at least it is hardly perceivable to the palate Once a week the Baths are empited and swept clean onely the Cross Bath because of its frequent use and its narrowness is sometimes cleansed twice a week For the nature of the water is that about 4. or 5. hours after the going out of the Baths the water casts out a foamy scum or filth which swims on the top of it and fouls it The Minerals that are conceived by learned Writers to give these Waters their heat and Tincture are Bitumen Sulphur and Nitre and there is Bitumen Sulphur and Nitre being in less quantity The Mineralness of these Waters appears also by a way that the people of Bath have to give Silver Money a Golden colour which is done with a Composition made as they say of the mud of the Bath and some of the Bath-Water and Urine mixed together with which composition they rub the Money which they intend to gild but the colour is but pale and faint and will quickly wear off Now that it is a Bituminous and Sulphury matter that gives this Water its heat and tincture besides its Medicinal Vertues as that it dryes heats dissolves softens opens attracts digests cuts and is abstersive c. there is this manifest proof that the Countrey hereabouts is full of Cole-Mines especially about Bristol and the southermost parts of Glocestershire as Mengerfield Westerley c. and so also under Mendip-Hills that part of them that lyes towards Frome-Selwood And all Naturallists agree as they have reason that Coale is a Bituminous and sulphury matter For that it is a Bitumen is manifest by its black pitchy viscosity and its melting as it burns And that there is a quantity of Sulphur in it is as evident by the Brimstony smell the Embers of them give as any one may find that will but hold his head a while over a pan of them as also by their burning blew many times especially when they hurn eagerly as in frosty Weather whence many people reckon the fires burning blew a slgne of frost and hard weather And which is yet a further argument the Coale hereabouts hath abundance of Veins like Gold or Brass in it as I have often observed my self and it may be observed every day for indeed there is nothing more common a thing which I could never observe in New-Castle Coal though this Cake as that doth and doth not burn all away to a white ashes as the Coale which they dig about Staffordshire and which I think they call Canell-Coale There are saith Cambden a kind of pit-coals digged near the River Frome with which Smiths use to soften Iron These are the Coales I mentioned before under Mendip Hills toward Frome-Selwood That they should soften Iron is no wonder since we see any Coal or the like violent sire doth the same but whether they have a singular power thatway above other coal may be further enquired It is reported that about Uphill Parish by the sea-side not far from Axbridge within these half hundred years a parcel of Land swelled up like a hil and on a sudden clave asunder and fel down again into the Earth and in the place of it remains a great Pool At Keinsham in stone quarries are found stones in the form of a Serpent like the Whitbay stones of which I shal speak more in Yorkshire onely here is the difference between them whereas those at Whitbay want heads some of these have Hereabouts also saith Cambden grows Percepier or Parsley-break stone an Herb proper to England bitter hot biting and sowre without stalk with herby Flowers never above a span high It grows naturally all the yeer long it is extremely dieuretical and very quick in operation Yet however Cambden puts it down as a special rarity in this place our modern Herbarists make no such rarity of it for Mercurius Botanicus saith indefinitely that it grows in Agris Siccioribus that is in dry grounds and others say that it is commonly to be found in airable fields after Harvest At Bristol it flows a 11. or 12. Ells in height every Tide an extraordinary proportion in comparison of most places on the English shore The cause I suppose is the extreme wide and direct mouth of Severn lying open to the Vast Atlantick Sea where the Tide comes rolling in a-main and being contracted as it comes in higher into the River and land-locked and not being able to fall back again til it ebb without in the Main by reason of the continual succession of Water must needs swel to that height in the Severn and by consequence very easily communicate part of his burden to the Avon of Bristol Not far from Bristol is the famous Rock called St. Vincents Rocks ragged and hanging over the bank of the River of Avon where saith Johnson is a Well of warm Water pleasing to the tast It flows out of the Clest of a great Rock is overflowed every Tide and left open to the air at the ebb for its spring breaks out at the Root of the Rocks the Water is much commended for Ulcers and calculous affections of the reins being taken inwardly It is also often applied outwardly to cure old sores with very good success saith he as I have heard those say that have tried There is moreover in this place a Vein of Iron in the Bowels of the Earth saith the same Author whence the water gets its vertue and a greater heat which it loseth by running a great way before it can get out But by my Authors leave it cannot be conceived how a vein of Iron should make water so hot since we see that iron Mines in other places work no such effect upon those Waters that run through them I rather conceive there it is some other Vein of Metal or rather Mineral there that is the cause of the heat and likely the same Mineral that causeth the heat of the Bath-Waters Much more I could say but I am unwilling to inlarge too far upon Plausibilities Note that this hot Well is not above 12. miles from Bath On the upper side of these craggy Rocks of St. Vincent are digged out pellucid stones sexangular or six cornered and quadrangular or four cornered which we call Diamonds Some will have them to be Chrystal but saith Mr. Johnson I think they are rather of the nature of Fluores For saith he I remember an Apothecary of Bristol told me the Lord of the place would not have them taken out of the Iron Mine which was the womb in which they were formed because the greater quantity of them make the Metal the more fluid and apt to melt And Agricola tells us that Fluores are very like Diamonds but not so hard and that they are used in the melting and trying of Metals till they be throughly tried for saith he they make the matter in the fire much more fluid And Kentmannus in his Catalogue of Fossils reckons Pellucid Fluores sexangular and like Crystal
higher them the face of the Water which they had for saken by 9 foot and in the place from which they are removed other ground which lay higher is descended receiving the Water which lyes upon it Moreover in one pace of the plain field there is a great hole made by sinking of the earth to the depth of 30. foot at the least being in breath in some places two Pearches over and in length five or six pearches Also there is a hedge 30. pearches long carryed Southward with his Trees seven pearches at the least And sundry other sinkings there be in diverse places one of 60. foot another of 47. and another of 34. foot By means of which confusion it is come to pass that where the highest Hills were there be the deepest Dales and the lowest Dales are become the highest grounds The whole measure of breaking was at the least nine Acres seven days works and four Pearches c. To this effect is this strange story related in our Chronicles with the other of Motingham both which we have no reason to doubt the truth since of late years namely Anno 1657. we have had a fresh example of an Earthsinking at Bickley in Cheshire of which we shall speak in its place and which answers to that or Motingham And our Chronicles afford us two very remarkable stories of Earth-removing one in Herefordshire 1571. Marcley-Hill and another at Armitage in Dorsetshire of which we have already spoken Now for Earth sinking I conceive I have found out the cause in cafe the Countrey about Motingham and Bickley be loose and sandy and I imagine it to be this The Springs that run to and fro in the body of the earth