exceedingly and makes men drink out of measure Also divers sorts of men eat bread wherein there is contain'd Nigella seed Darnell when they eat brown bread or mingled with Millet seed For these cause heavinesse and a passion like to drunkennesse by grosse vapours Canonher l. 3. de admirand Vini c. 1. Hitherto appertains refined wine poured from the Lees. For this though it be weaker to preserve it self and having no lees will sooner grow sowr for the Lees are the root to preserve the Wine yet because it is moyster and pierceth into all the Veins of those that drink it it sooner inflames the blood makes men drunk and overturns reason Jason Pratens de morb cerebri But women come not into this consideration nor such as drink sharp Wine after sweet or such as delight in new Wine For women are of a very moyst body are often purged have very open passages Macrob. in Saturnal Yet because they have a weaker brain and narrower sutures of their skull it is better to say with Alphonsus Lupeius that they are seldom so drunk that they rave but they are often sottish in their drink Sweet Wine stops the pores through which the Vapours of sharp Wines might ascend to the head Lastly sweetnesse so resists drunkennesse that Physitians cause such that are too much inflated with Wine first to vomit much and then they give them bread with honey to eat to repell the fumes that remaine of the Wine Macrob. Saturnal What concerns their divers gestures that is founded in the diversity of the parts and humours Fumes from Wine flye to the forepart of the head and fumes of Beer and Ale to the hinder parts Those that are drunk with this fall backwards but these with Wine fall forwards Those are clamorus and talkative these sleepy and forgetfull Lemnius l. 2. de occult c. 19. They see things lesse a farr off because the optick Spirits are made more thick The sanguine tempers laugh the cholerick prate and are mad the phlegmatique grow stupid the melancholique sad And because all of them have their opticks troubled with Vapours they all see a divers colour'd circle about the light of the Candle Gordon Libro Medic. part 2. c. 21. If they weep they delight in so doing Rhodig l. 12. c. 4. Moysture makes them stammer for by this the tongue is extended as a sponge with water and being swoln and thick cannot speak plain Jacob Pratens de natura vini Moreover experience hath found that Coleworts resist drunkennesse exceedingly chiefly raw and above all the red Cabbage Lemnius l. 2. c. 11. de occult But Galen saith L. 2. de composit medicam c. 5. hot Cabbage macerated and bound about the head And so great is the antipathy between it and Wine that if one powre Wine to it whil'st it boyls it will not boyle much If you desire a reason some say that by eating of it grosse Vapours ascend that thicken the Vapours of the Wine Aristotle saith that it draws the moysture of Wine down to the belly and cools the body Weckerus attributes the same force of the Ivy and Alexander saith that smallage nuts Lupins will do the like Pumanellus saith powder of Pumex-stone drank in water will do it Gratarolus speaks the same of Saffron de vini natura c. 5. Africanus of a Goats Lungs Amandus de Sancta Sophia l. 1. de veris secretis attributes as much to new Milk drank fasting Platerus prax medic Tom. 1. c. 3. prescribes pap made of Milk and Barley meal taken with Vinegar And he describes a certain powder thus Take Colewort seeds 1 dram Coriander seed 5 drams camphir 10 graiâ—s make a powder and give one spoonfull in sharp Wine But the dung of swallows powdred and drank will maka a man sober Pliny Rue eaten Merula The humour that first drops from the Vines at the beginning of the Spring bread that is made of darnâ—l dried and made into powder But that is superstitiously said That whosoever shall rehearse this verse before the first glasse of Wine he drinks Juppiter his alta sonuit clementer ab Ida. shall never be drunk Artic. 6. Of Bread THe chief foundation of mans preservation and nutriment and the staffe of life is bread well ordered Hence some say Panis Bread comes from pasco to feed some take it to be so call'd from Pan that is all because it answers all meat It is made of divers things The Aethiopians made it of the seed of Orindium The Icthyophagi made it of fish dried in the Sun Plin. l. 7. c. 1. The Aegyptian shepherds made it of the Lote-Tree seed Pliny l. 22. c. 21. Neer the Mountain Vogesus about the Town Burcken there is a fine white meale dug forth of a Mountain the Inhabitants make Bread of it and all sorts of Cakes Claudius Diodatus l. 2. Panther Hygiastici c. 4. But I say that can be no true meal but it must be miraculous I think it is some thick juyce that proceeds out of the earth and in time is congealed by heat of the Sun and so becomes fine meale Divers Medicaments are made of bread Aqua-vitae the most noble treasure of life is thus made Take the best bread cut into thin sippets what is sufficient put them into a hot Furnace that by degrees they may dry like red Bisquit then bruise it grosely and put it into a wide cauldron and for every pound of this Bread put in five pound of Fountain Water flowers of hops one handfull of anniseeds one ounce boyle them together till one part be consumed let them coole a little and then powre them forth and pass them through a basket or sieve then powre on some leaven first dissolved in warm water shut this up in a Vessel and let it ferment and work like new wine lastly part it as it grows clear distill it and rectifie it like Spirit of Wine Some distill the crumbs of white bread newly taken forth of the Oven putting it into glasse Stills four ounces of it are given successefully against the Epilepsie See Deodate how the quintessence may be extracted Artic. 7. Of wonderfull fasting THough nourishment be necessary for our life yet there have been many that have lived along time without it In Saint Augustine his days one lived 40 days without eating any thing Another in the time of Olimpiodorus the Platonist for so long as he lived he neither fed nor slept but only stood in the Sun to refresh himself The daughter of the Emperour Clotarius fasted eleven years Petrus Aponus saw one fasted 18 years Rondeletius saw one fasted ten and afterwards became a fruitfull Mother Hermolaus knew a Priest who lived in health 40 years without any thing but by sucking in the Ayr. Lastly one Nicolaus Helvetius under Waldensis Anno 1460 after that he had five Children by his Wife lived a solitary life and neither ate nor drank in 15 years Some dare affirm that he fasted 22 years and Bocatius saith that
fable for they could hardly sleep there when their senses are bound up For all their exercise is a tonick motion It is like to that That there is a hole in their back in the muscles where the Female that hath a hollow belly lays her eggs Aldrovandus who saw these Manucodiatae never found any such thing And that is like this that they feed on dew because they flye so high that they cannot alwaies meet with Dew But that must alwaies be restored that alwaies wasts Bellonius saith that the Janissari people of India deck themselves with their feathers They think that under their protection they shall be out of danger in the head of the battel The Mahumetans Marmin perswaded their Kings that they came from Paradise as tokens of the delights of that place The Cormorants are taken in the East to catch fish with In a certaine City saith Odoricus à Foro Julii scituate by the great River in the East we went to see our host fish I saw in his little ships Cormorants tied upon a perch and he had tied their throat with a string that they should not swallow the fish they took In every bark they set three great panniers one in the middle and at each end one then they let loose their Cormorants who presently caught abundance of fish which they put into the Panniers so that in a short time they fill'd them all Then mine â—ost took off the straps from their necks and let them fish for themselves when they were fulâ— they came back to their pearches and were tied up againe Scaliger writes that the same was done at Venice They put their heads deep into the water and perceive the change of the Ayre under the waves and when they perceive any tempest they flye to the land making a 〈…〉 Isidore l. 12. c. 7 Mizaldus saith that Vapours rise up from the waters that cause rainie Clowds and they cunningly observe it The liver of them boyld and eaten with Oyle and a little Salt is so present a remedy against the biting of a mad dog that the sick will presently desire water Aetius The same continued with Salt and drank with Hydromel two spoonfulls will drive forth the Second 〈…〉 Dioscorides CHAP. XXIV Of the Owl and Musket OWls were formerly plentifull in Athens in Gandie they neither breed nor will live brought thither Also in Mountain Countries of Helvetia there are none They sit close 60 dayes in Winter They are not hurt by fasting 9 dayes Plin. l. 10. c. 17. Eustatius says they see in the dark when the Moon is hid but hardly for want of a Medium Crescent l. 10. c. 16. yet they cannot see in the day by reason of too dry and thin substance of the humour which â—s dissipated by the fiery substance of the light He makes a double noise the one is Tou Tou the other noise they call Howling She is at great enmity vvith Crovvs Pausanias reports that the Crovvs snatcht avvay the picture of an Ovvl that vvas to be sold and earings of Gold out of ones hand that vvere made like Dates It is commonly observed that if the Ovvl forsake the Woods it signifies a barren yeare Ovvls egs given for three days in Wine to drunkards vvill make them loath it Plin. The Musket in Winter sits in Woods that use to be lopt and comes not to her place till Sun set When she looks upon any thing the black of the pupill of her eye grovvs greater then ordinary We read of this bird in the Salick lavvs that he vvho should steal ouâ— if he be taken must pay 120 denarii CHAP. XXV Of Onocrotalus and Rhinoceros ONocrotalus is from the tip of his bill to the bottom of his feet ten spans and more in magnitude Aldrovandus His vvings stretched forth make ten spans under his lower mandibule there is a receptacle like a bladder as long as it that hangs down at length And that is so great that a very great man thrust in his leg as far as his knee with a boot on into his Jaws and pull'd it out again without harme Perottus Sanctius reports that a little Blackmore was found in one At Mechlin there was one of 80 yeares old and for some yeares he went before the camp of the Emperour Maximilian as if he would determine the place for them Afterwards he was fed by an old woman at the Kings cost who was allowed for him 4 Stivers the day she fed him 56 yeares when he was young he would somtimes fly so high into the Ayre that he seemed no greater than a Swallow Gesner Also the cubit bones of his wings were covered with a membrane out of which there arose 24 Tendons that were so firmely set into them that there was no way to part them Gesner writes that he heard he was wont to come once a yeare about Lausanna by the Lake Lemannus Rhinoceros is a bird whereof one was kild in the Ayre flying at what time the Christians conquered the Turk in a Sea fight The head was about two spans adorned with black tufts of feathers very long and that hung downwards The Beack is almost a span long bent backward like a bow A horn grows out of its forehead and sticks to the upper part of his Bill of a great magnitude For about the forehead it was a hands breadth Aldrovandus thinks it is Pliny his Tragopanada CHAP. XXVI Of the Parrot THe Antients knew but one kind of Parrots but those that have seen the Indies have found above a hundred kinds different in colour and magnitude Vesputius writes that in a Country above the promontory of good hope that hath its name from Parrots they are so high that they are a cubit and halfe long Scalig. exerc 236 saith he saw one so great that he almost fill'd up the space of the lattice of a Window Some are no bigger than a Thrush or Pigeon or Sparrow No man could hitherto paint sufficiently all its colours they are so many In burning Aethiopia and the farthest Indies they are all white in Brasil red in Calecut they are all Leek green Watchet or Purple coloured Scalig. Exerc. 59. s. 2. The Antients esteemed the Green best The head and beck of it are extreme hard wherefore when they teach him to speak it feels not unlesse you strike iâ— with a wand of Iron woodden rods will do no good and it is dangerous to do it with Iron ones The Parrot alone with the Crocodile moves his upper mandible also his Beck which is common to no other where it is joyned to his neck is open beneath under his chops His tongue is broad like to a mans and represents the forme of a gourd seed the feet are like Woodpickers feet In the desertâ— of Presbyter John they are found with two Claws He puts his meat in his mouth like as men do He not only cuts in sunder the Almonds but by rowling them in the hollow of his Beck and
Crabs will hang about it Some say that in June they will go forth to feed in the fields catch Frogs and feed on grasse Fed with milk without water he will live many dayes Gesner kept one alive in water 13 days put into distilled wine burnt he presently growes red and may be set on the Table alive amongst those that are boyl'd Georg. Pictorius The Males are easily discerned from the females For they where their tail is joyn'd to their body underneath have four long rods sticking forth but these have none Also their tail is rounder plainer and thicker Leonellus Faventinus commends the powder of their eyes drank with water of peach leaves after opening a vein against a bastard Pleurisie The powder of them rubb'd on the teeth cleanseth and whiteneth them In India a Shell-fish that breeds Pearl is sometimes found so great as they report that in the Island Borneus in the Sea there was one taken that the meat within it weighed 47 pound yet methinks it is questionable CHAP. VIII Of the Snail THe Snails which Dioscorides calls Garden Snails are found in abundance in the Mountains of Trent and they are the best In Winter they are dug up out of the Earth and in Gardens with some iron hooks near to the roots of herbs the Earth being dug forth They are covered with a white shell against the cold it is like to Gip so they lye under ground hid and afterwards they are more pleasant meat Matthiolus They have eyes in the top of their horns and they pull them in when any thing comes near to them and put their horns into their heads their heads into their bodies Albertus They lay white eggs as great as the Pikes eyes and in May they are found to sit upon them Gesner Albertus saith they are bred of corruption and clammy dew and that that dew hardneth into a shell Porta saith the same Phytol l. 5. c. 4. Pliny l. 9. c. 5. saith they are bred in Winter Fulvius Hirpinus made Caves of them in Tarquinis a little before the Warr with great Pompey c. Pliny l. 9. c. 56. In the Island Scyathos the Partridges feed on them but those that are call'd Ariones deceive them For going out of their shells they feed leaving their empty houses to the Herns and Partridges Aelian l. 10. c. 5. Andreas Fulnerus Gallus relates That a Remedy is made of them to multiply hair Take 300 Snails out of their shells and boyl them in water and take them out again and gather the fat that swims a top and put that into a glazed vessell and pour a Sextarius of water upon it wherein Bay leaves have been boyled with three spoonfulls of oyl one spoonfull of Honey Saffron one scruple and a little Venice Soap and a spoonfull of common Soap moderately stirred boyl them altogether With this liquor anoint your hair often and wash it with a Lye made of the Ashes of burnt Colewort stalks the place is obscure or corrupted and you shall find your hair increase daily CHAP. IX Of the Gnat. IN Aegypt there are great store of Gnats whence Herodotus calls it Conopaeam and Bellonius observat l. 2. c. 35 writes that he was so vexed with them the first night that the next day he seemed to have the Measils In divers parts of India there are kinds of Gnats whereof some in Summer time especially when the fields are cleansed do lye in the Woods others lye about the shores At Myon a City of Jonia there was a creek of the Sea not very great which when Maeander a River of that Country running into it that was very muddy had stopped the mouth of it with mud brought along with it so that in time it made a Lake there bred from thence such abundance of Gnats that the people of Myon left their City and went to Miletus When the Northern people would hinder their biting they sprinkle a decoction of Wormwood or Nigella on their heads and the rest of their body Olaus Yet he makes a difference in their bitings For they that have their blood pure and not corrupted bite them they not They meddle not with fruit before they grow sharp by corruption and they most delight in sowre things Leoâ—h Jaâ—hin But because they chiefly suck mans blood they are called the spowts of the blood of Man It is not proved that they will suck things that are sweet For the sweeter part of the blood that is most pure is consumed for nourishment and lyeth inwardly that which is rawest comes next to the skin whence it is that Pushes break forth of the body CHAP. X. Of the Urchin the Ephemera and the Catterpillar SEa-Hedge-hogs so often as they are tossed with the flowing water make themselves heavy with ballast lest they should be tossed too much being light or carried away with a tempest and so they stick fast to the Rocks Plutarch l. Utr. Animal The parts of the live ones covered with their shell and armed with their prickles if they be broken and cast into the Sea they will come together again and will know the part that is next to them and being applyed they will joyne and unite by a natural sympathy Aldrovandus As for the Ephemara the River Hypanis in Cammerius Bosphorus under the Solstice produceth little bladders greater than grape stones out of which flying creatures proceed with four feet This kind of creature lives till the afternoon the same day when the Sun departs it decays and presently dies when the Sun sets from hence it hath the name of Ephemer or a creature that lives but one day Aldrovand As for Catterpillars Hieracles testifieth that if Horses rowle themselves upon them black and blew spots will arise their skins will grow hot their eyes will be distorted and the cure is to bray vitriol one quarter of a pound Vinegar half a pound They feed on pot hearbs but if a rocket seed be sowed amongst them they will not touch them But that those hearbs may breed no noysome creatures dry all the seeds you mean to seâ— in a Tortis shell or sow mint in many places especially amongst Coleworts Prasocurides saith Cardan are such living Creatures that use to do hurt in Gardens Men say that if you bury the panch of a Wether with the dung in it not deep within the earth in the place where they abound in two days you shall find them all in heaps in that place in twice or thrice so doing you may destroy them all Paulus Aegineta writes that herb rocket annoynted with oyle will preserve men safe from the bitings of Venemous creatures CHAP. XI Of the Pismire IN the Kingdom of Senega there are white Pismires and naturally they build low houses For they carry earth in their mouths and cement it without lime you would say that they are like Ovens or little Country houses Scaliger exerc 367. In the Province of Mangu they are red and they eat them with Pepper Scalig.
