aspire to fathom the body of a Star such are an Astrolabe Semicircle Quadrant c. These being divided according to the proportion of 360 degr contained in a Celestial Orb are well enough fitted to explain the number of such degrees but then the difficulty remains the same still viz. What proportion a degree of Longitude in the Heavens bears to any certain known Longitude of the Earth Neither are they wanting in this asserting a degree of Longitude of the Solar Orb to be equal to 15 German Leagues because the Sun doth remove the shadow of 15 Leagues from the Earth through the progress of each degree But suppose this were granted it followeth that a degree of Longitude of the Solar Orb is equal to a degree of Longitude of the Firmament because the Firmament doth likewise make 15 Leagues by its gradual progress or how could it absolve its diurnal circuit in 24 hours but this is false So neither doth the Sun's removal of the shadow from the Earth infer the said proportion because the Sun according to their Supposition far exceeding the earth in bigness cannot describe a true and equal Longitude of its progress upon the Earth but only his light being terminated by the Earth is alone denoted to vary its termination so many Leagues by moving one degree 3. If Astronomers do vary so much from one another in assigning the Earths Longitude whereunto we are so near we have greater reason to suspect their conclusions of the Stars their mensuration which are so remote from us to be void of all foundation Aristotle pronounced the Circumference of the Terrestrial Globe to contain 50000 miles assigning 1388 9 miles to every degree Hipparchus allowed 34625 miles responding in 96 â—â— 7â— miles to every degree Eratosthenes stated 31500 miles allowing 87½ miles to a degree Ptolomy granted 22500. Alphraganus 204000. Fernelius 24514. Others who have sailed about it state 190010 miles for the Circumference of the Earth Judge what a vast difference there is between them 4. Another Argument proposed by them is because the Suns absence or opposition to us effects a conical shadow or darkness Ergo the Sun must be greater than the Earth But how can the shadow be conical since it drowns the Moon whose Diameter according to their own confession contains a 39th part of the Diameter of the earth which extends to a greater largeness than a Conical Figure should do 2. Were the shadow of the Earth Cylindrical then they would confess the Sun to be of an equal bigness with the earth but that they say it is not ergo I deny the Minor and prove the contrary The Sun existing in either of the equinoctial points makes day and night equal the whole earth over ergo the shadow of the earth must be columnal because the obverted surface of the earth doth clip or stop the light from the other opposite surface to the extent of half the globe Wherefore the terraqueous shadow of the one side of the earth being equal to the light of the other side must needs be columnal And although this columnal shadow is not extended further than above half way to the Region of the fierie element where it begineth to be contracted and gradually diminisht yet that hinders not but that the said shadow may be columnal to some certain extent If now the said shadow were conical
then the Sun at once must illustrate more then the mediety of the Globe and consequently the nights would be shorter then the daies although under the Line at the season of the AEquinoxe but that is false ergo Again were the Sun greater than the Earth ergo its heat would be communicated in an equal violence upon all the parts of it for why should it not as much powr out showers of heat conically as you say it doth its light Here you cannot accur to excuse your self by the distance or remoteness of the Sun thence contracting its heat for then it must likewise contract its light 3. They assert supposing the shadow of the Earth to be conical that therefore the Sun must be necessarily greater But for what reason Not because the Sun is greater but because the light is larger wherefore the largeness of the light doth not conclude any thing touching the bigness of the Sun I not the light of a Candle or Touch much larger than its flame Is not the same Candle apt to overcast an Object much bigger than it self with light that shall exceed its mediety and consequently the shadow of such a body must be conical Whence it is that a body ten thousand times less than the air is capable of illuminating its whole tract because a body of that proportion is big enough to obtend the air throughout its whole depth But if you should imagine with the Peripateticks that light is efficiently produced by the lucid substance of the Sun I know not how then indeed the body of the Sun must be many times bigger than the earth because the Lumen would be but just of the same extent with the Lux. But I need not to answer to this since the contrary hath been plainly proved After all this I state II. 1. That the Sun were he so much lesser than the terraqueous globe than I suppose he is would be big enough to illuminate its whole Hemisphere at once for if the light of a Candle doth illuminate the air thirty leagues round much more would the Sun the whole Hemisphere whose substance is by far more pure lucid and bigger in that proportion in comparison with the aerial region then a focal light being of an impure dark substance is in comparison to the Circumference of 30 Leagues III. 2. The shadow of the earth is to some extent cylindrical I prove it Is not the shadow of a man standing in the Sun cylindrical to some extent Is not the shadow of a Pen or other small body being held at some distance before a Candle whose Lux is bigger than the body objected cylindrical to some extent Besides as I proved above it is