the deeper they run the more they are encreased in quantity and as they run thus if the earth be loose or sandy they must needs wash and carry away the sand or loose earth with them by degrees and so make their passages bigger and bigger both in breadth depth For the earth being hollowed and vaulted by this means the sieling as I may call it of this Vault being as we conceived sandy and loose moulders and drops down by degrees into the stream under it which as it falls still clears it away and thus at lenght it is not improbable that it becomes a very spacious and deep hollowness Now while this hollowness continues thus encreasing sometimes little sometimes much according as the temper of the year augments or diminishes the bulk force of the waters there comes at length a great glnt of Rain which exceedingly encreasing the waters and by consequence the violence of these subterrahian streams they wash away now much more of the sides of the Vault this little River overflowing its ordinary banks then at other times and withall the weight of the incumbent earth that I mean which lyes right over this cavity is much augmented by the extream wet So that the weight being much more and the strenght to support the mass of Earth much less I cannot conceive what can follow hereupon but a sinking of the incumbent Earth to the very bottom how deep soever it be Sometimes by degrees and sometimes all at once ac-according to the nature of the Earth which in some places I confess though sandy yet may not be meer sand And it may be the air within the vault gives not place so quickly as the earth hath a desire to descend but must be squeezed out by little and little Further I conceive that after great wets the strong tendency of the waters downward altogether presseth in the air in the vault on all fides and so begets a conflict between the water and the air the air struggling outragiously to free it self which conflict begets a confusion and this confusion must needs loosen the incumbent earth and so much contribute also to its falling in if it be loose and sandy And I am of opinion that whensoever the truth comes to be found out it will appear that this tumultuary tendency of waters downward after great wets pressing in the air as I said in hollow places of the Earth begets a conflict and that a concussion which is that we call an Earthquake For so much is truer then truth it self that Earthquakes always succeed great wets or a sudden glut and tempest of rain in the time of a great drought See 1 King Which commonly falls all in one place or Country and none in another and is for the most part much more large and pouring then in dripping years for a plain reason Witness that horrid thunder-shower that poured down so much rain in so short a time and within so little compass of ground and made so great a flood in the Parish of great Badminton in Glocestershire June 1652. in the middle of the greatest drought that our age hath known Besides it is further to be considered that sandy places doth more easily let in the rain into the bowells of the Earth so that it distills not down by drops but presently and almost altogether nor can it mix with the sand to make dirt and evaporate upward from whence it came as rain doth in most forts of earth but descends more entire little or none of that wet that falls returning unless the Sun shine very forciblyout immediately after the rain and then it cannot draw much neither And I partly believe that those little sinkings of Earth in sandy ways in wet years called Quicksands such as I have seen one towards the upper end of Bocton streer in the road between Sittingbourr and Canterbury and others in many other places are but the effects of some of the smaller sorts of these causes and the reason why they are rather in road-ways then other places is onely because of the great weight of carriages that sends the pendulous earth going Thus far I have ventured at the cause of earth sinking and would attempt as much at earth removings were I but sure that Machley-hill in Herefordshire Westram in Kent and Armitage in Dorsetshire were all of a fat and clammy soile and not very stiffe for then I think I have much to say to the cause of those too but till I am sure I shall be silent though some of Herefordshire have told me that Marcley-hil is such as I would have it to be In Tenderden-steeple some where about the Belfrey I have been told there is a stone which as the Rain falls upon it immediately out of the air or drops down from the stones on the side of the steeple about it grows in a matter of five or six years very manifestly and having been pared away with an Instrument grows up again as high as before Upon the shores of the Isle of Shepey are found weighty stones out of which Brimstone and Coperas are tryed by Minster in the same Island by boiling them in a furnace made for the purpose Nigh Feversham likewise in other parts of Kent are pits of
great depth saith Cambden narrow at the mouth and very wide below which have distinctions of rooms and Chambers as it were with severall pillars of Chalk to support them out of which he thinks the old Britans dug Chalk to manure their Land withall as Pliny also saith And which is observable and much to the purpose they are not found but in Chalky and Marly soile The pits Cambden means I suppose are the great pit near the Town called Hagdale-Pit The great Chalk pit joining to the Road-way between Feuersham and Bocton There is another too on the right hand of the way going up from the Town toward Shelwich near Copton Farme-house Another between Davington Church and Stone Church to which we may adde one or two great pits in the parish of Norton in a Field not far from the Beacon-hill which are very deep and yet very narrow to the top Wheresoever the streets went in Richborow an ancient Town near Sandwich long since destroyed and gone the corn that is now there sowed in those places is but thin And it is reported that the cement of the old walls is as hard as the stone Great store of Sampire grows on the clifts between Deale and Dover The Weald for wood East Kent for Corn Rumney for meadow Tenbaem for an Orchard Sheppey Reculuer for Wheat Thaâ—et for Barley and Hedcorn for the brood of fat big and commended Capons At Dengeness for a mile and more grow abundance of Holly trees naturally among nothing but Beach and Pebbles And westward from Dengeness among the Beach grow peason naturally like Clusters of Grapes together in tast very like our field peason The like to which as also a kind of Hops do grow naturally among a great deal of Beach and Pebbles in the Marshes between the Isle of Thanet and Sandwich about a mile or better from the Town as I was told by an inhabitant of Sandwich Cambden supposeth that England hath formerly been united to the continent about Calais because in the middle between Calais and Dover the Sea is but 25 fathom deep even as between Sicily and Italy it is but 80 paces which Island likewise hath anciently been thought to have been united to Italy but on both sides of it the Sea is much deeper Moreover in the very middle between Calais Dover is one bank called Frowen-shoale which at a low water is scarce three fathom deep but within halfe a league of it to the Southward it is 27 fathom deep and to the Northward 25. Likewise the clifts are alike high about Calais and Dover and of the same matter and colour My opinion is that the Shallowness in that place may peradventure be caused rather from the narrowness of the Sea there and its being so near the place where the two floods meet that come in at both ends of the Island of which I spake before so by degrees work up the sand gravel stones c here in heaps which they wash from the ground as they come along and not from having been the Isthmus of England formerly For I have been told by credible men that between the Isle of Shepey and the continent of Kent at the place where the two floods meet that come in at both ends of the Island there is the like shelfe or shallow place that lyes cross from the continent to the Island which no doubt is caused by the same means But as to the likeness