to intreat and leaping in the nets strive to free themselves Oviedus and Plutarch say that with their sharp backs they will cut the line and free their captive fellowes The Dace of Phalera is so soft and fat a fish that if it be held long in the hand it will melt or if many of them be carried in Ships they will drop fat which is gathered to make Candles with Apitius as Suidas reports set the pictures of these Fishes with Rape roots cut into long and slender pieces boyl'd with oyl and strewed with pepper and salt before Nicomedes the King of Bithynia CHAP. II. Of the Eele ALl know that Eeles are found in many fresh Waters yet Nauclerus writes That in the Danube there are none but in the Rhein there are Albertus makes the cold of Danubius to be the cause thereof and this proceeds because it runs before the mouth of the Alps from West to East and receives the greatest part of its water from thence These onely contrary to other fishes do not flote being dead Pliny The reason is given by Aristotle from the small belly it hath and little fat The swimming of Lampreys Congers and Muraenas that abound with fat confirm this to be true They are so lusty that being devoured whole by a Cormorant they will come forth of his guts nine times one after another and when they are grown weak then he retains them Gesner Held in a mans bosome especially great eels will twist about a mans neck and choke him Cardanus On the Land they dye if the Sun shine on them otherwise very hardly as you may see them living when their skin is pull'd off Athenaeus Aelianus and Plutarch do testifie that in Arethusa of Chalcidon there are tame ones adorned with ear-rings of gold and silver that will take their meat by hand Nymphodorus reports the same of the River Elorus CHAP. III. Of the Whale and the Barbel THe Whale is the greatest and chief of all Fishes Pliny calls this the greatest creature in the Indian Sea which was four Acres in bignesse Massarius interprets this to be 960 foot long Nearchus saith that there are Whales of 23 paces in length and reports that in the Island before Euphrates he saw a Whale cast forth of the Sea that was 150 cubits That Whale which was taken in the Scald ten miles from Antwerp Anno 1577 on the second day of July was of a blackish blew colour he had a spout on his head wherewith he belched up water with great force he was 58 foot long and 16 foot high his tail was 14 foot broad from his Eye to the top of his nose the distance was 16 foot His lower chap was 6 foot of each side armed with 25 Teeth and there were as many holes in the upper chap where there were no teeth yet so many might have stood there The longest of his Teeth was not above 6 thumbs long A Whale not long since was taken at Sceveling a Village near the Hague in Holland was 60 foot long His head was about 3. cubits long I saw him there Platina observes that the Barbels eyes are venomous chiefly in May. Antonius Gazius found it so For when he had eaten but two bits thereof at Supper time his belly was so inflated that he looked as pale as ashes he was distemper'd all over at last he fell into the cholerick passion Nor did these symptomes abate â—ill the eyes were voided upward and downvvard CHAP. IV. Of the Carp the Clupaea and the Conger THe Carp saith Gesner hath a little white hard stone in his head near his tongue and in the middle of his head a thick substance like to a heart that is flexible while it is new but afterwards it grows hard Sometimes it is found 20 pound weight Jovius saith That there was one found in the River Latium two hundred pound weight When the Female finds her self great with young when the time of bringing forth is past by moving her mouth she rouseth the male who casts on his milt and then she bringeth forth In Polonia broad Carps being put into a fish-pond by one when the waters were frozen though he sought them diligently he could not find them when the Spring came and the waters were thawed they all appeared Gesner Clupaea is a great fish In Sagona a River in France when the Moon increaseth it is white but black when it decreaseth When the body is but a little augmented it is destroy'd by its own prickles In the head of it there is found a stone like a barley corn which when the Moon decreaseth some think it will cure the quartan Ague if it be bound to the left side Calisthenes Sybarita citante Stobaeo Congers contain their off-spring within them but it is not equally so in all places nor doth their increase appear in a fat grosse matrix but it is contain'd in it in a long rank as in Serpents which is manifest by putting it into the fire For the fat consumes but the eggs crackle and they leap forth Aristotle 6. Hist. c. 17. CHAP. V. Of the Dogg-fish THe men of Nicea saith Gellius took a Dogg-fish that weighed 4000 pound a whole man was found in the belly of it Those of Massilia found a man in Armour Rondeletius saw oâ—e on the shore at Xanton the mouth and throat were so wide that they would take in a fat man Bellonius saith that each side of the mouth had 36 teeth wherefore some think the Prophet Jonas was swallowed by this fish and that this is that they call the Whale it being so vast a creature The same Bellonius writes that this Fish at divers times brings forth 6 or 8 young ones and somtimes more each of a foot long perfect with all their parts and oft times the young one coming forth there are eggs yet raw in the matrix and some hatcht lying in the upper part toward the midriff and some of them are contained in the right turning of the matrix some in the left In her Whelps this is chiefly wonderfull that they were covered with no secondine and they are fed from some part of the Navell that hath Veins For since saith he she doth not put forth her eggs and they are tied by certaine bands to the matrix they seem to need no other coat than the Amnios whereby the Whelp being now formed and by a chink in the sternon that passeth between the fins that are toward the gills it receiveth nourishment from the matrix by a band or the middle of it that is so slender as a Lute string But this nutriment by that slender string is carried into a little bag which you would say were the stomach which is alwaies full of it like to the yolk of an egge the position of it is in the middle of the belly and under the two laps of the Liver And that this is true if you cut a Whelp taken out of the dams belly through the
within and sends forth smoak in many places and very hot brooks the shore smoaks at the foot of the Mountain the sand is hot the Sea boyles Agricol l. c. In the same place there are many ditches covered with sand into which some that have viewed these things carelesly have sunk in and were stifled This is in Europe In India there are no lesse burnings by fire In Ciapotulan a Province of the Kingdome of Mexico a Mountain casts forth stones as big as houses and those stones cast forth have flames of fire in them and seem to burn and are broke in pieces with a great noise Petrus Alvarad ad Cortesium In the province Quahutemallan of the same Country two Mountaines within two Leagues one of the other vomit out fire and tremble Petrus Hispalens p. 5. C. 23. In Peruacum also out of the Mountain Nanavata the Fire flies out at many holes and out of one boyling water runs of which salt is made In the same Peruacum in the Town Molahaâ—o fire is vomited forth and ashes is cast out for many dayes and covers many Towns There is an Island next to great Java in the middle of which land there burns a perpetuall fire Odoard Barbosa In the Island Del Moro there is a Fire cast forth with such a noise that it is equall to the loudest Cannon and the darknesse is like Night The Ashes so abound that houses have sunk down under them and Trees have been barren for three yeres their boughs being lopt off all places are fild with Ashes and living Creatures destroyed with hunger and pestilence also sweet waters have been changed into bitter Diat Jesuita Also there are concealed Fires namely there where the waters run forth hot warm or sower or where exhalations break forth good or bad and where places seem adust Strab. in Geograph There is a Country in Asia which is called Adust which is 500 furlongs long and 50 broad whether it should be called Misia or Meonia saith Strabo In this there grows no Tree but the Vine that brings forth burnt Wine so excellent that none exceeds it You may not think that those Fires stay only in one straight place for they pass many miles under ground Agricol l. 4. de nat Effl. c. 24. in Campania from Cunae thorough Baianum Puteoli and Naples Also out of Campania they seem to come as far as the Islands Aenaria Vulcania c. Hence Pindarus elegantly faigned that the Gigant Typâ—o being stricken with a Thunder-Bolt lay buried under these places Artic. 4. Of the Original of Subterraneall Fire WEe will now search out the original of these Fires and what it is that kindles and nourisheth them The Poets speak Fables concerning Aetna but of this more in the 4th Chapter Hyginius Mytholog cap. 152. Hell of the Earth begat Typhon of a vast magnitude and a wonderfull shape who had 100 Dragons heads that sprang from his shoulders He challenged Jupiter to strive for his Kingdome Jupiter hit him on the breast with a burning Thunder-bolt and having fired him he cast Mount Aetna upon him which is in Sicilia and from that time it is said to burn yet Isidor l. 14. c. 8. ascribes it to Brimstone that is kindled by the blasts of winds Justinus affirms that it is nourished by water Bleskenius relates of Hecla that no man knowes by what fire or what matter it burneth but since that brimstone is dug forth of all Islandia it should appear that a brimstony matter was sometimes kindled there Not far from Hecla are Pits of brimstone saith Bertius in Islandia That is certain that brimstone affords nourishment for this fire under ground and it is such as will burn in water For in these Mountains Writers make mention of waters and we have shew'd that it hath sometimes burned in the Sea But Lydiat L. de orig font thinks That in the gulfs of the Sea a most violent fire is contained and he demonstrates this by Earth-quakes Therefore the food of it cannot be dry and like to the Earth which we call Dorfa for that is quickly consumed by fire and is quenched by water Nor is it Marle for that will not burn unlesse it be sulphureous and bituminous Brimstone burns indeed but it is soon put out with water therefore it is Bitumen and this seems to be the subject of it Strabo writes That there are under this Cave Fountains of water and Pliny addes l. 2. c. 106. that it burns with water running from Bitumen Burning Bitumen sends forth fire in Hecla a Mountain in Islandia which consumes water The stones of Rivers and the sand burn at Hephestios a Mountain of Lycia and they are bituminous Naphta is very near akin to fire and it presently flames Pliny l. c. Wherefore we think Bitumen to be the food for these fires and they are kindled by a fiery vapour that takes fire if but cold thrust it forth as the Clowds thrust ouâ— lightnings or drives it into some narrow places where rolling it self up and down and seeking to come forth it burns in the conflict and flames Agricol lib. cit Artic. 5. Of the Miracles of Fire in duration burning and in being Extinguished SOme Fires are perpetuall The stone Asbestos once lighted can never be extinguished therefore Writers say it was placed in Idol Temples and the Sepulchres of the dead Solinus c. 12. There was a Monument once dug up wherein was a Candle that had burned above 1500 years when it was touched with the hands it went to fine ashes Vives ad lib. 21. de Civitat Dei Vives saw wicks at Paris which once lighted were never consumed In Britany the Temple of Minerva had a perpetual fire when it consumed it was turned into balls of stone Solinus c. 24. Polyhist The same thing is written of a certain Wood near to Urabia in the New-found World There are some fires that burn not either not at all or in some certain matter or else miraculously In Pythecusis saith Aristotle admirand c. 35. there is a fervent and hot fire that burns not An Ash that shadowes the Waters called Scantiae is alwayes green Plin. lib. 2. c. 107. In the Mountain of Puteoli consisting of Brimstone there is a fire comes forth that is neither kindled nor augmented by oyl nor wax or any fat matter nor is it quenched with water or kindled and it will not burn towe cast into it nor can any Candle be lighted by it Mayolus Colloq 22. he conceives it is not fire but fiery water Near Patara in Lycia flame is cast forth of a field you shall feel the heat if you put your hands to it but it will never burn The parts of the ambient ayr that are cold and moist are said to be the cause of it that by their thinnesse entring into the fire do hinder the burning of it Some napkins made of a kind of Flax will not burn and being durty they are never washed but being cast
that fresh ayr may come if Snow and water be set about the bed if the walls be compassed about with Willow leaves or with linnen cloaths dipt in vinegar and Rose-water if the floor be sprinkled and fountains made to run in the chamber if beds saith Avicenna be made over a pit of water If beds be made of Camels hair or of linnen laying the skin under them If the Bed be strewed with herbs and lastly if fragrant fruits be placed near the bed Heurn lib 2. Medic. c. 18. CHAP. III. Of the Water Artic. 1. Of the quantity and colour of Waters SO much for Ayr Now followes the Element of Water And first we shall consider the quantity and the colour of it In the Country of the great Cham near the City Simqui there is the River Quian which is 10 miles broad and waters 200 Cities and it is so long that it cannot be sailed in 100 dayes Polus writes That he told in the Haven of it 50000 Ships Also in Moscovia the Duina is so great by the melting of the Snow that it cannot be passed over in a whole day with a well sayling Ship it is at least 50 miles broad Jovius a Lake of Genebar the Portingalâ—s call it January Thuan. histor l. 16. is so large under Capricorn that men write who have sailed thither That all the Ships in the World may well harbour there As for Colours they are different in many waters Danubius is white as milk and water which divides Noricum and Windelicia from Germany Agricol de Natur. effluent The Waters of the Mayn especially where it hath passed the Francks and is fallen into the Rheyn are yellowish The Fountain Telephus is muddy near Patâ—ra and mingled with blood In Ethiopia there are red Waters that make one mad that drinks them At Neusola in the Mountain Carpathâ—s waters runing out of an old passage under ground are green At Ilza that which comes forth of the Mountains of Bohemia and runs into Danubius is black Artic. 2. Of the Taste of Water THere is no lesse variety of Waters in their tastes Some are sweet some taste like wine you shall find every where salt Allom tasted sharp bitter waters every where The Waters of Eleus Chocops Rivers are sweet The Kings of Persia drank of them and transported them to far Countries The water of Cardia in a field called Albus is sweeter then warm milk Pausanias So is Vinosa near Paphlagonia whence so many strangers come thither to drink of it In the bosome of the Adriatick Sea where it turns to Aquileia there are 7. Fountains and all of them except one are salt Polyb. in Hist. At Malta there is one that the waters running above are very sweet but the lower waters are brackish Aristobul Cassand The small River Exampeus is so bitter that it taints the great River Hypanis in Pontus In the Lake Ascanium and some Fountains about Chalcis the upper waters are sweet and the lower taste of nitre Plin. in Hist. The Fountains are sowr about Culma and because the water though it be cold boyls they seem to be mad Agricol lib. cit In the same place there is a Mineral water which they call Furious because it boyls and roars like thunder In Cepusium at Smolâ—icium it not onely eats iron but turns it into brasse But the water about Tempe in Thessaly of the River Styx can be contained in no vessel of silver brasse iron but it eats through them nothing but a hoof can hold it Artic. 