be glad to understand I would willingly also be informed whether my Letter of the second of December mention'd above be come to your hands and how those Observations do please the Gentlemen of your Society and also to understand the receipt of this The manner how the said Mr. Leeuwenhoeck doth make these discoveries he doth as yet not think fit to impart for reasons best known to himself and therefore I am not able to acquaint you with what it is but as to the ways I have made use of I here freely discover that all such persons as have a desire to make any enquiries into Nature this way may be the better inabled so to do First for the manner of holding the liquor so as to examine it by the Microscope I find that the way prescribed by Mr. Leeuwenhoeck is to include the same in a very fine pipe of glass and then to view it by the help of the Microscope for by placing that at a due distance whatever is contained in the said liquor will most easily be discovered The liquor will most easily insinuate it self into the cavity of the said pipe if the end thereof only be just put within the liquor This as it is exceedingly convenient for many trials so is it not very difficult to prepare but because every one is not instructed how to proceed in this matter and it may cause him more trouble than needs to procure them I will here describe the way and so much the rather because the same apparatus will serve for the preparing of Microscopes as I shall afterwards shew Provide then a box made of tin with a flat bottom and upright on all sides let this have fixed within it to the bottom a small piece of tin hollowed like a ridg tile so that the wiek of the Lamp may lie and rest upon it and let the Tin-man fix on it a cover of tin so that there may be only left one part of the aforesaid box open to wit where the bent tin piece and the wiek do lie and come above the sides this cover may be turned back on its hinges when there is occasion to raise the wiek or put in more oyl c. but for the most part ought to lie flat and covered for whilst it is using it is necessary to keep the flame from spreading too much and taking fire all over This box must stand within another box of tin made large enough to contain it the use of which is to keep the former Lamp box from fowling the board or table on which it stands This stands upon a board about one foot square into which is fastned a standard or stick upright cleft so as to pinch and hold the sodering pipe between its clefts which may be fastned with a screw or a slipping ring through which pipe blowing with your breath the flame will be darted forward with great swiftness and brightness if then into this flame you hold a small piece of a glass pipe made of white glass for green glass or coarser glass will not be melted easily in this flame and keep it turning round between your fingers and thumbs you shall find that the flame will in a very short time melt the middle part of the said pipe so that if you remove it out of the flame and draw your hands one from another you may easily draw the former pipe into a very small size which will yet remain hollow though drawn never so small The best Oyl for this purpose is good clean Sallat Oyl or Oyl Olive but high rectified Spirit of Wine is yet better and cleanlier but much more chargeable and for most uses the Oyl Olive will serve This I have set down because many who are far off in the Country cannot have the convenience of going to a Lamp-blower as oft as they have occasion for such pipes which if they provide themselves with small white glass pipes from the Potters they may accommodate themselves withal though they have nothing but a large candle and a tobacco-pipe instead of the aforesaid apparatus though not altogether so conveniently But I would rather advise them to have a Lamp made which most Tin-men know how to fit and prepare and so it will not need much more description But this way of Mr. Leeuwenhoecks of holding the liquors in small glass pipes though it be exceedingly ingenious and very convenient for many examinations yet for divers others 't is not so well accommodated as this which I contrived my self for my own trials at least for those Microscopes I make use of what it may be for those which Mr. Leeuwenhoeck uses I know not I take then instead of a glass pipe a very thin plate of Muscovy glass this serves instead of the moveable plate which is usually put upon the pedestal of Microscopes but because the common pedestal hitherto made use of in Microscopes is generally not so convenient for trials of this nature I lay those by and instead thereof I fix into the bottom of the Tube of the Microscope a cylindrical rod of Brass or Iron Upon this a little socket is made to slide to and fro and by means of a pretty stiff spring will stand fast in any place This hath fastned to it a joynted arm of three or four joynts and at the end a plate about the bigness of a half crown with a hole in the middle of it about three quarters of an inch wide upon this plate I lay the Muscovy glass and upon that I spread a very little of the liquor to be examined then looking against the flame of a Candle or a Lamp or a small reflection of the Sun from a globular body all such parts of the liquor as have differing refraction will manifestly appear By this means I examined the water in which I had steeped the pepper I formerly mentioned and as if I had been looking upon a Sea I saw infinite of small living Creatures swimming and playing up and down in it a thing indeed very wonderful to behold If the flame of the candle were directly before the Microscope then all those little Creatures appeared perfectly defin'd by a black line and the bodies of them somewhat darker than the water but if the candle were removed a little out of the axis of vision all those little Creatures appeared like so many small pearls or little bubbles of air and the liquor in which they swimmed appeared dark but when the water began to dry off the bending of the superficies of the liquor over their backs and over the tops of other small motes which were in the water made a confused appearance which some not used to these kind of examinations took to be quite differing things from what they were really and the appearances here are so very strange that to one not well accustomed to the phaenomena of fluids of differing figures and refractions the examinations of substances this way will be very apt to mis-inform