of the cliffs on both sides I am able to say nothing of it It is reported that at Sellenge and Egerton about 40 years ago were medicinall waters Cranebrook hath the name for good Beer It is reported that there are no moles in the Isle of Shepey and that if they be carryed over thither as it hath been tryed they will not live The Isle of Thanet is all Chalky and hath the name for the best Barley Query Whether Chalky land be not the most naturall soyle for Barley Tenham and the parishes in that levell are very unhealthfull The reason is because they stand low and among the marshes And another reason may be because theearth there is very rotten and quagmiry and therefore is apt to mix with the spring-Spring-waters that issue from it and corrupt them The River Stoure that runs through Canterbury breeds the best Trouts in the South-East parts of England At Boxley Abbey about two miles from Maidstone is a Spring the water whereof as it is reported in nine days will turn sticks and such like wood into stone In the Parish of Lewesham about six miles from London is a Medicinall water It was found about the year 1651 and hath been since much frequented Taken in a good plentisull quantity it purgeth gently by urine and siege It riseth on a great Common upon the descent of the highest hill in that part of Kent and is supposed to issue from an Aluminous earth I spake before of the earth sinking at Mottingham I have since viewed the place and find the Country to be all a gravelly loose earth according to my Hypothesis The hole where the earth sunk in lyes in a water-course and is since by degrees filled up with that sulledge that great rains bring into it GLOUCESTERSHIRE THe hilly part of this County called Castwald abounds with fine wool small sheep which are long-necked and square of bulk and bone and hath a very pleasant air The low parts of it are exceeding fruitfull and rich in Corns so that as Cambden saith it returns an hundred for one The parts about Bristol afford great store of Coals that cake as New Castle Coal doth but yet differ from it as I have already said The Northern parts of it are as abundant in fruit And the Apple trees and Pear trees that grow in every hedge are not graffed but grow naturally by reason the ground is so inclined to bear fruit Yet the fruit for beauty and tast far exceeds all others and will keep till a new supply come Yea some of them will not wither or rivell in a whole year The part of Gloucestershire beyond the River of Seavern called the Forrest of Dean is stored with Iron Mines Speed tells us further that this Shire is very full of Vineyards which thrive very happily and bear very plesant Grapes so that the Wines made of them are little inferiour to the French Wines The River of Seavern is very swift and there is a daily rage and sury of its waters raising up the Sands and Mire from the bottome winding and driving them upon heaps somtimes overflowing her banks And the force of this rage is such that it will overturn a Vessell if it take it on the side Tewkesbury hath a name for excellent mustard About the Quire in the Cathedrall Church of Gloucester in an Arch of it there is a wall built in form of a Semicircle full of corners and if a man speak with a very low voice at the one side or end of it and
were fallen into it some part of them ash some part of them stone Worcestershire THis is a very pleasant County and fertile especially the vale of Evesham In some parts of it are many Salt Pits and Salt Springs It affords store of excellent Cheese The hedge-rows and high-ways are beset with Pear-trees of which they make Perry a very pleasant drink but generally very cold and windy But saith Cambden although the Pears be in such huge abundance yet are they not so pleasing to the tast Which if it be true I much wonder at it For certainly there is much reason to believe that where fruit trees are planted in hedgerows and highways their fruit should be better rellishred then fruit of the same kind planted in Orchards within the shade of other trees because those in hedgerows lye more open to the Sun and that heat that must concoct them to give them their true relish though on the other side I deny not that they are more subject to bsasting winds The Seavern here affords great store of fresh water Lampreyes they are saith Cambden like Eeles slippery and blackish but under their bellies something blew they have no gills but let in the water at seven holes on each side of their throat in the Spring they are sweetest and most etable for in Summer the inner nerve which serves them instead of a backbone waxeth hard The Italians make a delicate dish of them taking a Lamprey and killing it in Malmesey they close the mouth with a Nutmeg and fill all the holes with as many cloves then they roll it up and put 〈◊〉 Nut-kernels stamped crums of bread oyle Malmesey and Spices to it and so they boile it with great care and then turn it over a soft gentle fire of Coals in a frying pan The reason why Seavern affords Lampreys I conceive is its muddiness the Lamprey being a kind of Eele that breeds and delights in mire Other fish as is before said Seavern breeds not so plentifully because as men thrive best in clear air so sish in clear water gross air choaking the one and thick water the other At Droitwich are three Fountains of Salt water divided by a little Brook of fresh water passing between by the boiling of which Salt water they make pure white Salt Gervase of Tilbury an Historian not rashly to be credited saith that these salt Springs are most salt between Christmas and Midsummer and that the rest of the year they are somewhat fresh and not so good to make Salt of and that when the Salt water is run sufficiently for the use of the Country the Springs do scarce overflow to any wast and that at the greatestSaltness of it it is not allayed by the nearness of the fresh water to it and lastly that it is found no where near the Sea Cambden doubts the truth of some of these affirmations but of which he saith not Onely he saith that the Salt is made from Midsummer to Midwinter which is quite contrary to Gervase Indeed if there be any difference in the saltness of these waters in severall times of the year they should I think be fresher from Christmas to Midsummer because that half year all Springs but land Springs are highest run most plentifully by reason of the great wet season immediately foregoing which must therefore more dilute the salt And on the contrary the Springs between Midsummer and Christmas must be the lower because of the drought just preceding I have heard Masons in Kent that used to dig wells say that the Springs that feed their wells are lowest about Alhollantide and highest between Easter and Whitsuntide for the very same reason I could wish some ingenuous native would bestow upon us the perfect History of these Salt Springs in Worcestershire and Cheshire Some Philosophers trouble themselvs much about the cause of the Saltness of the Sea I think it needs not so much puzzle and ado If there bee salt Springs that run continually into the Sea and no part of the saltness of the water but that which is meer fresh ascend in vapour at the Suns call why should not the Sea be and continue salt There would rather be more fear lest the Sea should grow salter and salter by these Springs continually running into it but that the Salinae on severall shores of the world do rob it every day besides other losses it sustains and escapes that it makes through private passages in the earth There is a report of a medicinall Water found out lately about Eckington-Bridge about 7 miles from Worcester Staffordshire THe air of this shireis very healthfull yet in the North parts and Moreland it is very sharp the wind blowing cold and the snow lying long It affordeth good store of Albaster Iron Pit-Coale Which is thought to be the Lapis Obsidianus of the Ancients if it be at all in England for it is hard bright light and easie to be cloven in flakes and being once kindled it burns away very quickly And Fish whereof the River of Trent is full The meadows of this shire are so moistned withstreams and rivers runningby