3. Of the Smell of Water and of the first and second qualities THe hot Baths that are distant from Rhegium the Town of Lepidus Aemilius 26 miles smell of so gallant Bitumen that they seem to be mingled with Camphir There was a Pit in Peloponnesus near the Temple of Diana whose water mingled with Bitumen smelt as pleasant as the unguent Cyzicenum In Hildesham there are two Fountains the one flowes out of Marble that smells like stinck of rotten Eggs and taste sweet but if any man drinks of it fasting he will belch and smell like the Marble pownded The other is from Brimstone and smells like Gun-Powder The water of this brook covers with mud the stones that lie in the channel of it scrape it off and dry it and it is Brimstone Agric. lib. cit Arethusa a Fountain of Sicily is said to smoke at a certain time At Visebad there is a Spring in the Road-way the water whereof is so hot that you may not onely boyl Eggs in it but scall'd chicken and hoggs for it will fetch off feathers or hair if you dip them in or pour it upon them Ptolomy Comment lib. 7. affirms That at Corinth there is a Fountain of water which is colder than Snow Near the Sea-Banks at Cuba there is a River so continual that you may sayl in it yet it is so hot that you cannot touch it with your hands Martyr Sum. Ind. Near the Province Tapala it runneth so hot that one cannot passe over it Ramus tom 3. At Segesta in Sicily Halbesus suddenly growes hot in the middle of the River Pontus is a River that lyes between the Country of the Medes and the Scythians wherein hot burning stones are rolled yet the water it self is cold These if you move them up and down will presently cool and being sprinkled with water they shine the more bright Lastly near the City Ethama there is a River that is hot but it is good to cleanse the Lepers and such as are ulcerated Leonius Also some waters swim above others Arsanias swims above Tigris that is near unto it so often as they both swell and overflow their banks Peneres receiveth the River Eurôta yet it admits it not but carrieth it a top of it like oyl for a short space and then forsakes it Plin. hist. Natural Artic. 4. Of the Diverse running of the Water IT is said of Pyramus a River of Cappadocia which ariseth from Fountains that break forth in the very plain ground that it presently hides it self in a deep Cave and runs many miles under ground and afterwards riseth a Navigable River with so great violence that if any man put a sphear into the hole of the Earth where it breaks forth again the force of it will cast out the sphear Strabo l. 12. Not far from Pompeiopolis in the Town Coricos in the bottom of a Den of wonderfull depth a mighty River riseth with incredible force and when it hath ran with a great violence a short way it sinks into the Earth again Mela. l. 1. c. 6. The Water Marsia after it hath run along tract from the utmost Mountains of the Peligni passing through Marsius and the Lake Fucinus it disemboggs into a Cave then it opens it self again in Tiburtina and is brought 9 miles with Arches built up into Rome Plin. l. 31. c 3. The Sabbaticall River was wont to be empty every seventh day and was dry but all the six dayes it was
full of water But that ceased when the sacrifice ceased Joseph l. 7. c. 24. There is a certain River Bocatius speaks of every ten years it makes a mighty noyse by the stones striking together and this is suddenly in a moment and the stones ran downwards for 3. dayes and 3 or 4 times a day though it be fair weather and after three dayes all is quiet Strabo writes of the Rivers of Hircania l. 11. There are in the Sea high shores that are prominent and are cut forth of Rocks but when the Rivers run out of the Rocks into the Sea with great violence they passe over a great space as the fall betwixt the Sea and the Rocks that Armies may march under the fall of the waters as under Arches and receive no hurt Trochlotes in North Norway makes such a noyse when it runs that it is heard 20 miles Olaus l. 2. c. 28. Beca in Livonia runs forth of the Rocks with such a fall that it makes men deaf Ortel in Livon Tâ—nais by a very long passage from Scythia falling into the Lake Meotis it makes it so long and broad that those that are ignorant of it take it for a great Mountain Boccatius In Solomon's Temple there ran a Spring great in Summer small in Winter Euseb. praeparat Evangel l. 9. c. 4. If you ask the cause it is taken from the Time All things are wet in Winter then are the Channels full and for want of evaporation the waters are kept in But in Summer all things are dry and the Suns heat penetrates Hence it is that they are congregated in their Fountains and run out by the Ayr inforcing them Maeander is so full of windings and turnings that it is often thought to run back again c. He that seeks more concerning Nilus and other Waters let him read Geographerrs Artic. 5. Of the change of quantity and of qualities in Waters THis great variety in Waters that I have set down is a token of the wisdome and power of God and it is no lesse wonder that the same waters should be so diversly changed It is certain that they are changed A Fountain in the Island Tenedos alwayes from 3. at night till 6. after the Summer Solstice overflowes There is another in â—odon that hath its Name from Jupiter it fails always at Noon-day And the River Po in Summer as if it took its rest growes dry saith Pliny In Italy Tophanus a Fountain of Anagnania is dry when the Lake Fucinus is frozen at other times of the year it runs with great quantity of water Agricol l. cit passim The Waters of the Lake of Babylon are red in Summer Boristhenes at some times of the year seems to be died with Verdigrease The water of the Fountain of the Tungri is boyling hot with fire subterraneal and is red The Waters of the River Caria by Neptunâ—s Temple were sweet and are now salt But in Thrace when Georgius Despota ruled a sweet Fountain grew to be bitter intolerably and whole rivers were changed at Citheron in Beotia as Theophrastus writes Men report that of the Mineral Waters which run by the Pangaeus a Mountain of Thrace an Athenian cotyle weighs in Summer 64 grains and in Winter 96. In the Province of Cyrene the Fountain of the Sun is hot at midnight afterwards it cooles by degrees and at Sun-rising it is cold and the higher the the Sun riseth the colder it is so that it is frozen at mid day then again by degrees it growes warm it is hot at Sun-set and the more the Sun proceeds the hotter it becomes The same Fountain every day as it growes cold at mid-day so it is sweet as it growes hot at midnight so it growes bitter Artic. 6. Of some other things admirable in Waters THey were wonders that are passed but greater follow In those it is easy to assign a cause mixture or some such like if you rightly consider it but here it is difficult for though you may in some yet commonly we must fly to hidden qualities I will briefly rehearse them Some drops of a Fountain of the Goths powred upon the Earth cease to move and are thickned by the ayr The waters of Cepusia in Pitchers turn into a Stone those of Rhaetid make people foolish they pull out the teeth in two years and dissolve the ligaments of the sinews which Pliny writes to be in Germany by the Sea-side Those of Islandia change things that are hollow into stones Tybur covers Wood with stone covers Zamenfes in Africa makes clear voyces Soractes when the Sun riseth runs over as though it boyled birds that then drink of it die He growes temperate who drinks of the Lake Clitorius and he forgets who drinks of a well nere the River Orchomenus sacred to the God Trophonius Philarch. He proves dull of wit that drinks of a Fountain in the Island Cea Agricola de reb 〈…〉 terra effluent gives a cause for it as for the former by reason of the bitumen For saith he the seeds of wild Parsnips wrapt in a linnen clout and put into Wine as also the powder of the flowers of Hermodactylus which the Turks use being drunk with it are the cause that it will make a man sooner and more drunk so some kind of Bitumen mixt with water is wont to make men drunk The horses drinking Sebaris are troubled with sneesing whatsoever is sprinkled with it is couloured black Clitumnus of Umbria drank of makes white Oxen and Cesiphus of Beotia white sheep but a River in Cappadocia makes the hair whiter softer and longer In Pontus Astaces waters the fields in which Mares are fed that feed the whole Countrey with black milk The waters in Gadaris make men bald and deprive Cattle of hair hooffs and horns Cicero writes that in the Marshes of Reate the hoofs of beasts are hardned The hot baths at the Fort of New-house colour the Silver Rings of such as wash in them with a Golden colour and make Gold Rings more beautifull Aniger that runs out of Lapithum a Mountain of Arcadia will nourish no fish in it till it receive Acidan and those that go then out of it into Aniger are not edible but they in Acidan are Pausanias Agrigentinum a Lake of Sicily will beare those things that do not swim in the waters In Aethiopia there is one so thin that it will not carry up leaves that fall from the next Trees In the lake Asphaltiâ—es a man bound hand and foot cannot sink The cause is held to be the great quantity of Salt Hieronymus Florentinus saw a Bankrupt bound and cast headlong from the Tower into it and it bore him up all the night Posidonius observed that bricks in Spain made of Earth with which their Silver plate is rub'd did swim in the waters Cleon and Goon were two Fountains in Phrygia either of their waters made men cry There were two in the fortunate Island they that tasted of one laught till they died
doth not lye upon the waters but contrarily where the Conduits are not full the lower part is not empty but the upper part IV. Nor the Bulk of the Sea Scaliger thinks that the Waters being pressed in the channels by the Sea lying upon them do seek to get forth His Example is of a stone in a vessel But two things are here assumed 1. That the gravity is every where the same as in the weight of a stone 2. That a great part of the Sea water is out of its place V. Nor yet vapours redoubled into themselves and so drawing nor the spungy Nature of the Earth nor the veins of the Earth whereby the moysture of the water may be drawn forth For 1. attracting forces would be more fit for Champion ground than for Mountains 2. If they should attract it were for that purpose that they might have the fruition of it but from whence are there such Rivers 3 The veins of waters are no where found so full as that reason requireth whether it be for blood in living creatures or for squirts VI. The water is raised out of the Caves of the Earth to the Tops of Mountains as the Sea is raised above the middle Region of the Ayr. VII But this Elevation is made by the force of heat resolving the water into vapours Aristotle himself intimates that heat is required but that water may be made of a vapour there needs no cold but a more remisse heat VIII The heat of the Earth proceeds not from the heat of the Sun namely of the Earth in its Intralls For first it can penetrate but two yards deep and therefore the Troglodites make their Caves no deeper 2. In the hottest Summer a woodden post that is but one or two Inches thick is not penetrated 3. The entralls of the Earth about 8 or 10 yards deep are found colder in Summer then in Winter IX The Antiperistasis of the cold Ayr in the superficies of the Earth is nothing to the purpose 1. It is more weak than the cold of the firm Earth 2. What ever of the Suns heat is bred within passeth out by the pores and vanisheth 3. It perisheth being besieged by both colds to which it bears no proportion X. The heat that is in the bowells of the Earth is from a double cause For in the parts nearest the superficies it proceeds from the Sun beams but in the bowels of the Earth from other causes That passeth out by the pores of the Earth in Summer being opened by the Sun and therefore it vanisheth when as being removed from its original it is weaker but in winter it is bound in by the cold XI The heat in the bowels of the Earth is known by the heat of the Waters but these are neither hot by the Sun nor from brimstone or quicklime in the conduits but only from a subterraneal fire Not from the Sun For. 1. That cannot penetrate so far 2. If it were from thence it would be most in Summer Not from brimstone or quick lime for brimstone heats not unlesse it be actually heated and quick-lime only then when it is resolved by Water Also the vast quantity of it would be resolved in a short time and would make a change in the Channels But it may be understood some ways how it may be heated by a subterraneal fire 1. As it is actuall and so the Channels being solid stone cannot derive it 2. As it is more remote but sends forth Vapours by pipes as in Baths so also not for Vapours cannot have so great force as to make it boil 3. That the Water may run amongst the burning fire as in bituminous Channels But here the question may be why it doth not cast out the Bitumen as in Samosata a City of Comagenes Pliny saith l. 2. c. 104. and 107 that a certain lake cast forth flaming mud and fire came out at the Waters of Scantium 4. The fourth way is the truth Art doth some wayes imitate Nature but in Stills the water by the force of heat is resolved into Vapours and the Vapours fly upwards to the heads where they stick and being removed from the violent heat they return to Water again so also in the bowells of the Earth XII But Fountains that boyl seem not to be of those Waters that run but that stand still Namely Wells that have formerly been opened by the quakings of the Earth which it is no wonder that they are joyned to the Sea In a small Island against the River Timevuâ— Pliny l. 2. c. 103. writes that there is a hot spring that ebs and flows with the Sea In the Gades it is contrary Pliny l. 2. c. â—2 But if any of these hot springs do runâ— we must observe of them that their Channels are so scituated that when the Sea flowes it comes unto them or if it were come into them before it powreth forth the more And so the heat of the fire will be either proportionable and the exhalation greater or not and so lesse XIII But what Agricola writes of bituminous Waters and that yeeld a smell must be ascribed to their neernesse but it vanisheth at a farther distance The same is observed in artificiall distilled waters that in time the burntness of them will vanish away XIV But because this fire by the shaking of the Earth can do much in the superficies it can then do more in the place it is It can therefore stop up old Channels open new ones in divers caves of the Earth without sending forth of the matter combustible or propagation of fire or conflict of Vapours it can rayse new fires from whence new Rivers may be produced yet somtimes also it useeth to be extinguished or sunk so deep that it cannot send its force to the superficies This is the opinion of Lydiat which we have set down more amply that being better known it might be more exactly weighed CHAP. V. Of hot Baths THe heat of hot Baths is diversly spoken of by Authours Aristotle thought it proceeded from Thunder which is false for the force of Thunder is pestilentiall any man may know it that beholds Wine corrupt by Thunder It makes men mad or dead but these are healthfull as experience daily shews Also there are many places that were never touched with Thunder for that never descends above five foot Sennert Scient natural l. 4. c. 10. thinks it comes from two waters that are cold to be felt but grow hot in their meeting from repugnancy of the Spirits as we see in oyle of Tartar and Spirit of Vitrial and in Aquafortis and Tartar and of the butter of Antimony and Spirit of Nitre all which though they are cold to the touch yet if you mingle them they grow hot and so that if you suddenly powre oyle of Tartar into Aquafortis wherein Iron is dissolved it will not only boyle but the mixture will flame which also happeneth if you pour fast the spirit of Nitre into the