the Island Lipari near Sicily about sixteen Leagues from Messina it is famous for the best Raisins in the Mediterranean there is on it a large Castle a small Town many Vineyards and about one hundred Families besides some Religiose I judge it wants a fifth part of the bigness of the Isle de Mayo it is mostly very high Land especially one Mountain on which stands a Watch Tower whence a man may see a monstrous distance at Sea as is confirmed by de Ruyter In the relation he gives the States of Holland wherein he tells them that from that place they discerned the French Fleet 's approach long before they could from any other part either of their own or the other Island I am sure it is much higher than either that at the Isle de Mayo or any I have seen in England and yet on this fair fruitful Island springs not one drop of water the Inhabitants storing themselves with rain which falling very frequently they are careful to preserve in Cisterns divers essays have been made in the most promising part of it to find Springs by digging Wells one of those which I saw was without doubt the deepest in Europe I remember not the exact profundity as they related it but I have not forgot that throwing in a stone it was long ere it got to the bottom and then returned such a noise as it had been the discharge of a Musquet The cause of this driness was by the people thought to be subterranean heats absuming the water but no such thing appearing to the sense of those that digged the Wells I gave no faith to that persuasion they fancy such heats partly from the want of water but mostly because the four adjacent Islands Stromboli Vulcano Vulcanella and M. Aetna are constantly burning and very near them The obvious earth of this place is loose and in all apparent qualities very good but by the heaps that had been thrown up in digging the Wells I saw the inferiour earth was clammy or like clay that had some greasie gummous matter commixed This the Religious told me was the very kind of Sulphur which constantly boyled out of the burning Cranny on Vulcanella and where with all those Islands abounded not excepting their own though it were not yet kindled For my third observation I will go no farther than the place of my present abode Plimmouth in which on a kind of Piazza commonly called the New-key a plat of ground got in from the Sea is a Well which before the ever famous Sir Francis Drake by cutting a Rivulet of thirty miles procured us water in great plenty was of common use having as at this day a Pump in it about seven years since being before the Key was inlarged the Well was not above eigh foot from the edge thereof over which the Sea would frequently flow when a high outwind and a Spring Tide concurred I say this Well though so near the Sea yieldeth clean water and as sweet as a mixture of three parts fresh and one of salt water would be About an hundred yards from that on ground a little rising is a very large Well which supplieth three or four Brew-houses by whose drink it is evident that the water hath not wholly quitted its salt It is to be noted that Plimmouth lieth on a Peninsula three miles long and two broad the Isthmus about two thirds of a mile wide and not very high from the surface of a full Sea There are many Wells in it those near the Sea are saltish those farther from it the less so My fourth observation I take from the late famous French Traveller Monsieur Taverner who in his first Volume discoursing of the Coast of Coromandel c. he saith they there want fresh water and are constrained strained to make pits of two foot deep in the sand by the Sea to find it The fifth observation and which I would call the most significant were I assured of its truth I had from a very ingenious Chirurgeon who had used the West Indias that there is in that Sea an Island called Rotunda of a figure agreeable to its name which though very small hath on it arising in the middle a Spring of a very large stream of water at which our Ships frequently furnish themselves in their Navigation he affirmed that it raineth there but once a year as at the Isle de Mayo saying withal that the Island is so short of a proportion big enough for the stream that if it constantly rained it could not be supply enough to maintain so large an Efflux My sixth and last is the relation of Dr. Downes concerning Barbadoes viz. that all their Springs were formerly very near the Sea that up in the Country they supplied themselves from the rains by digging pits in the earth able to contain great quantities and there preserving it which they did a very long time the rains being there as unfrequent as at the Isle de Mayo and that without any sensible diminution by penetrating and descending into the earth and to prevent the loss thereof by the exhalations of the Sun they covered it with leaves c. but that now by digging deeper they find Springs so plenty that no Plantation is without one From all these observations the following consectaries do mechanically result From the first it appeareth that some Springs have manifestly their source from the Sea that sand sweetens transcolated Sea-water and that even pickle strained through it loseth much of its saltness thereby all which is evident from the Well therein mentioned whose water could not possibly be other than what soaked in from the Pond and the Ocean Hence also is manifest that constant and large Fluxes of water may be made