them that they look green in the middle of winter In Pensneth Chase is a Coal-Pit which saith Cambden was set on fire by a Candle through the negligence of a digger the smoak of it is commonly seen and sometimes the flame In this shire there runs a hill a long and so through the middle of England as far as Scotland like the Apennine in Italy In this shire they manuretheir land with Lime-stone The people about Wotton by Wolverhil in Moreland observe that when the wind sets West it always produces rain but the East and South wind which elsewhere brew and bring rain here bring fair weather unless the wind turn from the West into the South and this they ascribe to the nearness of the Irish Seas This observation I fear is somewhat imperfect and should be driven a little further by men able to make observation If the River Dove overflow its banks and run into the adjoyning meadows in Aprill it makes them extream fruitfull The reason of this is plain enough without further enquiry Indeed some Rivers overflowing their banks enrich more and others less according to the fatness or hungryness of their water The River Dove uses to rise extreamly within twelve hours space but it will within the space of twelve hours return again within its banks but Trent being once up and over its banks flows over the fields four or five days together ere the supersluous waters can get away Of this wee have given an account already speaking of the Thames and Seavern The little River Hans runs under ground for three miles together Cambden saith that Necham speaks of a Lake in Staffordshire but where it is he cannot tell that foreshews things to come by its roaring and no wild beast will enter into it but he thinks it is but a Fable And Gervase of Tilbury tells us of
The River Lid by Lidford runs under ground At Combmarton are found Mines of Lead and some Veins of Silver Ordulphus this Countrey man for he was Son of Ordarus E. of Devonshire was a Giant-like man that if William of Malmesbury say true would break open the bars of Gates and stride 10. foot 'T is probable he was one of somewhat a larger proportion then ordinary and so might give a fair occasion for the Hyperbole and that the brawniness and big-bodiedness of the Cornish men may extend to their neighbours of Devonshire The air of Devonshire is sharp and wholesom the soil hilly and woody and here they use as in Cornwall sea-sand to mend and enrich their Land which makes it very fat and battle Devonshire abounds with Wool Kersies Sea-fish and Sea-fowl Load-stones have been found upon Dartmore Rocks of good value and vertue Upon Exmore are such stones huge and placed confusedly as are upon Salisbury Plain and one of them hath Danish Letters upon it directing passengers that way At Hubblestow in this shire was a battel fought by the Danes where their Banner called Reafan in which they reposed confidencce of Victory and Success was notwithstanding taken and Hubba their Captain slain It is reported by several persons of credit that during the late War at the time that Exceter was besieged by the Parliaments sorces an infinite number of Larks came flying into the Town and settled in a void green place within the Walls where they were killed by the besieged in huge quantities and eaten DORSETSHIRE THE Air of this Shire is healthful and the Sea yeildeth the shrub called Isidis Plocamos growing without leaves like Coral When it is cut it waxeth hard and black and is brittle It groweth among that useless Sea-Weed called Algar and is most plentiful about the Isle of portland About Birtport or Burport grows the best Hemp in these parts of England The River of Sture affordeth great store of Tench and Eeles Probably 't is a muddy River Alume and Coperas is made at Canford in this Shire the reason I suppose is because the shores of the Sea not far from it may afford Copperas stones for the purpose in good quantity At Shaftsbury as say some of our Historians lived in times past one Aquila which yet some wil have to be the Bird of that name who prophesied that the Brittish Empire after the Saxons and Normans would return to the old Britans There was never any age of the World but it afforded a Prophet for a pleasing improbability and the greater or more pleasing improbability the more the Prophets At Pool in the year 1653. June 20. it is reported that it rained warm blood The particulars of which would be well worth the while to enquire after because Peireskius the noble French Philosopher contends that that blood falls not out of the air but is a superfluous matter remaining after the hatching of a Butter-flye and left in such places sometimes where no rain can come to drop It were easie to enquire the true particulars of it being so late a prodigy I once had a conceit but I had no reason to cherish it long that this Blood might be engendered of some Vapours drawn up by the Sun from that part of the Sea where the cruel Sea-fight was fought between the English and Dutch not far from this Town and not long before this time as if the crimson'd Sea had afforded a Crimson Vapour to make this rain of But this is not the first plausible error that I have had Query whether about Pool and in the Isle of Wight and other places in England where our Histories tell us it hath rained blood there be not generally greater store of Butterflies and Grashoppers then elsewhere In the Haven of this Town of rool the sea contrary to all other Ports in England ebbs and flows like another Euripus four times in 24 hours for first it flows a S. E. and N. W. Moon and then a South and by East and a North and by West Moon once more vvhich second floud is caused as Seamen conceive by the return of the fore-ebb vvhich coming from the Sussex Coast and so along between the Isle of Wight and the main Land of Hantshire strikes in here as lying in its vvay Note that Euripus in Eubaea is scituated almost like Pool At Hermitage in Dorsetshire it lyes I think in the vail of White Hart in the year 1582. 3. January the 13. being Sunday a piece of ground of three Acres removed from its old place saith Stow in his Summary and vvas carryed over another Close vvhere Alders and Willows grew the space of 40. Rods or Perches and stopt up the High-Way that led to Cerne a Market Tovvn and yet the Hedges that it vvas enclosed vvith enclose it still and the Trees stand bolt upright and the place vvhere this ground was before is left like a great pit The Portland men like the ancient Inhabitants of the Baleares Isles in the Mediteranean Sea are excellent slingers In the Isles of Purbeck are Veins of Marble running under the earth SOMERSETSHIRE IN this Shire the Air is mild and the soil generally very wet miry and moorish Of the hot Baths in this Shire at the City of Bath Johnson in his Mercurius Botanicus gives us this description Bath saith he lyes in a plain not great encompassed with Mountains almost of an equal height The Baths are four the King's Bath the Queen's Bath the Cross Bath and the Hot Bath The King's Bath lyes in the middle of the City being about 60. feet square and it hath about the middle of it many hot Springs rising whence it hath the greater heat The Queen's Bath hath no Spring in it but only receives the Water from the King's Bath from which it is onely divided by a Wall for which reason it is more temperate then the Kings In these two Baths there is a Pump to pump Water upon the diseased where strong Embrocations as Phisicians speak are required for often times the matter of the Disease is so contumacious that simple bathing wil not remove it The Cross Bath and Hot Bath are in the West part of the City The Cross Bath is Triangular and about 25. foot long and as broad at one end It hath not so many Springs as the Kings Bath and hot bath have and therefore is of a more gentle heat About 22. paces from the Cross Bath is the Hot Bath so called because formerly when it was not so large as now it is it was much hotter then the rest But now it is only as hot as the King's Bath or but little hotter It is 27. foot long 13 foot broad The Water of all these Baths in a small quantity seems clear and pellucid but if one look upon its surface in the Bath it lookssomewhat green or of a blew or sea-colour as Cambden saith and it hath a Bituminous unsavoury smell but almost no tast