the Indians use They saw a place in Aprill and May abounding with all sorts of flowers The Duke of Moscovia heard of this afterwards and triall was made but the Duke died in the interim and this noble designe was hindred It is supposed that those places are nere the Indies and therefore if the River Peisida can be overpassed the passage to Cathay and Sinae were not difficult Artic. 3. Of the depth freesing and â—oloâ—ys of the Sea COncerning the depth of the Sea there are many opinions Burgensis saith it is deeper than the Earth 〈…〉 Plin. l. â— c. 22. and Solinus c. 54 that in many 〈…〉 no borrow can be found But there speak of a certain Sea in the 〈…〉 and they speak according to their days when navigation was 〈…〉 known Priscianus reports that Julius Caesar found by his Searchers 15 furlongs others give 30. But the English Portugalls 〈…〉 who now a days use most Navigation reckon 2 Italian miles and a time Olaus Magnus l. 2. Histor. septent c. 10. weâ—â—es that at the shoâ—es of Norway it is so deep thay not open can 〈…〉 but that is by reason of the hollow shores and full of cracks every where And though there be such a wonderfull force of waters in the Sea yet certain it is that it is somtimes frozen Strabo l. c. Geograph writes that in the mouth of Maeotis so great Ice was seen that in the place that King Mithridates Generall overcame the Enemy in the Ice the same he passed over with his Fleet. When 〈…〉 four the Sea of Pontus was so frozen for a 100. â—â—les that it 〈…〉 hard as a stone and was above 30 Cubiâ—s 〈…〉 Vintent l. 〈…〉 But Olaus l. 11. c. 25 saith that in the North Sea they 〈…〉 and draw along their Engins for Warts and â—aires 〈…〉 kept The condition of the Ice there is very strange Being carried on the shore it presently thawes no man furthering it Ziglerus l. â— 8. In Islandra if it be kept it vanisheth and he affirms that some will turn to a stone The Sea hath many colours Andreaâ— Causalius saith that neer the Inhabitants of the East-Indies there is a milk 〈…〉 that is seen for 300 miles Martyr also attests the same in his Sumâ—lâ—â— That which washes the Island Cabaque is somtimes green and sometimes of the yeare red for the Shel-fish every where poure much blood Petrus Hispan The red Sea though it be so called because it is rinctured with red waters yet it is not of that nature 〈…〉 for but the water is tainted by the shores that are neer and all the land about it is red and next to the colour of blood 〈…〉 l. 13. c. 1â— The Sea useth frequently to change its colour Aulâ—â—ell noct Atâ—â—l 2. c. 30 gives the cause It is faith he observed by the best Philosophers that when the South wind blows the Sea is blewish and â—â—eyish but when the North blows it is blacker and darker c. When the Doâ— days are it is troublesome Men ascribe that to the Sun that pierceth the inward parts of the Sea with its beams and stirrs the grosseâ— parts but consumes them not But this is strange that is said that the Sea Parium in the New Word is so intangled with so many green herbs that Men cannot fall in it the long branches of herbs like nâ—ts hindring them That Sea is so like a Medow that as the Waves turn all the herbs turn with it also that the storms are lesse from the Waves than from the grasse This endangers Sea-Men and first Columbus Ovetan l. 2. c. 2. For the Ships are held by the bendings of little branches that they cannot turn It is deep enough for Galleys to row in but the herbs rise from the bottom and grow together on the top and are 15 hand-breadth higher sometimes Pliny l. 13. c. 25. reports that in the red Sea Woods flourish chiefly â—he Laurel and the Olive bearing Olives and if it rain Mushromâ—â— which when the Sun shines are converted into a Pumex-stone The sprouts themselves are 3 cubits great and are stored with abundance of dog fish that it is scarse safe to look out of the Ship and they will set upon the very oars oft times The Souldiers of Alexander that sailed from India reported that the boughs of Trees in the Sea were green but taken out of the Sea were presently changed by the Sun into dry salt Also Polâ—bius reports that in the Sea of â—ortingal Oakes grow that the Thynni fishes feeding on their Acorns grow fat Athenaeus l. 7. Artic. 4. Of the Saltnesse of the Sea THe Works of God are wonderfull in Nature but two are most wonderfull the saltnesse of the Sea and its flowing and ebbing It is said that there is an Island in the Southern Ocean that is waterâ—d by a sweet Sea which also Diodorus Siculus seems to testifie and assert concerning the Scythian Sea Pliny l. 6. c. 17. But that is ascribed to the great running of Rivers into it and how small is this in respect of the other Sea Yet Philosophers argue concerning the saltnesse of the Sea Aristotle l. 2. Meteor c. 1. calls for the nature of the Sea and efficacy of the Sun to assist him For the Sea-waters by the mixture of the ground and the shores is thicker and the Sun by its heat calls forth thinner parts and resolves them into vapours which being burnt with heat and mingled with the water cause its saltnesse Mans body will help us in this wherein the native heat dissolves the sweetest meats into the saltest humours which being collected in the Reins is cast forth by urine Experience confirms it that shews us that the Sea is more salt in Summer than in Winter and more toward the East and South than elsewhere Lydiat likes not this opinion but brings another That Youth may more exactly comprehend the sense of this brave man We will set it down here in a few Propositions I. The vehement heat of the Sun doth not boyl the Sea to be salt For 1. Why is not the same done in a little water in a bason 2. The same cause of saltnesse should work upon the subject with lesse resistance II. A hot dry earthly exhalation carried by rain into the Sea iâ— not the cause of its saltnesse For 1. Why is not the same done in Fountainsâ— 2. It is too little 3. Why is it not onely salt in the superficies but in the deep For though Scaliger Exercit. 51. denyes that saying that the â—â—â—nators have proved it to be sweet yet Patricius saith it was found otherwise in the 〈…〉 between Crete and Egypt when it was very calm Philip 〈…〉 witnesseth the same III. The Sea is salt by the mixture of something with it That is clearâ— because all tasting is oâ— mixt bodies IV. That which is mingled with the Sea hath the nature of a hot and dry exhalâ—â—ion That is apparent 1. Because the Sea is such 〈…〉 will
hardly extinguish flames and it is easily 〈…〉 that are washed in it are quickly dryed 3. 〈…〉 as Britanny and France hotter V. The Sea is not onely salt but bitter therefore it is 〈…〉 called Mare than Sâ—â—um VI. The salt and bitternesse of the Sea iâ— from a subterraneal 〈…〉 fire 1. Bitumen is perceived so bitter in taste that it may be known to be the first subject of it 2. Bitumen hath great force to cause iâ— salt and bitter taste The bituminous Lake of Palestina is so salt and bitter that no Fish is bred in it it scours cloaths if one wet them and shake it well out 3. Pliny reports that a bituminous water thaâ— is also salt at Babylon is cast out of their Wells into salt Piâ—â— and is thickned partly into Bitumen partly into Salt VII A salt Exhalation proceeding froâ—â—hose Deâ—pâ— iâ— easily divided by the body of the Sea For as fine flower or 〈…〉 thing else casâ— into 〈…〉 boyling liquor is cast from the place that boyls unto other parts 〈…〉 on one side to the other if in the middle to the circumference 〈…〉 bituminous Exhalation from thence where it boyleth most and the Sea is most hot is cast and dispell'd into the whole body of it So 〈…〉 Artic. 5. Of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea ANother great miracle of Nature is the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea When the Philosopher sought for the cause of it hâ— grew desperate Possidonius in Strabo l. 3. Geograph makes 3. Circuits of the Sea's motion The diurnall monethly and yearly The first is when the Moon is risen above the Horizon but one sign of the Zodiack or is gone down under the Horizon then the Sea swells untill the Moon comes to the midst of the Heaven 〈…〉 it above or beneath the Earth When it declines from thence the Sea begins to retire untill the Moon is but one sign distant from the East or West and then it stops Pliny assents thus far to him that the flowing of the Sea begins about two equinoctiall hours after the rising or setting of the Moon and ends just so long before its setting or rising He determines the other to be monethly in the conjunction when he saith That the greatest and quickest returnings of the Sea do happen about the new and full Moon the mean about the Quarters of the Moon And Marriners approve this when they call it the Living Sea by reason of the great ebbings and flowings in the new and full Moons but the dead Sea in the half Moons because of the lesser and slower motions of it Possidonius addes more That one Sâ—leucus observed a Sea that was derived from the red Sea and was different from it that kept the monethly course of returning namely according to the Lunar moneth which men call periodicall For he had observed in the Moon being in the Equinoctiall signs that the Tides were equall but in the solstices they were unequall both for quantity and swiftnesse and the same inequality held in the rest so far as any of them happened â—ear to the foresaid places Lastly Possidonius saith That he learned the yearly motions from the Mariners of Gades For they say that about the summer Solstice the ebbing and flowing of the Sea increaseth much and that he conjectured the same did diminish as far as the Equinoctial and again to increase untill Winterâ— from 〈…〉 to decrease untill the spring Equinox â— and so increase again untill the Summer solstice Pliny determines the contraâ—◠〈…〉 reason of the Equinox But Patricius witnesseth That iâ— Libâ—â—â—ia in January great part of the strandâ— are naked and continue dry for some dayes The same Pliny l. â— c. 97. observes That in every eight years in the Moons 100 circumvolution the Tides are called back to their first motions and like increasings that is to say the Sun and Moon then returning to a conjunction in the same sign and degree wherein they were in conjunction eight years before But for the daily Tides there is a differeâ—â—e amongst Writers In the Sicilian Sea 〈…〉 and flowings are twice a day and twice in the night 〈…〉 in the Sinâ—s of Aegeum repeats its motion 7. times a day and sometimes is seen thrown down from the highest Mountains and so steep down that no ships can be safe there Basil iâ— Hexaemex In England at Bristoll the Ebb is daily twice and so great that the ships that were in the Sea stand dry and are twice on dry Land twice in the Sea Pitheas Massiliensis as Pliny testifies l. 2. c. 67. writes that it swâ—lls fourscore cubits higher than Britanny In the Southern part of the New World the Sea rising flowes two Leagues Ovetan summ c. 9. But in a certain Northern Sea there iâ— no flowing or ebbing observed by the waves of it Petrus Hispan p. 5. c. 1. Not far from Cuba Promontory and by the shores of Margaret Island and Paria the Sea flowes naturally nor can ships by any means though they have a prosperous gale sayl against the floods nor make a mile in a whole day Petrus Martyâ—â—â—n sum Indiae In the Adriatick Sea formerly there was wont to be a very great flowing forth early in the morning the Sea being so advanced into the Continent that it went as far up as a strong man could run in a day Procop. l. 1. Belli Gothici â—ut singular was that Tide and a wonder of the World which in particular which proceed from whirlepools by which the waters are suckt up and spued out again by turns It is very probable this happens in Charybdis the Syrtes and Chalcydis about Eubaea This represents a true flowing and comes from winds breaking forth of the Caves of the Earth and forcing forward the waters or to the Waves running back again and sinking down But the fourth is 〈…〉 true ebbing and flowing which runs neither Eastward nor Westward but begins from the Navel of the Sea and that boyls up and as the waters rise thus they are powred forth toward the Banks more or lesse as the cause is more or lesse violent unlesse something hinder the cause whereof we shall seek last of all And true it is that Marriners in the straights of Magellan where the South Sea is seperated from the North by a notable difference marking diligently the Tydes of both Seas have observed what they could not do in the vast Ocean namely that both Seas do not begin to flow at the same time And that it is not moved by any outward cause not from the Heavens nor is it brought in from the East or West but comes from the bottom of it and boyles out from thence the superfluity running toward the Land variously as the swelling is great or small the shores high or low and the cause that moves it from the bottom upwards weaker or stronger This is confirmed by the nature of the water which casts up from the bottom whatsoever it sucks in if it be not