for eleventh months without rain to refill the subterranean Cisterns supposed by you to supply them this appears from the River running through the Island by whose banks I found it being April when I was there at which time they had been ten months without rain thsh after their showers it could run but little larger that it did after so tedious a want of them I had forgot to intimate in the relation that those two Hommets A. are craggy Rocks whereon live a great number of Goats and are consequently very unfit if not incapable either to receive or contain the Magazine for the supply of the Rivulet From the second it is manifest that higher Mountains of earth and consequently more likely to receive and contain sufficient quantity of rain-rain-water to beget and supply Springs and Rivers have not always that effect although there was one great advantage more added here viz. a clammy tyte earth in the bottom to make the supposed Cistern the better able to contain the store I say that frequent rain to fill high Mountains to contain loose pervious earth to receive and a well luted bottom to support and retain being all the qualifications and circumstances supposed necessary to make and continue
Springs according to the modern Hypothesis though all here concurred did notwithstanding fail of producing that effect From the same it is also manifest that where Springs fail without want of the causes that Hypothesis supposeth necessary to produce them the occasion hath been from an apparent defect in the other that is the imperviousness of the earth through which the water must pass before a Spring can be produced both these appeared at Lipary where the general effect a Spring or fountain was wanting together with the causes of our Hypothesis though those of the other were manifestly existent and with all the advantages necessary It seeming to me a very rational conjecture that the greasie clammy Sulphur wherewith that earth was impregnated did by oppilating it hinder the insinuation of the Sea into it From the third observation you have the first deduction confirmed viz. That Springs are sometimes manifestly from the Sea That earth sweetens sea-Sea-water by Percolation And that the nearer Springs are to the Sea the more they retain of their pristine saltness and lose it by sensible degrees as they insinuate farther through it By the fourth the same is confirmed The fifth proveth that large streams flow without any possibility of being supplied by rain both for want of such rain and of dimensions to receive and contain it The sixth doth evidence that rain doth not penetrate the Surface of the earth even in a very dry parched Country and in the Torrid Zone and yet that Springs are under it which at once proves ours and refutes the other opinion the former appears by the water in those made Ponds lying there for a long time without any sensible loss thereof by its leaking into the earth The later by the Wells near the Sea and those found since under that impervious Land He that is not altogether a stranger to the weight pressure and Elasticity of the air the ascension of liquors through Filters and some other resembling Phaenomena would not account the like motion of the transcolated water to high hills to be an objection of any force against this Hypothesis but sure such solutions are no less beyond my ability than design Finding I have Paper enough left I will presume to trouble you with one rare appearance more that occurred to one Mr. Brasey of this Town and aged and very fat man who by taking Spirit of Vitriol in his mornings draughts to which he was advised as a remedy to asswage the exuberance of his belly found that it had no effect on his body but that a bundle of Keys which he used to carry always about him and that wonted to be very smooth and bright of a sudden became black and rusty though he never handled the Spirit nor carried it in his pocket so that we concurred in opinion that the sudorous Effluvia of his body impregnated with the Acid Spirit had occasioned it If so It 's very wonderful that so small a quantity thereof when diluted with so much juice as is contained in such a corpulent man should even insteam and the insensible Emanations make impressions on smooth Iron mauger the perpetual attrition by carrying them in his Pocket whereby such an effect one would think should be prevented or soon rubbed of I was going to make some reflections on this notable accident but I consider c. Plimmouth May 5. 1678. James Young THE Original of Springs is that which hath exercised the Pens of many learned Writers and very various have been the conjectures concernning it But amongst all I have met with I conceive none more probable than that which seems to fetch its original from the History of the Creation mentioned in Holy Writ that is that there is a Magazine of waters above as well as a Receptacle of waters upon or beneath the Surface of the Earth And that the Air is that Firmament which separates between the upper and lower waters and between these two is the circulation of waters or bloud of the Microcosm if I may so call it performed The water being sometimes by a particular constitution of the Air assisted by heat rarified and separated into minuter parts and so reduced into the form of Air and thereby being divided into Particles really smaller than those of the air in compassing and agitated with a greater degree of motion they take up more space and so become lighter than the Ambient and are thereby elevated and protruded upwards till they come to their place of poise or Equilibrium in the Air At other times by a differing constitution of the Air and deficiency of heat they lose their agitation and many of them again coalesce and so having less motion they condense and revert into water and so being heavier than the incompassing Air descend down again to the Earth in Mists Rain Snow Hail or the like That there is such a