evident in the Equinoxes The reason is because a dense body doth obscure and dead the light as far as it is dense now the earth being dense all about the entire Horizon no wonder if it doth dead and obscure the Suns light to the extent of its Hemisphere IV. 3. The Sun existing in the Equinoctial doth at once illuminate the whole Hemisphere of the earth from one Pole to the other If the Sun existing in the Meridian is seen at once by those under the torrid Zone from the Ascension of the AEquator that are 90 degrees off Eastward and as many Westward from its Descension then the Sun must also be seen as many degr off to the Southward as to the Northward that is to each Pole because the Sun being globous doth obtend the air equally about to all the parts of the Compass But the Sun in the Meridian is seen at one time by those that are 90 degr Eastward or Westward ergo V. 4. By so many degrees as the Sun declineth to the North by so many degrees doth a perfect shadow or darkness cover the South polar Earth and the like conceive of the South Declination 5. The Suns gradual declination causes a prolongation or abbreviation of its diurnal light and shadow or the equality and inequality of the daies and nights 6. The Sun is much greater than he appeares to be because the clouds and depth of the air do diminish its species in the manner of a great fire appearing but like a small spark at a great distance Astronomers are not only forward in prescribing the bigness of the Stars but also their distances And how is that possible since they cannot sensibly demonstrate the Diameter of the World or define any certain extent in the Heavens for to compare another Terrestrial length unto neither can they ever find out an exact account of any length upon the Earth responding to a degree of any of the Orbs of Heaven If so what do all their observations touching the Stars Paralaxis amount unto VI. The body of the Sun is usually expressed as resembling a mans face whose Marks and Signatures are nothing else but certain protuberancies and spots The like is apparent in the Moons face These protuberancies are nothing but inequalities of their cloudy bodies appearing like unto clouds in the air thicker or more compact in one place and thinner and looser in another The Telescopium or Prospective Glass discerns those spots to be moveable and not unlikely since they being the external parts of those gross and looser clouds are apt to be displaced and change their situation through the obtrusion befalling them by the most rapid motion of the Heavens These do sometimes increase and accrease either through dispersion or apposition of new clouds floating here and there in the Planets their way as they move which oft causes a distinction of their bigger or lesser appearance at some times than at others VII The Moon is by all Astronomers believed to be less than the terrestrial globe because the shadow of the eclipse of the Sun is much too little to obtenebrate all the Earth But supposing the Sun to be of so inapparent a bigness and distance from the Earth as the vulgar of Astronomers do receive him to be of and the Moon to be of a far greater distance from the Earth than she is certainly the shadow which she would cast must be much less than her body although it were forty times bigger than it is because the Sun being greater than she must according to the ordinary Doctrine of shadows only suffer her to cast a conical shadow whose extreme point not reaching to the Earth or if it did could not be a certain token whence to draw the proportion or distance of Stars Wherefore according to their own principles the Moon may be conceived to exceed the Earth far in bigness since they cannot attain to any probable account of the distances of the Stars 2. We must also suppose the Moon to be a lucid body although yielding to the Sun in that particular and therefore to illuminate the Earth somewhat for otherwise in every total perfect Eclipse it would prove as dark as pitch if so what ground doth there remain to take measure of her shadow since
her light or shadow that is a lesser light in comparison to that of the Sun doth according to our rule of light extend to a far greater bigness than her self is Whence it appears that for all their Mathematical Demonstrations the Moon may be bigger or lesser than the Earth VIII However the Moon is by far lesser than the Earth because of its small light which it casteth and other reasons produced from the minorating of the Sun which do likewise conclude the Moon to be lesser than the Sun but bigger than any of the other Stars The Moon is the lowest of all the Stars because she is the least lucid of any and consequently must be most terrestrial and aqueous through which principles she must doubtless yield to be lowest depressed by the fiery Region in that manner as I have formerly setdown 2. Because she moves the quickest or in another sense the slowest as you may read before through the Zodiack which must needs suppose the Circumference of her Circuit to be the least 3. Because she cannot be seen unless at a nearer distance than the others may IX The Moon through her diurnal course from East to West absolves no more than 346 deg 49 min. 24 sec. 58 third 52 four 38 fif that is is so much retarded or is moved so much slower than the fiery Region So that in 27 daies 7 hours 43 min. 5 sec. 8 th she is retarded 360 deg or the extent of a whole Circle She is in the same manner as we have proposed concerning the Sun shoved from North to South and from South back to North a degree and some minutes every day her greatest declination being 28. deg 30 min. and her greatest Latitude 5 degrees But you must not apprehend although I say that the Moon is removed from the Ecliptick 5 deg that therefore