person of Pythagoras of Samos Vetus inventa est in montibus Anchora summis On tops of hills old Anchors have been found There is near St. Albans a Brook called Wenmere or Womere which never breaketh out but it foretelleth dearth and scarcity of Corn or else some extraordinary dangerous times shortly to ensue as the Common people believe See what we have said of the river Kennet in Wiltshire touching the breaking forth of unusuall Springs If now that it is a brook and runs but seldome it be of so ill portent let them that have a mind to smile say of how fatall a signification it was when it was a river and a Navigable one too as the Anchors before mentioned seem willing to perswade us At Ashwell in Hartfordshire rise so many sources of Springs together that they presently drive a Mill and become a pretty big River See before what we said of the Spring at Chedder in Sommersetshire MIDDLESEX THe air of this Shire is healthfull as being all a gravell and the soile rich as being generally flat and levell and having a ready help at hand the fat compost of a populous City At Barnet are medicinall waters very famous Heston a small village near Harrow on the Hill is very famous for yielding the purest flowr for Manchet The water of Crowders Well saith the Author of Tactometria on the back side of St. Giles by Cripplegate and that of the Postern Spring on Tower Hill have a very pleasant tast like that of new milk and are very good for sore eyes But Crowders well is far better of the two An ancient man saith the same Author in London whensoever he was sick would drink plentifully of this Crowders well water and was presently made well again and whensoever he was overcome of drink he would drink of this water which would presently make him sober again The Stews by the Bank-side saith Cambden in Southwarke were made to feed Pikes Tenches sat and to scour them from their muddy Fennish tast I have seen saith he Pikes panches opened with a knife to shew their fatness and presently the wounds have come together again by the touch of tenches and by the help of their glewy slime been perfectly healed up The shore of this Shire is washed by the goodly River of Thames which glidts along with a much more clear and gentle stream then the river of Severn The cause of the clearness of the Water is its running in a gravelly Valley and over a clear ground Gravel being unapt to mix with Water when it is stirred and too heavy to swim very far along with it The River of Severn as also the River of Avon that runs from the Bath and by Bristol is on the contrary a very muddy troubled Water because it washes a miry and ouzy shore almost all along For the gentleness of the Current in the Thames we are to know there are two principal causes of it the great winding of the River which locks in the Water that it cannot make that haste down to sea that it would and the low lying of the head Springs of it from whence there is but an easie descent to the sea And I think it is not amiss to note here that this easie descent of the Waters to the sea-ward is another reason why the tide flows up so high into the heart of this River For who sees not that the more steep the River the less way is the Tide able to force its way up into it Swift Rivers have alwayes their Heads lying high or their course direct or both Indeed in case swift Rivers do or did at first run winding to and again yet if their Springs lye high they will in process of time by their violence pare away the Promontories of their banks unless they be rocky and stubborn and make their way straighter There are in the Thames three other things worth observation to wit its Spring-Tides its overflowing its banks and its strange shifting of Tides at some times touching all which because it falls not unhandsomely into this place I shal deliver my conceptions in regard I have I think something to say to them which I never yet read And first for the Spring-Tides in the Thames and other Rivers which are higher Tides then ordinary that happen about every ful and change of the Moon the great French Philosopher Des-Cartes endeavours in his Principia Philosophiae to give us the reason of them by framing a most ingenious Hypothesis too long here to set down and telling us from the Theorique of the Moon that the Moon moves so in her Ellipsis or Oval-fashioned Orb about the Earth that at her ful and change she comes nearer the earth and in each Quarter goes farther from it whence according to his Hypothesis greater Tides must be at ful and change and neap or low Tides at the Quarters All which is for the most part true indeed and without doubt the Moon her nearness at the Ful and Change is the cause of the Spring-Tides then even as the Moon 's being further off at the Quarters makes the neap-tides then but there is another thing considerable in the business which Des-Cartes never considered and which I fear he never knew that is that the spring-tides come not just upon the day of the Full and Change but follow two or three days after and so do the Neaps too after the Quarters which is against him and seems to shake his Hypothesis I mentioned that makes the Spring-tides and Neaps to fall just on thedays of the Change Ful and Quarters To untye this knot then I conceive the cause why the Spring-tides are at the highest two or three days after the Ful and Change and not on the very day c. is the same with that why the sharpest pinching time of Winter comes not just at the shortest day when the Sun is at the lowest but in January about a Month or five Weeks after Why also the coldest time of the night is not at mid-night but about break of day Why the hottest time of Summer is in July a Month or five Weeks after the solstice and why the hottest time of the day is not just at noon but about two or three a Clock in the afternoon To illustrate the reason of which let us suppose a large Cistern which hath a Cock towards or at the bottom of it that constantly lets out six Gal. of water if there be so much in the Cistern in a certain space of time and over the Cistern suppose another Cock that conveys Water from some other place into this Cistern and which runs at first but very slowly but after by degrees faster and faster til at length it let in eight Gallons of water in the same space of time that the cock below as we said lets out six Gallons And further let us suppose that the cock above after it hath continued running for some small time after the rate of
near with the quality of the Cave It is mentioned by the Lord Verulam in his History of the winds to this effect In a certain rocky cliffe in which there are holes if a man lay his ear to them he shall hear diverse noises and rumbling of winds under the earth These noises Cambden saith are to be heard as well at the lowest ebb as the higest flood Pembrokeshire THis shire hath a good temperate and wholesome air The soile yields Pit Coal and Marle It appeareth by Giraldus Cambrensis that the Flemmings that inhabited this shire in his time were very skilfull in sooth-saying by looking into beasts inwards In the Rocks in this shire there breeds a rare kind of Falcon which is thus described The head is flat and low the feathers laid in rows the legs pale and wan the claws slender and wide spread and the bill soaked round About 300 years ago it is reported that for 5 generations the Father of the Family in the Earledome of Pembroke their name was Hastings never saw his son At the time when Henry the second made his abode in Ireland were extraodinary violent and lasting storms of wind and weather so that the sandy shore on the coast of this shire was laid bare to the very hard ground which had lien hid for many ages And by further search the people found great Trunks of Trees which when they had digged up they were apparently lopped so that one might see the stroaks of the Axe upon them as if they had been given but the day before The earth looked very black and the wood of these Trunks was altogether like Ebony