Circulation I think there is none doubts but still it remains a difficulty with those persons that grant this that all Rivers and Springs should have their original from the water that falls or condences out of the Air. To persuade such persons it may not possibly be unsuccessful to mention First That the great inundations or overflowing of Rivers manifestly proceed either from the Rain that immediately falls or from the melting of Snow or Ice that hath formerly fallen on the more eminent parts of Mountains to confirm which Histories enough might be brought were it necessary of Nilus Niger c. Secondly That it hath been observed and computed that communibus annis locis there falls water enough from the Sky in actual Rain Snow or Hail upon the Surface of England to supply all the water that runs back into the Sea by the Rivers and also all that may be supposed to evaporate nay though the quantity of the first be supposed twice as much as really it is This I have been assured by those that have both experimented and calculated it Thirdly That there is not yet certainly that I know or have heard of any other way of making salt water fresh but by Distillation which had there been such an Art it would in all probability have been made use of and so there is little probability that the Springs at the top of a high Hill should proceed from the Sea-water strained through the earth But were there such a filtration known I hinted in my Attempt published anno 1660 about Filtration how somewhat of that kind might be explained Fourthly That this Operation is constantly and most certainly performed by Nature both in exhaling and drawing up fresh steams and vapours from the Sea and all moyst bodies and in precipitating them down again in Rain Snow Hail but of the other we have no certainty Fifthly I have observed in several places where a Tree hath stood upon an high Hill singly and particularly at the brow of Box Hill near Darking in Surry that the body of the Tree is continually wet and at
other times they found the Ice above the water which makes many to suppose that it ebbs and flows by means of some secret entercourse that it may have with the Sea they averring that they have seen it emptying of it self But this Gentleman so soon as ever he came down fixt his eye upon a stone that lay just above the Superficies of the water and observed very diligently but could not in all the space that he staid there which was half an hour find it either increase or diminish which makes him believe that the fulness or emptiness of the water may rather proceed from those thick fogs and mists which are generally on the top and which hinder the Pike from being seen sometimes for twenty thirty nay forty days together except only just at the rising or setting of the Sun though at some other times it happens also that the Air is clearer and the Pike may be seen perhaps for a month together From these mists he conceives at some times much water may be collected at the upper parts of the Pike and soaking down may not only supply but increase the water in the Cave and consonant to this Hypothesis he observed whilst he was there that there was a continual gleeting and dropping of water in six or seven places from the sides of the Cave which droppings he supposes may be greater or less according as those fogs do more or less encompass it or stay about it a longer or shorter time He judges also that there may be some other more secret ways both for the conveying water into and out of the said Cave than those droppings but supposes them to proceed from the aforesaid fogs Hence he concludes when the Air is clear and none of those fogs condensed about the Hill the water in the Cave must necessarily decrease And that wich confirmed him the more in this opinion was that when he came to the very top of the Pike he found the earth under him so very moyst that it was like mud or morter and might be made into Paste as by experiment he found which he conjectures could no ways be caused by the wind or clear Air which is rather drying and consuming of moisture but must proceed from the fogs or mists which are above the very top of the Pike He further took notice in the Cave that upon the sides and top thereof there grew a snow-white furring like Saltpeter which had a kind of saltish taste some of which he gathered and brought back with him to England to have it examined After about half an hours stay in the Cave which they found warmer than without in the open Air they were all pulled up again and proceeded forward in their Journey by continuing to clamber up the stony way which lasted till they came to the foot of that part of the Mountain which is called the Sugar-loaf by reason that at a distance from the Island it appears of that shape as it doth also even when you are at it The distance of this place from the Cave they judged to be about half a mile but the way much more steep and ascending than the former part of the stony way and extreme troublesom to pass their feet sinking and slipping down again almost as much as they could stride upwards so that they concluded it the most painful of all however persisting in their endeavours after many times resting themselves they gained the top which they conceive might be about half a mile higher The very top they found not plain but very Rocky and uneven and in the middle thereof a deep hole the outside of this top this Gentleman conceived might be about a quarter of a mile round about on the outside This hole he conceived to be the mouth of a Vulcano which hath formerly been in that place for even at that time whilst they were there much smoak ascended out of several holes and chinks of the Rocks and the earth in divers parts was still so very hot as to be very offensive to their feet through their shooes and he observed Brimstone thrown up in several places of which he collected some and brought back with him to England From this place