she is seated 5 degrees beyond the Sun notwithstanding her greatest digression from the Ecliptick yet she is and appears nearer to the Equinoctial bbbb than he Suppose one standing upon the surface of the Earth any where between m and p I say that the Moon existing in the Merid. eq and in her greatest Latitude near e viz. from the Ecliptick is and appears nearer to the Equinoctial bbbb than the Sun doth in o because the Line from o to b is longer than from the Center of the Moon near e o b. Whence you may conceive that the Moon is nearer to the Lquinoctial although seated beyond the Ecliptick 2. That the degrees of the Orb of the Moon are so much less proportionally as the Orb of the Moon is less than the Orb of the Sun But to pursue the Moons Motion into Latitude Star-Gazers do observe her to appear sometimes higher and lowe in her Perigao and Apogaeo Not because of her Epicycle but because of the Aspect of the Sun which doth sometimes reflect its light stronger upon her and so makes her to seem higher besides the medium of the air being by means of that Aspect so attenuated it must needs produce a prolongation of the object like to a thin Glass representing the object to be much farther distant than it is As the said attenuation renders an object more distant so it renders it also less whence it is that the Moon appears lesser in her pro longation That the moveth swifter sometimes than other times is likewise a meer appearance hapning through the extension and prolongation of the object and Medium So on the contrary the incrassation of the air through the remoteness of the Sun causeth the Moon to seem to move slower and to be bigger and nearer as when she is in her Perigaeo The same hapneth when we see through a thick Glass or in looking upon an object through the water seeming nearer and bigger and to move slower I am not to describe you here the meaning of Solar and Lunar Eclipses alone the cause of their variation viz. depending upon the difference of declination in the Sun and of declination and latitude in the Moon for he being constantly in making his progress cannot be ever met or overtaken by the Moon at the same place and time I shall spend no more time in discoursing upon the motion of the three superiour Planets since their motion and manner of it may easily be apprehended by what hath been proposed XI What concerns the constant equal and ranked motion of the fixed Stars it is to be attributed to the cohesion or linking of those equal large clouds of the second Region of fire wherein the said Lights are fixed moving them equally and constantly in that fixation Their Scintillation is nothing else but their flames quavering upon the obtended air hapning through their recurrent motion or quavering accurss to one another AN APPENDIX Of Problems resolved by our Principles CHAP. I. Problems relating to the Earth 1. Why two weighty bodies are not moved downwards in parallel Lines 2. Why a great Stone is more difficultly moved on the top of a high hill than below 3. VVhy a pair of Scales is easier moved empty than ballanced 4. VVhence it is that a man may carry a greater weight upon a VVheel-barrow than upon his back 5. VVhy a weighty body is easier thrust forward with a Pole than immediately by ones arms besides 5 other Probl. more 6. VVhy a stick thrust into a hole if bended is apt to be broke near the hole VVhat the cause of the relaxation of a bowed stick is 7. VVhether Gold doth attract Mercury 8. VVhy the herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysanthemum Peruvianum obverteth its leaves and flowers to the Sun wheresoever he be 9. VVhy the Laurel is seldom or never struoken by Lightning I. WHy are not two or more weights depressed down to the Earth in parallel lines but in flead thereof come nearer and nearer to one another the lower they descend II. It is confirmed by many trials that a great stone is more difficultly moved on the plain of the top of a high hill than on the plain of a low level ground And that a great mass of any Mineral may be easier rouled out of its place deep in the Mines by one than by three or four on the Surface of the earth You demand the reason I answer That the air being more forcible as we have shewed before on the tops of hills doth more potently depresse the stone against the plain of the hill and so detains it there no wonder then if it prove so slow in motion Likewise is the air of a greater energy on the Surface than deep under the earth where it is discontinuated by weighty minims forced out of the earths bowels in expelling the perigrin air whose contiguous depression to wit of the air being discontinuated by the said weighty minims doth also contribute much to the rouling of a Mineral because we roul a weighty body by depressing it against the ground in which action our force is not only strengthned but
a Board or Ship upon the water Because the water being continuously thick coheres together and will not suffer her self to be divided whereby they happen to be lifted up by the water VI. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire No For although a slame is extinguisht by them yet that hinders not but that fire may be contained within them in particles and close shut up between their pores This appears in Crystal which being smartly struck by another hard body doth emit sparks of slaming fire from it like unto a Flint So neither is Ice it self bare within its pores of some small particles of fire CHAP. III. Comprizing Problems touching the Air. 1. Whether Air be weighty 2. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind be heavier than when empty 3. Why water contained in a beer glass being turned round with ones hand doth turn contrary against the motion of the Glass 4. Why a breath being blown with a close mouth doth feel cool and efflated with a diducted mouth feel warm 5. Why an armed point of an Arrow groweth hot in being shot through the air 6. Why Beer or Wine will not run out of the Cask without opening a hole atop 7. What difference there is between an Oricane and a Travada 8. Whether it be true that Winds may be hired from Witches or Wizards in Iseland 9. Why is it quieter in the night than in the day I. VVHether Air be weighty Answ. Air considered as enjoying its Center is light and doth not participate of any weight since it would only move from the Center to the Circumference and ever force extraneous bodies upwards Ergo Air absolutely conceived is only light 2. Air in its present state is also weighty but accidentally only and not essentially because of its sinking downwards towards the Center II. Whether a Bladder blown up with wind be heavier than when empty Answ. There hath been trial made of this to wit of the weight of a bladder blown up by Bellows atop of a high hill in a pair of Scales and it was found that an empty bladder weighed heavier than one filled with wind the same is also deprehended by casting them both into the water where we shall find the empty bladder first to be equal with the Surface of the water and afterwards to sink down a little whereas the windy one swimmeth atop The cause is by reason a bladder extended by the air within is supported by it and being rendred more porous and subtil through its obduction the air doth easily pass without any resistance and therefore doth not depress it so much as an empty bladder which through its corrugation and lesser diduction is more dense and therefore receiving the depressing force of the air much stronger besides being more acute is apter for to cut through the inferiour air whereas a bladder blown up is obtuse and doth as it were swim in the air But if a bladder be blown up with ones breath then doubtless it will prove heavier than an empty one because of the vaporous or heavy waterish air contained within III. Why doth the water contained in a beer glass being turned round with your hand turn contrary against the motion of the glass the same is observed in rouling a barrel full of water where the liquor turns contrary against the barrel Ans. The water is here detained flat or held fast by the air sinking down whence it is that the water seems to move against the motion of the Vessel being glib or slippery and smooth and therefore not detaining the vessel in its motion IV. Why doth a breath being blown with a close mouth feel cool and efflated with a diducted mouth feel warm Answ. Because the breath or incrassated air of a close mouth is more united and longer continuated whereby it doth vigorously puffe the ambient air whose compression felt causes cold as I have explained it in Book 1. Part 2. Now through the union of the incrassated air that is efflated the hot minims of the breath are deeply and equally impressed into the substance of the vaporous air whence their vertue is also suppressed but in breathing of the said air out of an open mouth the fiery minims do come forth in troops unequally and but superficially mixt in or supported by the said incrassated air whence they abide energick besides the air being but little puffed makes little or no compression Hence you may also collect a reason why the air doth refrigrate being agitated with a Fan. V. Why doth an armed point of an Arrow grow hot in being shot through the air Answ. Because its body and pores are somewhat opened by the air grinding against it whereby its fiery parts procure an occasion of being unired and condensed This doth also resolve us why a Knife being smartly whetted emits sparks of fire or why a Flint being struck hard against a piece of Steel doth likewise sparkle fire from it viz. because its solid parts are opened and disjoyned through the concussion whereby the fiery minims happen to be united and condensed Likewise many cold bodies by being chawed or contrited do afterwards grow hot VI. Why will not Beer or Wine run out of the Cask without opening a hole atop Answ. Because of the continuous adhesion or cohesion of the continuous parts of the liquor to the continuous parts of the Cask but as soon as it is averruncated divided and impelled downwards by the air entring at the upper hole it runs freely out of the Tap. That it is the air entring atop which presseth out the liquor is apparent by the cavity atop which the fore-impulse of the air entring causeth VII What difference is there between an Oricane and a Travada Answ. An Oricane is usually much more violent and therefore also much less lasting bursting down circularly from all parts like to a Whirlwind A Travada is more lasting and less violent and erupts directly down from one tract and in no wise circularly which as it oft rages upon the Seas off the shores of Coramandel Manicongo Guiny c. so the former is more frequent in the West-Indian Climates VIII Whether it be true that Winds may be hired from Witches or Wizzards in Iseland Answ. It is certain that the Winds blow very variously and manifold about that Island insomuch that it is not rare to see Ships sailing several courses at once all of them being equally favoured by a good wind The cause of this being vulgarly not known hath occasioned people to brand the old men and women there with Witchcraft whom the roughness of the air may cause to look rugged like the devils correspondents selling the winds by retail The causes of this variety are great winds erupting oft out of several holes of the earth about the Island especially about the Mount Hecla which many believe to be the mouth of hell because of those prodigious thunders and murmurings of winds that are perceived thereabout IX Why is it