In Cappadocia it is digged out of the earth the humour being condensed there it is cut out like Talâ—um glasse King Ptolomy found some about Pelusium when he pitched his Tents By this example afterwards between Egypt and Arabia it began to be found under the sands as in the desarts of Africa so far as the Oracle of Ammon It increaseth with Moon-nights Pliny A thin salt is bred by the Sea for when the Sea flowes it froths and drives that froth against the shores and Rocks These are cut off and laid upon them to dry and in some places are turned into salt Dioscor There is a Lake of Salt in Sicily so bright that as Pliny writes you may see your face in it That of Colomeum tastes like rosted eggs when it is hard it cracks in the fire and leaps out but melted it doth not so nor yet that which breeds in Lakes that is dryed by the heat of the Sun Salt of Agrigentum will leap out of water saith Pliny torrified it loseth little or nothing of its magnitude but moystned it loseth Heaps of Salt that in Africa are made by Utica and like hills for height they grow so hard by the Suns heat that no rain will melt them and they can hardly be cut with Iron It is observed that such who are much disposed to putrid Feavers are preserved from them by eating of salt freely with their meat Math. de sebrâ— pestil Also fields where it is sprinkled become fruitful by it as experience makes good Fat women by the moderate use of it for to season their meats grow fruitful for it wipes away the moysture and dryes the Matrix that is over-moyst that the seed may stick Also it stirs up the loins in men and causeth Erection Lemnius de occult l. 2. c. 36. Hence the Aegyptians used no salt That it helps to fruitfulnesse Mice abounding in ships and the continual lusting of women that use much salt is a sufficient argument Libavius tom 3. singul l. 5. thinks it nourisheth and is changed into ones substance with other things for we see that there is no body but that Salt may be extracted from it The generating of the most precious Pearls in the Sea and of Coral that comes forth of Rocks with boughes and branches like a Tree divided is ascribed to salt Quercetan de medic Prisc. Phil. 2. Farther being put to the mouths of such as are Epileptick it raiseth them In swoonings either by resolution of the spirits or by oppression of them do but rub the Lips with it and it is a present remedy Held in the mouth or swallowed it hinders Worms from ascending into the stomach Lastly that it is an Antidote both for hunger and thirst the Army of Charles the Fifth made good at the siege of Tunetum They had dyed had noâ— every one of them held a grain or two under their Tongues Bicker in Praes lib. de fâ—nit const CHAP. V. Of Allum and Nitre THere are many figures of congealed Allum Allum called Seissum is the flowr of Allum in clods and is pressed together like planks or it flourisheth severally like grey hairs round Allum swells like bubbles or is like a spunge by reason of the holes in it The liquid Allum sends out of it self such a vapour that smells like fire as stones do when they are rubb'd together to cause fire When it is put upon burning coles or else put into a pot and is torrified with fire burning under it it swells into bubbles and loseth something of its substance Plin. l. 31. c. 10. Nitre in the Clytae of Macedonia is the best they call it Calastricum it is white and next to Salt There is a nitrous Lake where a sweet little Fountain comes forth of the middle of it there Nitre is made about the rising of the Dog star for 9. dayes and then it ceaseth as long then it swims upon it again and then ceaseth This is the wonder that the Spring of water always running the Lake doth neither increase nor run over Those dayes wherein it is made if there fall any rain they make the salter Nitre The Northern showers make the worst because they stir the mud too violently It is made also of the urine of living Creatures that falls alwayes upon good and shadowy ground Ang Salic Vinc S. 1. aph 28. It looks white feels cold it hath in it self a most red spirit most hot and taking fire Sennert l. 5. Epitom Scient natur c. 2. When it is burnt it sends out alone no savour that sense can perceive but mingled with quick lime it hath a most vehement smell The Egyptians strewed their Radishes with their Nitre as we do with Salt The Macedonians adde some of the Calastraeum to their Meal and mould them together to make bread The fine sands of Nilus which as it seems were nitrous were carried by Patrobius a Freeman of Neson to white their bodies with Also Nitre of which is made Halinitre is at Servesta and Bernbergum Georg. Agricola That Land will receive no Rain above a cubit Like unto this is that where stone Walls both in Wine-Cellars and shady places that are free from showers that use to wash it off do so sweat as if they were sprinkled with flowr CHAP. VI. Of Calcanthum or Vitriol THe best is the Roman and Hungarian the goodnesse is tryed by rubbing your knife against it for if it make it look like Copper it is the best Quercetan de capit affect c. 30. It is apparent that in its secret qualities it contains Copper The Ancients took one dram inwardly and kill'd their Worms and cured the venom of Mushromes Sennert l. 5. Epit. Scient natural c. 2. A little piece of the white dissolved in water is happily used for the itching and rednesse of the eyes Platerus de dol p. 313. Riolanus saith That the spirit of it is a caustick that it will eat glasse wherein it is made It hath Antipathy with the oyl of Tartar they are both most acute and sharp If you mingle them the acrimony of both is lost and the liquor becomes insipid Boethius l. 2. de lapid Joyned with Nitre it makes water sit to dissolve silver Minder de Vitriol c. 9. CHAP. VII Of Naphtha Petroleum and Maltha NAphtha is the percolation of Bitumen of Babylon so near akin to fire that it will take fire at a distance and easily be inflamed by the Sun-beams Plutarch relates That in the hollow Caves of Echatana by the heat of fire that it â—low'd as it were into a pond so ready to take fire that before it came at it it would take fire with the light of a Torch and fire the Ayr that was between The Barbarians to shew this to Alexander strew'd a Village with it that was in the way to the Kings Lodging and at last putting a fire-brand near it it flamed as if it had been all on fire Hence he addes that Naptha by some was called Medea's
between two stones it will grow hot and the juice of it mingled with Wine and milk is excellent against the Quinsie Mathiol in l. 3. c. 115. They that shall taste of it will never be troubled with that disease Some think that part of this herb is put into birds nests and that keeps their young ones from being strangled when they eat so greedily Juniper is hard hence it is that the wood will not corrupt in an hudnred years Therefore Annibal commanded to build the Temple of Diana at Ephesus with Juniper beams Plin. l. 15. c. 40. A light cole of it covered with its own ashes will keep fire a whole year if we will credit the Chymists An admirable Bath is made of it for the Gowt thus Take 12. pound of Juniper wood cut in pieces boyl it in water in a great Cauldron till but a third part remain then pour forth the decoction with the wood into a Fat let the sick go into it and sit there up to the navel and bathe his limbs but he must first purge Mathiol l. 1. Dioscor c. 87. Many Gouty people have been made whole by this Bath that were forced to keep their beds before The pith of it in Numidia is white in Aethiopia black in Lybia purple coloured Scalig. Exerc. 181. s. 9. Also the African Physitians raspir and use it successefully for Guaicum against the Indian disease I say by the by that this disease was carried by the Jews out of Spain into Africa and cannot there be cured without a remedy But if the Patients go into Numidia or Aethiopia by Nigris there the Climate onely will cure them Of the Ashes of Kaly Salt is made this is dissolved with powder of stones and a kind of clammy substance swims a top to make glasse when it is cold it growes hard and is called commonly Axungia Vitri being powdred it makes the teeth wonderful clean Plater l. 2. de Vit. CHAP. XXV Of the Bay-Tree Mastick-Tree and Flax. THe Bay-Tree will yield fire of it self and if you rub the dried boughes often together strewing powder of brimstone thereon it will take fire Mathiol in l. 1. c. 90. It is alwayes with green leaves and so great is the force of it that but stick some of the boughs in the fields and the corn will never be hurt with smut which is the plague of Corn for it will take hold of the leaves At Rome they held antienly that Jupiter sent it from heaven Plin. l. 15. c. 30. For an Eagle from aloft let fall a white hen into the lap of Livia Drusilla who afterwards was called Augusta being married to Caesar whom she was espoused to she wondred at it but was not afraid the miracle was that she had in her beak a Bayâ—bough that was full of Bay-berries The Southsayers commanded to keep the Hen and her Chickens and to set the Bay bough and take care of it which was done in the Mannour of the Caesars that was by the River Tibur about 9 miles from Rome in the way Flaminia and therefore is called ad Gallinas and it grew into a great wood Caesar afterward in triumph held a Bay-bough in his hand and had a Crown of bayes on his head Amongst all Trees this onely is never stricken with thunder unlesse it be for a sign of future calamity no houses are thunder-stricken as they say where the boughs are Therefore Tiberius fearing thunder when it did thunder put on his Lawrel Crown Theophrastus writes 4. de Plâ—nt c. 8. that they are stony in the red Sea The Mastick-Tree beats little bladders bowed in like to horns wherein there is contain'd a clear liquor which with age is turned into little Creatures like to those that fly out of Elm and Turpentine bladders In the Island Chios of the Egean Sea from the Mastick Tree cut runs forth Mastick it growes in ground that is ramâ—d fast together and paved Mathiol l. 1. c. 45. If you oft-times distill Linseed oyl saith Bapt. Porta l. 10. mag c. 9. it will be so ready to take fire that you can scarce shut it up in a Vessel but it will draw fire to it and if the vessel be open it is so thin that it will fly into the Ayr and evaporate and if the light of a candle or fire touch it the ayr will kindle and the oyl will flame so violently at a great distance that it is almost impossible to put it out In the Desarts of India it growes red that will endure the fire and be purified by it It growes out of stones springing and rising upward the hair is short and is therefore hard to be spun Libav l. 2. c. 7. de Bombyâ— CHAP. XXVI Of the Larch-Tree Lilly Loostrife and the Lote-Tree SOme of the best Writers say That the Larch-Tree will not burn and we alledged it before out of Lemnius but that is found to be false In the Mountains of Trent Iron is made and the Furnaces are heat with Larch-wood and no wood will better melt mettals And if stones will burn that have a Bituminous matter in them what shall we conclude of a Rosâ—â—ous kind of wood Lillies will hold green all the year if when they are shut and have not opened themselves they be cropâ— and put into new unglased pots and kept close covered Mathiol ex Anatolio in l. 3. Dioscor c. 99. When in the mean time you take them out for your use bring them to the Sun and by warmth of it they will open themselves Loosstrife is a notable remedy against the Plague the Country people found this Plant amongst the Coenomani bound something high upon a man it will drive the poyson of the plague downwards and keeping it there will not let it rise up any more Ruel de natur stirp l. 3. c. 78. If Oxen disagree lay this on their yokes and they will be quiet The Lote-Tree is a vaâ—t spreading Tree full of large boughes Domitius valued 6. of them at a thousand Sestertia Plin. l. 17. c. 1. They lasted untill such time as Nero burnt the City 180 years There is also an herb in Egypt call'd by â—â—i ' Name that when the waters of Nilus go back that water'd the ground it comes up like a bean Plin. l. 13. c. 17. The fruit of it is like a Poppy head dented in and the seeds are in it The Inhabitants putrefie the heads in heaps then they wash them apart when they are dry they bruise them and eat them for bread When the Sun sets these Poppy heads close and are covered in leafes when the Sun riseth they open till they grow ripe and the white flower fall off That bread is Physical Plin. l. 22. c. 21. They that feed on it are never troubled with a Dysentery nor Tenasmus nor any diseases of the belly When it is hot it is the most easie of digestion but cold it is harder for the stomach CHAP. XXVII Of Malabathrum Punic and Assyrian Apples
principall parts and the heart The Gyrsaulcons are of divers kinds They are some white found in Moscovy Norway Ireland They are bold If one of them be let fly at five Cranes he will follow them all till he have killed them The food of it reserved in its Cave it will take in order She never wets her self with water but onely with sand She loves the cold so well that she will alwayes delight to stand upon ice or upon a cold stone sometimes untaught she is sold for 50 Nobles There is a Faulcon called Ruâ—eus because the spots that are white in the rest are red and black in this kind yet they seem not to be so but when she stretcheth forth her wings The cause of this rednesse is a feeble colour infused into the superficies of the body and inflaming the smoaky moysture which is put forth to breed the feathers CHAP. XVII Of a Hen and Cock HEns in the Kingdom of Senega are thrice greater than ours there are many near to Thessalonica some lay two eggs that is with two yolks which are parted by a partition that they may not be confounded Aristot. in mirabil reports that some have laid â—â— double ones and to have hatcht them one chicken was greater than another and at last it became a Monster In Macedonia there was one Hen which once laid 18 eggs and hatcht two young chickens at once saith Pierius l. 24. Hieroglyph But their eggs as also dâ—uer birds eggs are first conceived above where the partition is where first it is seen to be faint and white as Aristot. writes than red and bloody and as it increaseth it becomes all yellow but as it more increaseth it is distinguished so that the yellow part is inward and the white goes outwardly about it when it is perfect it is finished and comes forth of the shell soft at first hatching but presently it growes hard The place of its perfection is the Matrix it self into which they fall Aldrovand l. 14. Ornithol Some report also that a Cock layes an egge when he is 9. or 14. years old and they suppose it proceeds from seed putrified or ill humours concurring together It is thought to be round and to be laid about the rising of the Dog-star For the expulsive faculty being then weak is helped in an aged Cock by the outward heat With Ferrans Imperatus an Apothecary one was seen that was long fashioned Aldrovand The Cocks are wonderful falacious for they will tread the Hens 50 times a day and they have been seen to ejaculate their seed when they but saw the Hen or heard her note Aelian There was an old Law as Plutarch saith in Libro Num bruta ratione careant That if one Cock trod another he should be burnt alive When he finds he is too full of blood he will scratch his comb till he fetch blood All men know he Crowes in the morning Some say the cause is the Love he hath to the Sun some to his venery others to his desire of meat The Mahumetans say they answer a Cock that crowes in heaven Keckerm in Physicis The first reason seems something for he will crow when he is full also and after copulation also he crowes when the Hen is present but when he is gelt he crowes no more Plin. Yet l. 29. c. 4. he saith That a circle of Vine-twigs tied about his neck he will not sing Albertus saith if his head and forehead be anointed with oyl He is at great Amity with the Kings-Fisher that if they be both in the same house and the Kings-Fisher dye the Cock will dye with hunger They that have fed on Fox flesh boyl'd are free for two moneths from their Treachery Boetius As for a Dung-hill Cock Gesner saith he found it in a German Manuscript that a Noble-man having tryed all remedies for pains of the Collick and finding none at length he drank a small cup of Capons-grease unsalted boyl'd in water But saith he you must drink the fat that swims on the top as hot as you can CHAP. XVIII Of the Crane and the Woodwall THe Cranes travell all over the World Yet Aldrovandus saith he scarce believes that they will live willingly in all Countries l. 20. The Aspera arteria of them is set into the flesh on both sides at the Breast-bone whence you may hear a Crane afar off They travel but no time is set yet how swiftly they fly is manifest by the example of Cyrus who was said so to have disposed of his Posts at certain stages that when one was weary another should proceed night and day that they out-went the Cranes that flew When they fly they keep a triangular sharp angled figure that they may the easier pierce through the Ayr that is against them That Crane that gathers the rest together will correct them as Isidorus saith When one is hoarse another succeeds When they light upon the Earth to feed the Captain of them holds up his head to keep watch for the rest and they feed securely Before they take rest they appoint another Sentinel who may stand and ward with his neck stretched forth whilest the rest are asleep with their heads under their wings and standing upon one leg The Captain goes about the Camp and if there be any danger he â—laries Lest they should sleep too soundly they stand upon one foot and hold a stone in the other above ground that if at any time being weary they should be oppressed with sleep the stone falling might awaken them They love their young ones so much that they will fight whether shall give them their breeding Albertus saw a maleâ—Crane cast down a female and kill her giving her eleven wounds with his bill because she had drawn away his young ones from following of him This fell out at Colen where tame Cranes use to breed Those are fables that men relate of the Battels between the Pigmies and the Cranes The Woodwall hangs up her nest on the boughs like a Cup that no four-footed beast can come at it The nest is like to the fashion of a Rams-stones Albert. Magn. Some say there is Silk â—ound in it and that rhe nest is built not far from the water made of moss and the cords it hangs by are horse hairs She leaves Italy when Arcturus ariseth As she hangs down she sleeps upon her feet hoping for more safety thereby Plin. l. 10. c. 32. When she comes into Germany there is great hopes that Winter for Snow and Frost is gone CHAP. XIX Of the Chough IT is thought that the Choughs feed on Locusts besides Corn because the Inhabitants of the Island Lemnos were reported to worship these birds because they flew to destroy the Locusts Plin. l. 10. c. 29. The males will rather lose their lives than part with their females They fly at the eyes of him that holds them The reason is rendred by Nicolaus Leonicus because the eyes are shining and very