At the first discovery made by these storms the Trees we speak of lay so thick that the whole shore seemed nothing but a lopped grove Whence may be gathered that the Sea hath overflowed much land on this coast Asit hath indeed on the shores of many Countries bordering upon the Sea which is to be chiefly imputed to the ignorance of the Britans and other barbarous Nations who were long without the knowledge of Arts and understood not those ways to repress the fury of the Sea which now we do For without doubt since the knowing age of the World the Sea hath not gained upon the land one quarter of that it did before About Kilgorran are abundance of Salmons taken and there is a place called the Salmons leap as there is the like also in other Rivers for this reason The Salmon coveteth to get into fresh water Rivers to spawn and when he comes to places where the water falls down right from some high places and some such places there be in many Rivers he useth this policy He bends himself backward and takes his tail in his mouth and with all his force unloosing his circle on a sudden like a lath let go he mounteth up before the fall of the stream And therefore these downright falls or little Catarracts of water are called the Salmons Leap In the Isle of Scalmey grows abuudance of wild Thyme Cardiganshire AT the head of the River Istwyd are some Veins of Lead found In the River Tivy in times past the Beaver or Castor hath been found but now they can find none of them The Beaver is an amphibious creature that is lives indifferently in the Water and on the Land His fore-feet are like a dogs but the hinder feet are whole-skinned like those of a Goose. His dog-feet serve him ashore to run and his Geese-feet in the Water to swim His tail is broad and gristly which he useth as a stern to direct and turn his course His skin is ash-coloured somewhat inclining to blackish It is a very subtil creature The Chronicles report that while David Menevensis Bishop of St. David's refuted the Pelagian Heresie at Llan-devi-brevi the earth whereon he stood and preached rose up by Miracle to a certain height under his feet Cacrmardenshire THis shire as most hilly Countreys hath a wholesome air The soil is not said to be very fertile but onely in some places to yield pit coals In Carreg Castle is a Well that like the sea ebbs and flows twice in four and twenty hours Merionethshire THe air may be wholesom but the soil is but barren For it is very full of spired Hills being the most Mountainous shire in Wales except Caernarvon shire This shire is also subject to many and extraordinary great winds Near Bala is a great pool of water that drowns at least 160. acres of ground whose nature is as they say such that the high land-floods though never so great cannot make this pool to swell bigger but if the air be troubled with violent tempests of winds it riseth above its banks The River Dee runneth into this pool saith speed with a sharp stream and slides through it as they say without mixture of waters For in this pool is bred the fish called Guinjad which is never seen in Dee And in Dee Salmons are taken which are never found in the pool Upon the sea-coast of this shire great store of Herrings are taken at the time of year The sea beateth so sore and hard upon the West side of the shire that it is thought it hath carried away part of it The Welch people tell great wonders of Caer-Gai in this shire but what they are I know not Cambden tels us that the people of this shire are much given to idleness and wantonness I much wonder atit becauseitis generally observed that hilly Countreys are least subject to those two vices breeding for the most part hardy and warlike people Indeed I have heard how truly I cannot say that Cambden was not altogether so ingenuous in this Character as he should have been for they say when he came to visit this County in his preambulation he received some unhandsom affront at one place which provoked his choler to bestow this brand of insamy upon the Merioneth-shire men Caernarvonshire THe air of this shire is sharp and piercing Here are extraordinary high hills the highest in all Wales on some of which the Snow lyes long and on others it lyes all the year long hard crusted together A thing not at all to be wondred at since on the Alps and many other Mountains much more southerly then our Island it doth the like The consideration of which hath bred an opinion in me that the Globe of the Earth and Sea is of an Elliptick or Oval form that is like an Egg. And my reason is this I suppose that every yeare under both the Poles there falls a quantity of snow either little or much in the time of the suns being at the contrary Tropick and likely enough at other times of the year too which the Sun when he hath greatest power upon it cannot melt all And this is more then probable because not only in Greenland but also here in this shire and if we wil believe Munster on the top of the Alps too there are Mountainous Crusts of
frozen snow that never were melted So that now after so many years lapse it cannot be I think but that the Diameter of the earth from pole to pole from the top of the snow at one end of the earth to the top of it at the other end is much longer then in any part under the Equator though at the Creation it were as I believe made spherical And so I suppose in longer process of time it will grow more oblong And as it so increaseth in length so I believe the sea will decrease in depth tho gh both very insensibly because snow must consist of something and that something can be nothing but a watry vapour condensed and congealed c. And this watry vapour must be drawn out of the sea or out of that part of the earth which once sooner or later received it from the sea And this snow being thrown down at the Poles and not melting that so it may return from whence it came and re-fil that which is emptied must needs caufe a decrease in the sea Now that which tempts me to embrace this Paradox the more affectionately is for that it serves excellently well to solve a great doubt which troubled Tycho and Keppler about centrel Eclipses of the Moon that happen near the Equator such as that was which Tycho observed in the year 1588. and that which Keppler observed in the yeare 1624. concerning which hee speaks to this purpose Notandum est hanc Lunae Eclipsin instar illius quam Tycho anno 1588. observavit totalem proximam centrali egregie calculum fefellisse Nam non solum mora totius Lunae in tenebris brevis fuit sed duratio reliqua multo magis Perinde quasi Tellus Elliptica esset dimetientem breviorem habens sub AEquatore longiorem à Polo uno ad alterum that is We must note that this Eclipse of the Moon viz. that on the 26. of September stylo Novo 1624. like that which Tycho observed in the year 1588. being a total and almost centrel one did notoriously deceive my calculation for not onely the duration of the total obscurity was short but also the rest of the duration before and after the total obscurity much shorter as if saith he the Earth were Elliptical having a shorter Diameter under the Equator then from one Pole to another And yet I am not so devoted to my own fancies but that one solid reason shall prevail with me to abandon the dearest of them though for the present I see abundance of reason for what I think In some places of this shire are bred certain Shel-fish which being produced saith my Author by an heavenly dew bring forth Pearls In the Pool called Lin-paris there is as it is reported a kind of fish called Torcoch having a red belly which is no where else to be seen but here It is said also that on the high hills of this shire are two Meres one of which produceth fish that have but one eye and in the other is a moveable and floting Island which as soon as a man treads on it presently flotes a great way off But Speed thinks they are both but fables Snowdon Hills saith Cambden although they have snow always lying on them yet are exceeding rank with grass insomuch that they are become a Proverb among the Welsh and it is certain that there are pools and standing waters upon the very tops of these Mountains and they are