pressing and moving it with his tongue he breaks them and chews them as it were and then swallows them Nature gave this bird a crooked bill like halfe a circle it is very strong Because she is of a clambering disposition and hath not feathers in her taile that she can fasten into a Tree she had need of a strong beck that she might first cast it in like a hook and by that she might raise her body and then take hold with her feet They live in hot Countries In the Country of Parrots they are so cheap that one may be bought for two pence They alwaies flye by couples and lest they should hurt their weak feet when they light upon the ground they trust to their strong beck and break the fall with lighting upon that They imitate a man they learn his words and will pronounce all almost with an articulate voyce One was taught that would say the Creed to a Cardinal Scalig. exerc 238. He will answer questions Henry the eight King of England had one that fell into the Sea and cried for help promising 20 pounds but when he was pull'd forth he bad Give a Groat If you stroke her gently she will kisse you Scalig. exerc 236. Amongst mourners she will lament also Tiraquel saith that the females do never or very seldome speak like to Men. They are so simple that when a Parrot cries in a Tree and the fowler sits close in the boughs of the same Tree great multitudes of them will flye thither and suffer themselves to be easily taken Pet. Martyr in Decad. Oceani They are fed and grow fat on wild saffron seed that is a purgative to men They will hang by the heels with their heads down toward the water and their tails upwards They build in a high Tree They bind a branch that hangs down with small twigs to the top and they hang their nest upon it as round as a ball with a little hole in it They lay eggs fit for their bignesse They dye by much rayn They are sacred amongst the Indians but not so in Columbus days CHAP. XXVII Of the Phoenix and Woodpecker CLaudian describes the Phoenix thus A fiery mouth with sparkling eys A glittring crest like Sun it 'h Skies The legs are of a Tyrian dye Lightning the Ayre as she doth fly She is reported to inhabit Arabia and chiefly Heliopolis a City of Aegypt where she was seen Her nest is made of spices namely Cinamon and Cassia neere to Nilus she sits in it and by waving her wings she kindles a fire from her ashes a Worme breeds from that a young Phoenix Oppian doth not so much as speak of the Worm Men write diversly of her age The common opinion is 500 years some say she lives 1461 years But all this is false The Woodpickers have a sharp bill that is hard round and strong to pick holes in Trees with They have a long tongue that is extended to the hinder part of their head and is wrapped up over all the crown of the head like a clue of yarn it is exceeding sharp and the end of it is gristly They feed on Wormes and when they seek for them they will so exceedingly make Trees hollow that they will throw them down Arist. l. 9. hist. c. 9. Their nest is made so artificially that the sticks put together they make it of are better to pull a sunder with ones hands than to cut in peices with a sword Pliny reports that the young ones come forth of their eggs with the tayle first because the weight of their heads turns the eggs upside down and so the dam sits on their tails They never sit on stones for fear of hurting their sharp claws They climb unto the top like Cats and that backwards In what Tree soever they breed no naile nor wedge can stick in it but when it is fastned it will fall out with a cracking of the Tree Plin. l. 10. c. 18. Men suppose that she hath the greater Moon-light an herb that increaseth and diminisheth CHAP XXVIII Of the Pie. THe Pie almost every hour changeth her note she learnes and loves to speak as men do One at Rome hearing the Trumpet sound at first was astonished but came to her self and did perfectly imitate the same Plutarch If she be catcht in a Snare she will move nothing but her beck lest moving her body she should be more ensnared when rapes are sowed then is the time for her to moult her feathers Her feathers being pul'd off and her guts taken out if she be boyl'd in White Wine till the Wine be consumed and the flesh part from the bones and then she be bray'd with the broth and so set for three days in the Sun and then applyed to the eys with a fine rag it will cure the roughnesse darknesse and rednesse of the eyes The Pye that feeds on mosse hath blew ouerthwart marks on the sides of her wings you shall seldome see the like in any other bird she hath a throat so wide that she will swallow Chestnuts The Pye in Brasil hath a bill two hands breadth long and one almost in breadth measured from the bottom of the lower part to the top of the upper part The substance of it is very thin like a parchment yet bony shining hollow and most capacious as the Ear also it is dented and made up as it were with certain skales she feeds on pepper but she presently casts it up again raw and indigested CHAP. XXIX Of the Peacock OF old Peacocks were rare in Europe when Alexander saw one in India he forbad to kill it on pain of death but afterwards in Athenaeus his time they grew so common that they were as ordinary as Quails In the Land Temistana they lay sometimes 20 or 30 eggs Martyr They are so cleanly that when they are young they will die if they be wet Albert. When they want cooling they spread their wings and bending them forward they cover their bodies with them and so drive off the force of heat but if the wind blow on their back-parts they will open their wings a little and so are they cooled by the wind blowing between They are said to know when any venomous medicament is prepared and they will fly thither and cry Aelian reports that a Peacock will seek out the root of flax as a natural Amulet against Witchcraft and will carry it thrust close under one of its wings The Peacock suffers such languishing pains as children are wont to suffer when their teeth first come forth and they are in great danger when their crest first grows out Palladius l. 1. de re rustica c. 20. When in the night they double their clanging note it foreshews rains at hand The cause is said to be that by doubling of that troublesome noise is shewed that with heat that sharp vocal spirit breaks forth Mizaldus Their flesh will not corrupt easily After a whole year it will not
upper parts being the sharpest they take hold of the ends of the weeds and are fast shut in the broader parts which afterwards open that the fruit may come out to flye Thus a thousand at least of these shell fish are fastned to the weeds at the ends which as I said are fastned to the pitcht Wood with the other end in such plenty that the Wood can hardly be seen yet those weeds do hardly exceed 12 fingers breadth in length and are so strong as thongs of leather somtimes they are longer and are some-feet-long This is the whole external description For you can see nothing but a piece of a Mast full of rotten holes and Sea Weeds thrust into them having at the other end shell-fish like to the nayle of a Mans little finger But if these shells be opened those small Birds appeare like chickens in eggs with a beck eys feet wings down of their feathers beginning and all the other parts of callow Birds As the young Birds grow so do the shells or covers of them as they do in all other Oysters Muscles shell-fish snails and the like carriers of their houses It may be asked how they get their food I answer as other Zâ—ophyta do partly from the sweeter part of the water or else as shell fish that breed pearls and Oysters do from the dew and rayn partly from the pitchy fat of the rotten Wood or the resinous substance of Pitch or Rosin For these by the intermediant grass as by umbilical Veins do yeeld nutriment to these Creatures so long as that Wood is carried by the ebbing and flowing of the Sea hither and thither For were it on the dry land it would never bring forth the said shell fish An example of this we have in places neere the Sea where those shell fish are taken alwaies with black shells sticking to Wood put into the water as also to the woodden foundations of bridges and to Ships that have been sunk And they stick either to the wood by some threds like to hayrs or Mosse or else by Sea Weeds whence it is evident that some clammy moysture is afforded to shell-fish sticking to any Wood whatsoever though it be Oke but much more to firre Wood full of Rosin whereof Masts of Ships are made For this Wood is hotter than Oke and hath much aeriall clamminesse and therefore takes fire suddenly and when it is wounded while it is green it sends forth an oily Rosin but when it is dry it will easily corrupt under water but the Oke will not because it is of a cold and dry nature It longer resists corruption and under water grows almost as hard as a stone If any man will consider the abundance and diversity of fish and living Creaturs which are bred in the Seas every where he cannot but confesse that the Element of water is wonderful ferâ—ill which breeds not only the greatest living Creatures as Whales whereof some as Pliny writes l. 32. entred into a River of Arabia that were 600 foot long and 300 foot broad and that in such abundance and variety that the same Authour reckons up 176. kinds of fish in the Sea only besides thâ—se bred in Rivers But one would chiefly admire the great diversity and beauty of Sea shell-fish for I remember that I saw aâ— â—eâ—terdam Anno 1611 with Peter Carpenter a very famous man above a thousand severall kinds of them in such plenty that he had a whole Chamber full of them which he kept as the pretious treasures and miracles of nature No doubt but these are the Ensignâ— of Natures bounty for they rather serve for the ornament of the world than for mans use wherein you may see a kind of an affected curiosity in the variety of the forms of them Hence we may conclude the great fruitfulnesse of the Sea which doth exceed the Land in breeding of living Creatures and vegetable animals which the Antients observing they ascribed to Neptune who was god of the Sea great multitudes of Children begotten from divers Concubines call'd Sea-Nymphs amongst these were Tryton and Protheus whereof he sounding a shell-fish is his Father Neptunes Trumpeter but this is changed into various forms as into fire a Serpent and such like clearly teaching that the Sea breeds divers forms These causes seemed to move them who ascrib'd the generation of these Birds in the Orcades to the Sea alone as being the Authour of fruitfulnesse and of diversity of Creatures But how rightly they did that shall be seen We deny not but that many pretty shell-fishes are bred of the Sea onely from the influence of omnipotent nature so that the Ocean affords the place and matter of them but not the form and the cause efficient All the fish except a few are bred of the seed of other fish naturally and here can be no question of these Yet we may doubt whether so many kinds of shell-fish do breed from the seed of other shell-fish It is manifest of the foresaid Bird that it breeds neither from an egge as other birds do nor yet from seed Whence then From the Ocean or must the cause be imputed to the Ocean Not at all For though the place be said to generate the thing placed yet that is understood of the matrices that are the cause of generation sine quâ non but not the efficient cause much lesse the formal material and final and not concerning every generall thing containing But to search out more exactly the nature of this wonderfull Bird we will run over those four kinds of causes not doubting but having searched out these as we ought what why and from whence it is will easily be resolved The Efficient cause therefore of this generation is external heat such as the Sun sends forth into sublunary bodies as also in the internal heaâ— in the matter corrupting For without heat nature produceth no generation but useth heat as her chief Instrument whereby homogeneous things are congregated and heterogeneous are parted the parts and bowels are formed in living Creatures and are disposed in their orders and figures In Artificiall things that men make they use divers Instruments as their Hands which may be call'd the Instrument of Instruments Hammers Anvils Files Sawes Wimbles and the like In natural things there is onely Heat as the efficienâ— cause and Nature moves it as the Artificer doth them The outward heat brings the internal into Action Without which this would be uneffectual and shut up in the matter as dead as it appears in some living creatures which when Winter comes and the outward heat fails they are as it were asleep and lye as dead as Swallows Frogs Flies and such like But so soon as the Sun beams heat the water and the earth presently these little Creatures revive as owing their lives to the Suns heat And as the heat is greater so is the efficacy thereof and their flying about and crying as we see in Flies and Frogs As for
their skin is fine and they cannot endure to tread on the cold earth and therefore they leap up Aratus Some think they will not be taught yet Albertus saith in upper Germany he saw a Mouse hold a Candle at supper time to give light to those that sate at Table when his Mr. commanded him If a Mouse fall into new Wine and be drown'd put him into hot ashes and he will recover Colâ—mel 12.31 There are many kinds of Mice A rat is four times as big as a Mouse Agricola saw one taken in the mid'st of Aprill that was white with red eyes sticking out and it was all hairy and had a beard with very long haires Men say that there are none to be found at Auspurg about the Temple of St. Huldericus when they are lustfull they are furious so that iâ— they pisse on any naked part of a Man it will rot to the bones nor will the Ulcer be cured Albert Aquatic They will hunt fish and diving under water they will find some holes to come to land another way The field-Mice that breed of putrefaction have one right gut and no more A Physitian that dissected one observed that Gesner When Nilus runs back again little Mice are found imperfect part of their body being alive from the mixture of earth and water and part dead earth In some places they come so suddedly in abundance that they will eate up all the Corn Pliny The Wood-Mice steep from the ending of Autumne till the Spring begins Gesnerus In Norway it is called Citellus it dwells in the Caves of the earth There are found somtimes 40 in one hole with abundance of small nuts They eate them fresh or dried in the Chimney Agricola The Cricotus or Hamester is referred to Mice his haire sticks so fast to his skin that the skin will sooner come from the flesh than the hairs from the skin He will not easily be drawn out of his hole but by scalding water The male is false for when there is meat enough within he shuts out the female But she revengeth his falsenesse with fraud for possessing her self of some hole not far from him she will gather Corn he knows not of and live upon that Agricola Mice in the Alps are as big as Hares or else betwixt a Coâ—ey and a Hare It will foreshew a tempest with a very shrill voyce like a pipe and that not only in the Mountains but when he is kept in the House He hath three holes in his cave at one he enters and comes out again in another he rests and dwells in the third he â—ays his excrements When Mountains are covered with snow he hides himself in his Cave and shuts the holes he stops in the earth so fast and rams it in that it is easier to dig up the earth on either side than where it is rammed into the holes CHAP XXVIII Of the Wesil and the Sable Wesil WEesils carried into Baeotia will run away in a certaine Island they will not be taken out for if they be they dye Albertus There was a man that affirmed he saw a Weesil passing over the River Limagus constantly leaping so that he never swam but leaped upon the surface of it It is an Aegyptian Hieroglyphick for they say it ingenders by the eare and is delivered by the mouth this emblem shews the nature of speech His genitalls are bony and is a speciall remedy against the stone Yet that must not saith Albertus be understood as if it were so indeed but only by proportion that it hath The Germans call the best sort of them Zobella This skin is of very great price for sometimes 2000 Crowns at Constantinople will hardly buy a coat of them Jovius But the nature of them is such that laid in the Sun to dry they will consume more than if they be worn a whole yeare This creature whilst it lives alwaies lurks in a shady grove and watcheth for Coneys They are nimble and use their taile for a helme as squirrils do and will leap from Tree to Tree CHAP. XXIX Of the Sheep SHeep are creatures known to all The Arabian Sheep have a very broad taile and the fatter it is the thicker it will be Some tails weigh ten pounds some 20 and it naturally grows faâ— Johannes Africanus saw one above 80 pound weight some have seen them above 150 pound weight In Africa Rams are bred with Horns presently and also Sheep as there are some with Horns in England Albertus saw a Ram that had 4 great Horns growing on his head and two long ones on his legs that were like to Goats Horns yet in Pontus in the Province of Scythia they have no Horns Aristot. And they have no gall But in the Island Naxus they have two and men say the Pontic Wormwood is the cause of it Plin. In cold Countries when the snow abounds they lose it but recover it again in the Spring Aelian Anno 1547 one was given to the French King that was very fat in Picardy one of the claws namely the inward claw of both feet was eight inches long the extream part of it turned upwards and it had a Horn like to wild Goats Gesner In the Country of Prasy they yeeld most sweet milk for it rayns liquid honey that they feed on Aelian The milk is very fat in the Isle Erythea for it hath no whey and to make cheese they temper it with abundance of Fountain water The cause is the plenty of pasture It grows so fat and full that in 30 days the Sheep will be choked if it be not let blood Pliny About Calimos a Village of India they smell like fish for wanting grasse they eate fish and they that feed on fish give them dry fish to eate Arrian When the North wind blows males are chiefly conceived when the Southwind females For such is the force of the North wind that it will change those that yean none but females and cause them to bring males Plin. When a noise is made they flock together and if when it thundereth one that is with lamb be left alone she will miscarry Arist. In the Orcades Islands they all almost yean twins and oft times 3 lambs Boetius Though their bodies be very soft yet they are free of the plague Columella One was seen to run mad which a mad Cow had hit with her Horn. In England they rot in their bowells if in rainy Summers they feed on moyst ground and lick the dew Gesner In France if they eate the herb Duva they breed black Creatures in their Livers and this disease is incurable The French in Normandy call that hearb Duva that is like to the sharp dock but the leaves are narrovver and stand alvvaies upright and the middle nerve is almost red and serves for Causticks Gesner Meadovv vvater drank breeds Horseleeches shut up in bladders in the same place they are a finger and half long and almost halfe as broad CHAP. XXX Of the
no where more totally in any Creature than in the smallest Creatures And In the contemplation of it nothing can seem superfluous CHAP. I. Of Living Creatures without blood in generall TRuly the nature of bloodlesse Creatures seems to be contemptible and not to be compared in the least with the shoulders of Elephants that carry Castles or the necks of Bulls and their fierce casting up of things into the Ayr nor to the Manes of Lions yet is there no where a more remarkable piece of Nature's Workmanship and Nature is no where total more than in the least Creatures For in great bodies there was a sit place to work in the matter being ductile but in these that are so small and almost as nothing what reason what force what unspeakable perfection is there Where hath Nature placed so many senses in the Gnat Where hath she set her eyes where her smelling Where hath she made that horrid and great Voyce considering its proportion of body how hath she cunningly fastned the wings lengthned the legs hath disposed a hollow place instead of a belly and made it thirsty after blood especially mans blood but by what art hath she wheâ—â—ed the snowt of it to make it penetrate into the skin And since the smallnesse of it cannot be discerned in comparison with that is very great nature hath helped it by a twofold art that it might be sharp to peirce and hollow to drink with all Plin. l. 11. c. 2. Aristotle reckons 4 kinds of bloodlesse creatures The soft the hard crusty the shell-wearing and the insect The soft kinds want scales and their skin is not rough nor with a shell but soft as it is in Men. They have no bones no bowels If there be any they are like to fishes prickles except only the Polypus Plin. l. 9. c. 28. Their heads are between their legs and their bellies they have no tongues nature only hath given them somthing that is fleshy to discern the pleasure of that they eate But they have a Brain and they have that is proportionable to that part which is designed by nature for the principality of feeling Also they are of both sexes The parts of the males are all more rough and distinguished with various lines running between the tayl is sharper the passage under the throat comes from the brain to the bottom of the pipe and the place it is carried to is like to the teats It is double that is set above in the females and reddish little bodies are joyned to it in both sexes They refuse salt water they can hardly endure cold for they are naked and fearfull because they want blood Their eggs when they are lay'd increase as Worms do but they must needs have their vital force from the seed of the male as fishes have Aristot. de generat l. 3. c. 8. Of those that are crusty there are two kinds for they are all either with tails or round Their taile is evident and stretched forth the cover of this as it were covers the end of their belly and is so joyned to the lower part of their belly that it shews not at all like a taile Scalig. exercit 245. Their parts are as the other parts of bloodlesse creatures Their teeth in their mouths are long and round covered with a double covering Aristot. de part 4 c. 3. between which such things are placed as are knit between the teeth of Locusts They want eylids but their eyes are placed above their mouth they are hard and apt to move inward and outward and obliquely They breathe not but casting water through a hollow pipe they are refreshed The males have small passages for their genital parts the females have membranous matrices cut as farr as their intestins and in them an egge is bred They copulate after the manner of those creatures that pisse backwards The female brings forth a red egge covered over with a thin shelly membrane they are otherwise called Conchylia purple shell fish that were of old held for great dainties that they grew into a proverb to be the widows delights Nature hath so sported in the variety of them in so many figures and colours that it is hard to number them Plin. l. 9. c. 33. to explain the variety of them saith thus They are of so many figures plain hollow long like the half Moon round cut in half circles rising in the back smooth rugged dented streaked the top wreathed like the Murex the borders pointed outward or folded inward somtimes distinguished with little lines hairy curled like doggs waved like a comb a tyle lattice wise or like net work stretched out obliquely or right forth close thickned together open as when men clap their hands bended backwards like to a Horn. Moreover in the red Sea they are of a wonderfull greatnesse also they are found on the tops of the highest Mountains and they somtimes lye hid in the inward parts of the earth or in stones Goropius Becanus in Aldrovandus saith he hath seen some in a flint that we use to pave the streets with brought from Bethum there were so many shell-fish all of stone and shut up entire in their coverings that you would judge that flint to have been framed with great care and art of them joyned with some cement In the fields about the suburbs of Paris that are fruitfull with Corn above there is underneath a Cave that is under great part of it where Chariots may passe I found there a great many shells like Sea perwinkles in a delicate order both twisted and adorned with little knots and so exact that there was nothing wanting to their perfection but the living fish I saw in England a stone cut out of the highest Mountains that was like a living perch not the least line was wanting to make it perfect Insects have incisions either above or beneath or else on both sides and though it be bony or fleshy yet they have somthing that is between both The differences of them are many if you note their place the quality of their body their quantity their food their generation their motion of their going As for the place we must speak somthing reddish hairy Worms are bred in Snow in the fire Worms called Pyrausta in the Sea water the insect call'd Micro-rinchotoros or little nose the Sea Scotopendra and the gnat In fresh water there ariseth Leeches Scrophulae Strumae Cherodes in the earth Worms and Juli in minerals not a few In the stumps of Trees Cossi and Teredines The Fig-Tree breeds the Worm Cerastes if an Olive Tree be planted where an Oke is digged up there breed Frogs and little Worms in the Service-Tree there are breed red hairy ones in the bladders of Elms Psennes in Vines those that Tully calls Butyri in the Spindle-Tree or as Theophrastus calls it Tetragonia there is yearly bred some Catterpillers that dye so soon as the leaves are wasted In the apple of a certain shrub call'd Coccios
Salmon striving to overcome the precipice of the water be frustrated at the second or third leap he swims to the foard and there he will lye hid under stones and gravel and pine away he is full of brasse colour'd spots and his beck is bent like a great hook In Scotland in Autumn they meet in little Rivers or places fordable where they joyne bellies and lay eggs and cover them in the gravel at which time the male is so spent spending his milt and seed and the female with her spawn that they are nothing but bones and prickels and skin That leannesse is infectious for they will infect all the Salmons they come neere It is an argument thereof that oft times they are taken and one side is consumed the other not so From their eyes covered in the sand little fishes breed the next spring that are so soft that untill they be no bigger than a mans finger if you presse them with your fingers they will run as from congeled moysture Then first as Nature leads them they hasten to the Sea and in 20 days or a little more it is incredible how great they will grow when they come from the Sea against a River that runs thither they shew a wonder For the Rivers that are straightned with Rocks and Banks on every side and therefore run down swiftly when they fall with a great fall the Salmons do not presently swim forth by the Channel but they fling themselves up crooked by force of the water and so are carried in the Ayre before they fall That they are lively is seen by their heart taken forth Robertus Constantinus testifies that he saw the heart of a Salmon that was unbowelled that was wet with a moyst sanies and it lived after it was taken forth above a day There are some different kinds of Turdi Some have as it were some skiny yellowish Apophyses hanging down from their lower chop somtimes they vary and are all for the most part Gold colour or colour of the Amethyst or blew Their eyes are extreme great and a black circle goes about a Golden Apple a Golden circle about the black and lastly a black circle goes about them all The fins by the gills are wholly Gold colour but of the brest they are all blew except their nervs that are Gold colour'd The fin that is from the anus and that which is on the back and taile where they are joyn'd to the rump are Gold colour'd but sprinkled with little red blood spots the rest are blew CHAP. XX. Of the Torpedo and the Tunie I Have nothing to say of the Torpedo but that he benums the hands and hence he hath his name And he doth this so effectually that before he is taken he will do it by the net or the rod. He useth this cunning that covering himself with mud and dirt he will catch little fish very strangely Plin. l. 1. utr anim The Tunies though they be caught in many places yet chiefly about Constantinople for when they come to the Islands Cyaneae and are past by the shore of Chalcedonia a certain white rock appears to them and doth so terrifie the Tunies that immediately they put over to the farther bank and being taken away with the swift current of the waters the natural fitnesse of the place turns the course of the Sea to Constantinople and the winding thereof so that being driven thither by force of Nature it is no wonder that they fall into snares They are also ingendred in the Lakes of Maeotis and when they are a little grown they break forth of the mouth of the Lake in sholes and run by the Asiatick shore so far as Trapezunda but because they cannot endure tempests and cold weather whereby their eyes grow dim they stay in a very deep place of the Thracian Sea that harbours them it is called Melas and it hath hollow and muddy places fit to cherish fish in and they grow till the Spring They seem to understand the blowings of the winds For Pliny saith they stay for the North wind that they may get out of the Pontick Sea with