so coated with that snowy crust that lyes on them that if a man do but lightly set his foot any where on the top of the Mountains he shal perceive the earth to stir the length of a stones cast from him which I suppose might occasion the fable of the Floting Island mentioned but now Anglesey IN diverse places saith Hugh Lloyd in the low grounds and Champion fields of this Island the Inhabitants do every day find and dig out of the earth the bodies of huge Trees with their Roots and Firre-Trees of a wonderful bigness and length Which Trees he thinks were such as were cut down by the Romans in theirtime because Tacitus saith the Romans when they had conquered this Island caused all their Woods to be cut down and utterly destroyed But if some be found with their roots on I cannot think so but rather impute thesespoils made on Maritime places to the want of industry and husbandry in the first ages of the world This Island was in times past full of Woods and Timber but instead of that now it yeeldeth plenty of Corn Sheep and Cattel The air is reasonable healthful save onely a little aguish at some time and in some places by reason of the fogs that rise from the sea It yeildeth also great store of Mil-stones and Grind-stones and in some places is found an Aluminous earth of which they may make Alume and Copperas but it must be with some cost and labour This Island saith Hugh Lloyd yeilds every year such plenty of wheat that they call it the Mother of Wales Denbighshire THe air of this shire is cold but very wholsome and the snow lyes long on the hils for it is a hilly Countrey the high hils resembling the battlement of Walls on the tops of which when vapors rise in the morning in Summer time it foreshews a fair day to follow The highest hil in the shire called Moilenlly hath a spring of clear water on the top of it The people living in the Vale saith Cambden are very healthful their heads sound and firm their eye-sight never dim and their age very lasting and chearful The little Riveret called Alen runs under ground once or twice Near the little Town Moinglath is plenty of Lead In the west part of the shire where the ground is barren they pare away the surface of the earth into turfs with a broad spade and burn them and lay the ashes of them upon those grounds which enriches them much This way of enriching Land was used anciently by the Romans and spoken of both by Virgil and Horace In the year 1574 February the 26. were great Earthquakes which did many people much hurt both within doors and without in York Worcester Hereford Gloucester Bristol and other places adjacent This shaking of the earth made the Bell in the Shire-Hall of Denbigh to toll twice but did no other harm at all thereabouts Flintshire THe air of this shire is healthfull without any Fogs or Fenny vapours saving that somtimes there riseth from the Sea and the River Dee certain thick and smoky mists which yet hurt not at all for the people here are very aged and healthfull The air is colder here then in Cheshire because it is encompassed with the Sea and the River so that the Northwinds being carried long upon the waters blow the colder whence it is that snow lyes very long here upon the hills The Country affordeth great plenty of Cattle but they are but small Millstone is digged in
tops of these hills stones have been found like Sea-winkles Cockles and other fish Which saith Cambden are either naturall or else are the reliques of Noahs flood petrified Orosius speaks as much of Oysters of stone found upon hills far from the Sea which have been eaten in hollow with the water In all likelyhood these stone-fishes are of the same kind with ours in Glocestershire Plenty of Lead-stones in Wentsedale The River Ure is full of Creafishes but the breed was brought thither out of the South parts of England by Sir Christopher Medcalfe It may be from Newbury in Barkeshire where there are the like plenty The River Swale is a very swift River Mask in this shire is full of Lead Ore There is a place in this shire called St. Wilfrids Needle being a passage so narrow that one of a mean bulk can but just creep through it The story goes of it that it easily lets chast women through but holds fast those that have plaid false However the thing may seem a Fable at first sight yet if the women that have plaid false be with child it may be true without wonder The Bishoprick of Durham THe air of this County is sharp and piercing and would be more but that the vapours of the Sea do help to dissolve the ice and snow The Eastern part of it is the richest the South is moorish and the West all Rocky without grass or grain onely it feeds Cattle and is well stored with Coal as indeed the whole County is being the greatest in England for great Coals And the Coals grow so near the surface of the earth that the Cart wheels turn them up in the trod-ways In the West part of this County are Iron Mines Query whether all Mines be not in a hilly Country The East part of the County yields a great plenty of Coale and yet where it hath plenty of it it is likewise fruitfull and good land At Egleston is a Marble quarry Near Darlington whose waters are warm hot saith Cambden and by an Antiperistasis or reverberation of the cold air are three pits wonderfull deep called Hell kettles These are thought to come of an earthquake that happened Anno 1179. For on Christmas day say our Chronicles at Oxenhall which is this place the ground heaved up alost like a Tower and so continued all that day as it were immovable till evening and then fell in with a very horrible noise and the earth swallowed it up and made in the same place three deep pits It is reported that Bishop Tunstall put a Goose into one of those pits having first given her a mark and the same Goose was found in the River Tees so that it seems these Kettles have passages under ground Within the River Weere at Butterby near Durham in Summer time there issues a salt reddish water from the sides of certain stones at the ebbe low water which with the Sun waxes white growing thick beeoms a salt which the people thereabouts alwayes use Cambden saith further that if you pour water upon these stones and temper it a little with them it will suck in a saltish quality Lancashire THe air of this County is thin and piercing not troubled with gross mists or fogs And the people are very comly healthfull and long lived and not subject to strange diseases The soile is not very fruitfull yet it breeds great number of Cattle that are of huge proportion and have goodly heads and large spread horns Here is also fish and fowle on the Sea coasts in good plenty and in other places of the shire the like store of Coals and a competent increase of flax Where the ground is plain it is good for wheat and barley that which lyes at the bottome of hils is better for oats Along the Sea side in many places lye heaps of Sand upon which the people pour water till it contract a saltish humour from the sand and thus they boile with turfs till it become white salt This shire in divers places suffereth much by the flowing fury of the Sea as in Fourness much of which the Sea hath eaten away by little and little The cause is plain For who can expect less where a shore full of quicksands as this is is washed and beaten upon by a Sea hardly ever quiet such as every one knows the Irish Sea is unless it be sometimes in Summer Not far from Fourness Felles lyes the greatest standing Water of England called Winander Meere which is wonderfull deep and ten miles over and all paved as it were in the bottome There are many such places in England that are naturally paved When I went to Keynsham by Bristol to search for the snake-stones there I found the Lane where they are as it were all paved with broad hard stones and the fnakes lying upon the middle of the surface of the stones We have also in some places of Kent such naturall pavements And such I take stone-streets by Hithe to be if it were not a work of the Romans This Winander Meere breeds a kind of fish called a Chare which is no where else to be found The Mosses in this shire are very unwholesome places to live in If the upper coat