the flowing of the water to help them They enter into Pontus one way and go forth another For Aristotle l. 8. Histor. c. 13. saith they lye on their right side next the Earth when they no in and come forth on the contrary side for they turn on the left side which saith he they are therefore said to do because naturally they see clearest with their right eye and duller with the left The old Oracle of the Prophet Amphyllus in Herodotus proves that they go forth in the night And this is again confirmed by ancient medalls such as Bellonius writes that he saw at Paris on one side was an Ear of Corn and on the other side the Tunie and above this the Moon with an Inscription of Phillips They sleep so soundly that they may be taken napping CHAP. XXI Of the Uranoscopus and the Sword-fish URanoscopus is a fish that swims alone and eats flesh so lively saith Bellonius that if you take out all his Entrals yet he will move still It is the greediest eater of all fish he hath an apophysis hanging forth of his mouth and with that he ensnares the fish This shews he is an insatiable paunch that if you cast meat to him he will feed so long till the meat come up to his throat The Sword-fish hath a beck on both chaps but the lower of them is short and triangular the upper is more bony and harder and far longer sometimes two cubits long In the Indian Sea they grow so great that they will pierce the sides of the strongest Ships a hand and half in thicknesse sometimes Jovius Gesner writes from the relation of a faithfull friend of his who saw a man when he sailed into Syria that swam by the Ship side and he was cut in the middle by the beck of this fish He fears a Whale and when he sees one he claps his sword into the earth or some place of the Foard that he can and so forms himself like to a log and the Whale neglects him and swims by him CHAP. XXII Of some other Wonders concerning Fishes IN Minerals and Quarreys also fishes are found especially if the places be moyst though there be no water Theophrastus observed this in many places of Pontus Eudoxus in Paphlagonia Agricola at Orterantum beyond the Albis There is a plain by the River Narbon by this run the Rivers Iliberis and Roschinus there are fossil fish found therein The earth is tender there and brings much grasse about two or three cubits under this runs the water of the Rivers that hath dilated it self If at any time they overflow they fill the plain with fish from underground Polyb. in Histor. There are two sorts of them some round like to Eels but they want a tuff skin they are scaly as Gudgeons their flesh is hard and not well savoured The
and sound and died within a little while together with their mother to whom this Epitaph following was erected in the Monasterie of Lodun where there were Nunnes of the order of S. Bernard and it is hard by the Hague in Holland THE EPITAPH The daughter of the right noble Lord Florent Earle of Holland and of Mawd his Wife the daughter of Henrie Duke of Brabant sister of William King of Almaine named Margaret of the age of fortie two yeares was brought a bed upon the Friday before Easter in the yeare 1276 at nine a Clock in the morning of three hundred three-score and five Children as well male as female who after they had been all baptized in a great bason by the reverend Bishop Don William Suffragan in the presence of some great Lords and notable persons the male Children being called by the name of John the female by the name of Elizabeth dyed all of them together with their mother their souls returning to God to live eternally their bodies resting under this Tombe The like storie well neere is reported of the beginning of the noble race of the Wolfes Irmentrudes the Wife of Isenbard Earle of Altorf having given her selfe the reines so far as to accuse of adulterie a woman that had three Children at one birth being not able to believe that one man could at one time get so many Children adding withall that she deserved to be sowed in a sack and thrown into the water yea and accusing her in that regard to her husband It happened that the next yeare the Countesse felt her self with Child and the Earle being from home she was brought a bed of twelve male Children but all very little She fearing the reproach of adulterie whereof yet she was not guilty and the punishment of like-for-like commanded that eleven of them should be taken and cast into a River that was not far from the house and that one should be saved to be brought up It so fell out that Isenbard met the woman that was carrying the little infants to their death and asking her whither she went with her paile he had this answer that she was going to drown a few baggage whelps in the River of Schere The Earle came unto her and for all the resistance the woman made would see what was there and then discovering the Children pressed her in such wise that she told him all the matter Then he caused them to be nourished and educated secretly and so soon as they were grown great and brought home to him he set them in an open hall besides him whom his wife had brought up and then being all known to be brethren by their faces and their other fashions their mother moved in conscience confessed all the fact and obtained pardon for her fault In remembrance whereof the honorable race of the Wolfes got that name which ever since it hath kept Article 7. Of monstrous Births NAture in working intends her own businesse but because divers obstacles may happen in respect of the first agent the seed the constitution of the Heavens the formative vertue imagination heat it is no wonder if she erre sometimes And though there be Monsters almost in all mixt bodies yet those Monsters that happen amongst living creatures are chiefly remarkable And such fall out either in quantity or quality A woman of Troas Anno 1569 brought forth twins joyn'd by the heads Pareus l. 24. oper c. 2. Valeriola locor commun l. 1. c. 8. saw at Avignon one with two bodies all from the neck Munsterus saw two Maids joyn'd together with their foreheads one against the other and when one went forward the other went backwards At Florence there were two boyes one was an entire body the other was fastned by his shoulders to the others stomach that all his head seemed to be thrust into it and when the former sucked he moved as if he sucked also Benivent de reb abdit Paraeus l. 24. c. 2. Anno 1530 saw the same at Paris in a man of 40 years About the end of the Empire of Lotharius a certain woman bore a child like a man and a dogg their bodies joyn'd entirely and they were fastned at the ridge of their backs Lycost lib. prodigior In Scotland there was one that was a male for the nether parts but above the navell it had two members distinct both for use and in shape This Monster was taught the Musicall Art and learn'd many Languages It held consultation and when they differ'd they would chide and quarrel it lived 28 years And when one body dyed many dayes before the other the other that lived pined away half the body being putrified before Buchan in histor Scotica Lastly in former times there was a child born at Cracovia from noble Parents that was terrible to behold with flaming shining eyes the mouth and nostrils were like to an Oxes it had long horns and a back hairy like a dogs and faces of Apes in the breast where the teats should stand it had Cats eyes under the navell fastned to the hypogastrium and they looked hideously and frightfully and the heads of dogs of both elbowes and at the whirlbones of each knee looking forwards It was splay-footed and splay-handed the feet were like Swans feet and it had a tail turn'd upwards that was crooked backwards about half an ell long It was born and lived four hours and then spake thus Watch the Lord your God comes and then it dyed Peucer in Tetratosc To this may be added the stony birth at Agendicum of the Senones that was carried 28 years and was cut out of the mothers womb when she was dead It is seen to this day at Agendicum for a miracle and is not corrupted Thuan. l. 76. Histor. He that would hear more let him read Bauhinus de hermaphrodite Weinrichius de monstris and others Article 8. Of the recompence Nature makes to Monsters IT is commonly said that those that are deficient naturally are marked for some malignant qualities and this is sometimes found to be true but it is most false that it is alwayes so For to say nothing of the diversity of parts which Lemnius adviseth us to take notice of such is the force of education that it made Socrates good that would have been bad Moreover Nature is so indulgent that as if she were ashamed of her mistake she largely recompenceth her errour with other endowments Count Mansfeld that fail'd in sight could by touching know white from black Keckerm in Physicis Hamar a Captain of a Caravan would know where he was by onely smelling the same Leo African A Preacher in Germany that was blind from his nativity chose the fairest of three Sisters by taking her by the hand Camer Hor. subcis Cent. 3. c. 80. Cicero saith Homer was blind we see not him but his Poetry His words are Tusculan 5. What Country what place what Town of Greece what form what fight what Army what rowing what motion of men
there are such people in Illirium and the Triballi that will bewitch any thing with looking on it and kill those they look upon long especially with angry eyes and young men especially are bewitched by them That is most notable that they have two Apples in each eye In Albania there are some that have Owls eyes and are hoary from their childhood who see better by night than day Pliny l. 7. c. 2. Anastasius the Emperour had Apples of his eyes of divers colours the right eye was blacker the left more grey Zonar They that dwell near Lakes cannot endure smells Strabo l. 16. reports that such amongst the Sabaeans as are stupified by sweet smells are refreshed by the fume of bitumen and by the beard of a Goat burnt That stinking smells are good sometimes women that are cured by them of their hysterical passions and the plague thereby removed do confirm At Antwerp a Country man coming into a Perfumers shop swoâ—nded but came to himself by rubbing his nose with horse dung Lemn l. 2. occult c. 9. Article 4. Of the Face GOd hath set Majesty in some mens Faces chiefly if you regard Princes some are of a wonderful form for comelinesse others for ill-favourednesse They of Bruges were afraid of the Countenance of Caesar Maximilian being captive Delf l. 3. in Maximil vita et Philippi The Conquerours that beheld the Countenance of Francis the first King of France who was worthy of everlasting renown when he was taken at Ticinum they all strove to do him service seeing his Kingly Countenance Forcatul de Gullor Imper. l. 3. When the Conspirators thought to have slain Alphonsus Estensis the First Duke of Ferrara he frighted them with his looks that they durst not do it The twins Moenechmi in Plautus were so like that neither their Nurse nor Mother could know them asunder Vives observes the same of two sons John and Peter of a Senatour of Mechlin Antonius Bithynicus was so fair that Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to him in Mantinea and a City by Nilus and engraved his Image on the Coin The son of Maximinus was so beautifull that his head that was grown black after he was dead and soked with corrupt matter yet seemed very fair Democles an Athenian boy was call'd so for his comelinesse and he had so much care of his chastity that to decline the force of Demetrius he cast himself into a Kettle of scalding water Plutar. in Demetrio Spurina a young Maid by her very looks enticed men and women to lust Valeâ— Max. Lastly Queen Suavilda was so delicate of form that when she was bound with thongs and exposed to be trod on by horses she was a terrour to the very beasts that they durst not tread on her fair limbs Saxo Gram. l. 3. histor Danic Artic. 5. Of Dreams AS in other things so Nature sports her self in dreams for sad people are merry when they dream somtimes merry people are sad Servants are Kings and Lords become Servants And though we must confesse that many of them and what is then done be natural yet scarse any can deny but many of them are supernatural God in elder times did teach his Church by dreams and now adayes many dreams come to passâ— When Lucas Iselius the Son in Law of Zwingerus was at Vesontio he foresaw in his dream the death of Huber a Physitian of Basil. For he seemed to see his bed covered with fresh earth cast upon it which when removing the blanket he thought to cast off he saw Huber the Physitian under the bed and in the twinkling of an eye he was changed into the forme of a Child Nessenus the same day he was drownd in the Albis dreamt of some hurt came to the boat and his own falling out of it Christopher Rhaumbavius a Physitian of Uratislavium followed the counsel he had given him in a dream concerning the cure of a disease was to him incurable and he recovered his patient The wonder was that a few yeares after he met with that receipt in a Book newly printed Doring de medic l. 1. part 2. s. 1. d. 1. c. 3. Histories report that the same hapned to Philip and to Galen before him To this may be added the dream of the Mother of Scanderbeg concerning a Serpent that covered all Epirus and stretched forth his head into the Turks borders devouring them with bloody jaws but the tayle was contain'd amongst the Christians and the government of the Venetians Barlet l. 1. de gest Scanderbegi c. 82. That of Scaligers of a great flame with a mighty noise passing over the Alps at Noricum Rhaetia and Liguria without any hurt Scalig. in com l. de insomn Hippocrat Apotel 42. Of Hunnius his of a Pillar in the Church These did foreshew the future condition of their Sons and that certainly For Scanderbeg was a hammer to the Turks Scaliger the bright Sâ—ar of those quarters And Hunnius a Pillar of the Church he lived in What shall I say of Gunthram King of the Francks It is wonderfull what he dreamt For when on a time he went through a Wood a hunting by chance losing his company and having but one man left with him who was more faithfull to him than the rest he came to a brook of cold water And when he was heavy with sleep he laid his head in that Mans bosome and fell a sleep This servant there observed a strange thing For he saw as it were a little Creature creep out of his mouth whilst he slept and go strait to the River and when he strove in vain to passe over the Servant laid his drawn sword over the brook whereby when the little beast had easily passed over he crept into a hole in a Mountain hard by and coming back an hour after he passed the same way and crept again into the Kings mouth The King wak'd and told his Servant that in a dream he seemed to be brought to the bank of a great River and to have passed over an iron bridge and so to come to a Mountain where there was great store of gold hid When the King had related this to his Servant and heard again from him what strange thing hapned when he slept they both went to that Mountain and there they found a mighty masse of Gold conceald Heidfeld in Sphinge c. 14. Marinus Mersennus in Genesin calls this a diabolical dream That is more wonderfull that he dreamt at Schmalcaldium He that will have the relation let him read Pencerus de Divinatione And in place of that I will set down the dream of David Pareus which is thus described by him I saw a great Oxe that was weary which extended his head to the East and behold a Ram came from the East with three horns and he ran upon this Oxe and hurt his hinder legs and the Oxe fastned himself and stood stronger And I saw that the weary Oxe set his feet firmer And there came another Ram from the