of this mossie earth be pared away it yields fat turfes for fewel and sometimes trees that have lien long under ground as it is thought unless they grew there which is unlikely In diverse places also these mosses underneath afford abundance of Marle to enrich land with On the banks of the River Irwell is a kind of reddish stone About Manchester are quarries of very good stone By Chatmoss in this shire is a low mossey ground very large a great part of which saith Cambden not long ago the Brooks swelling high carried quite away with them whereby the Rivers were corrupted and a number of fresh fish perished In which place now lyes a low vale watered with a little Brook where trees have been digged up lying along which are supposed by some to have come thus The channels of the Brooks being not scoured the Brooks have risen and made all the land moorish that lay lower then others Whereby the roots of the trees being loosened by reason of the bogginess of the ground or by the water finding a passage under ground the trees have either by their own weight or by some storm being blown down and so sunk into that soft earth and been swallowed up For it is observable that trees are no where digged out of the earth but where the earth is boggy And even upon hils such moorish and moist grounds are commonly found The wood of these trees burns very bright and clear like torchwood which perhaps is by reason of the Bitumenous earth in which they have been so long so that some think them to be Firre Trees but it is not so saith Cambden Such mighty trees are often found in Holland which are thought to be undermined by the waves working into
the Pearl-bearing Muskles are found upon this shore which conceive by the dew which they suck in and they are to be found at this day both here in the rivers of Cumberland Scotland THE air of this Kingdom hath its variety according to the scituation of several places and parts of it but generally it is healthful because cold The Soil in the High-lands is very poor and barren generally but in the low lands it is good and beareth excellent Oats much ranker then ours in England The people are strong of body and of good proportion Their Cattel are but small Their best Nags are bred about Galloway For Bernacles or Soland Geese they have so infinite a number of them that they even darken the Suns sight These Geese are most rife about the Basse an Island at the mouth of the Frith going up to Edenbrough and hither they bring an incredible number of fishes and withal such an abundance of sticks and little twigs to build their nests that the people are very plentifully provided of fewel who also make a great gain of their Feathers and Oil. There hath been great dispute among the Learned about the generation of these Geese some holding that they were bred of the leaves of the Bernacle Tree falling into the Waters others that they were bred of moist rotten Wood lying in the Waters but it is since found that they come of an Egg and are hatched as all other Geese are Lough-Rian is ful of Herrings and Stone-fishes saith Cambden Near the head of the River Cluyd in Crawford Moor in wild waste places certain Husbandmen of the Countrey after great store of violent rain happened to find small pieces like scrapings of Gold which gave them hopes of finding a Mine of Gold Indeed saith Cambden there is Azure gotten out every day without any labour at all Thus saith Cambden Ortelius tels us That in Drisdale in Scotland is a Mine of Gold in which also is found that which they commonly call Lazure It may be these are but two diverse stories of one and the same thing There is a Well near Edenburgh saith Speed that floteth with Bitumen There is a Spring about two miles from Edenbrough saith Ortelius on the top of the Water whereof drops of Oil continually swim so as if you take none from it there wil be never the more and if you take any from thence there wil be never the less Which Oil is good for the roughness of the skin Likely the same thing diversly related In Galloway saith Ortelius is a Lake called Myrtoun part of whose Waters freezes in the Winter as other Waters do but the other part was never known to be frozen in the greatest Frost that ever were In Loghabre are Iron-Mines saith Cambden And somewhere in Scotland Ortelius saith there are Lead-Mines In the Province of Coile saith Ortelius about ten Miles from Aire is a stone hardly twelve foot high and 33. cubits thick called the Deaf Rock on the one side of which though you make never so great a noise nay if you shoot off a piece of Ordinance it shall hardly be heard on the other side except you be a good way off from it and then the sound may easily be perceived In Buqhan Rats are never seen And if any be brought in thither they wil not live This Country of Buqhan yeilds the finest Wool in all Scotland And Lorn the best barley The Rivers of the coast of Buqhan are wel stored with Salmon and yet they never enter into the River Ratra On the banks of this River Ratra in Buqhan is a Cave near unto Stanys Castle in which is Water which dropping out of a natural Vault presently turneth into Pyramidal stones of a middle nature between ice and hard stone It is brittle and crumbling and never cometh to the hardness of Marble And if the Cave were not rid of these stones as they fall the whole Cave would shortly be filled The Water of the River Nessa and of the Lough-Nessa is alwayes warm and never freezeth The Lough-Lomund is about 20. or 24. miles long and eight miles broad It is wel stored with fish and particularly with one kind of fish very wholesome and good called a Pollac which is no where else to be found Necham saith that this Lough turneth sticks into stones In this Lough saith Ortelius are thirty Islands whereof divers have Villages inhabited and Churches and one of them which is very good for feeding of Cattel flotes up and down in the Lake as it is carried by the Wind Not unlike those Islands reported by Pliny to be in the Lake Vadimon which are ful of Grass and covered over with rushes and reeds and swim up and down in the Lake There are the like also near St. Omars by Calais In the Lough Lomund also are fishes without finns Further it is the nature of this Lough to rage and rise in waves most of all in the fairest and calmest weather so that boats are often cast away The River Douglass hath a black greenish Water In the Wood Caledonia in old time were white Bulls wild and very fierce whose manes were like Lyons thick and curled And so hateful they were to mankinde that they abhorred whatsoever was handled or breathed upon by men And Martial and Plutarch speak of bears here In Sutherland saith Cambden there are whole Hills of white Marble Towards the North of Scotland saith Speed there be Mountains all of Alablaster and some all of Marble Fife is wel stored with Pit-Coals and the shores of it are as largely stored with Oysters and other Shel-fish In the Rivers Dee and Done is great store of Salmon and a shel-fish called the Horse-Muskle in which there grow Pearls as Orient as the best The Countrey of Athole is infamous for witches and wicked women Near Falkirk saith Lythgow remain the ruines and marks of a Town c. swallowed up into the Earth by an Earth-quake and the void place is filled with water It is credibly reported saith Ortelius that in Argile there is a kind of stone to be found which if it be covered but a while with straw or flax it wil set it on fire The same Author saith That in the Countrey of Carict are very great Oxen whose flesh is very tender and of a very pleasant and delicate taste and the fat never waxes hard but is thin like liquid Oyle and that the sea also on this coast affords great store of Oysters Cockles Congers Herrings at time of year c. Also he saith That At the mouth of the River Frith in the main Sea is a very high Rock out of whose top a spring of fresh water runs abundantly The snow lies all the year long upon the hills in Ross. A huge piece of Amber saith Cambden as big as an Horse was not long since cast upon the shore of Buqhan Note that this shore lies almost over-against the mouth of the Baltick sea in which sea