may be seen in a clear day all the six adjacent Islands but the weather being then somewhat thick and hazy they could discover none but the grand Canaries Palm and the Gomera which last though distant near eight Leagues from the bottom of the Pike seemed yet so near unto them as if it had been almost under them The rest of the Islands they could discover whereabout they lay by means of a kind of white cloud hanging on them but they could not discern the Islands through those clouds Here they tried their Cordial Waters which they carried in their Pockets but found them not to abate of their usual strength and become cold and insipid as fair water as several had positively averred to him that they had found it but he conceived them to be very much of the same nature and strength that they were of before they were carried up which he supposes to be by reason of their arriving at the top so late After they had stayed on the top about an hour and satisfied themselves in observing much things as they were able they descended again with very much facility and came to the Stancia about eleven of the clock where they dined and thence about one in the Afternoon set forwards for the Villa where they arrived that afternoon about five that Evening After their return they found their faces by reason of the heat of the Sun and the parching subtil wind to cast their skins He did not measure the Perpendicular height of the Hill himself but says that he hath been informed by divers skilful Seamen who by their best observation have taken the height of it that it is between three and four miles perpendicularly above the Sea IN this Relation it is very remarkable First that this prodigious high Hill is the Product of an Earthquake and seems heretofore to have been a Vulcano or burning Mountain like those of Aetna Vesuvius Hecla c. though at present it hath only fire enough left to send forth some few sulphureous fumes and to make the earth of the Caldera or hollow pit at the very top thereof in some places almost hot enough to burn their shooes that pass over it And possibly in succeeding Ages even this little fire may be quite extinct and then no other sign thereof may be left but a prodigiously high Rock or spiring Mountain which in tract of time may by degrees waste and be diminished into a Hill of a more moderate height Now as this Hill seems very evidently to be the effect of an Earthquake so I am apt to believe that most if not all other Hills of the world whatever may have been the same way generated Nay not only all the Hills but also the Land which appears above
stones by an Engine for gauging of Glass Tools or grinding glasses by an Automaton in all which cases there is need of a constant and equal supply of water and sand as also for washing and Fulling of Cloth it may also serve for various sorts of Clepsydras or measuring the quantity of time by the quantity of the current of water as I shall by and by shew And thirdly for maintaining any slow and constant motion as that of a Jack or Clock an Engine for continually stirring of a liquid body or shaking tumbling and turning of dry Solids and powders of which sort there are a great number of uses in Chymistry for the operations of Digestion Calcination Pounding Grinding Trituration Searcing and the like which operations being certainly evenly and constantly performed by an Engine supplied by such a stream of water will far exceed the same kind of work done by the hands of men especially in such operations where the Labour and Diligence is to last divers days and nights together without any intermission which are Requisites not at all strange to Chymistry and which will weary the diligence of the best Laborant and his Attendants A third effect performable by these Poises is the making a perpetual and constant stream in imitation of that of a natural Spring or Fountain in the Earth This may be done if the Cistern be once in twenty four hours recruted and supplied with a new access of water from some Pipes which is usual enough here in London and elsewhere where there are Waterworks and Conveyances of water For as the wasting of the water in the Cistern does no ways abate or diminish the stream of the water from the Cistern so the new access of other water for a supply to refill the Cistern does not at all accelerate it but the stream remains equal And hence consequently constant and as it were perpetual A fourth effect is the delivering any quantity of water to any degree of swiftness and the whole quantity of the water by the same degree This is performed by tapping the Cistern at any part of the depth thereof for according as the Vessel is tapp'd lower under the Surface so will the motion of the water be swifter and here the depths must be in a duplicate proportion to the Velocity desired As for instance the Cistern being tapped with a hole of a quarter of an Inch bore at the depth of an Inch below the Surface is found to deliver a certain quantity of water in a minute if it be desired that through a Tap of the same bore there should be delivered twice that quantity the Cistern must be tapp'd at four Inches deep and if thrice that quantity in the same time it must be tapp'd at nine Inches deep and so forwards as is already demonstrated by Mersennus and other Authors For since the pressure of Fluids upon the parts thereof increase in the same proportion with the depth below the Surface And since the forces requisite to accelerate motions must always be in duplicate proportion to the Accelerations it follows that the perpendicular depths of the Tap under the Superficies of the water must be always in duplicate proportion to the Velocities required The plainness and certainty of this truth in Hydrostaticks long since so fully and excellently demonstrated by Stivinus of all Fluids and so highly improved of late in the particular applications thereof by many more modern Authors who have writ most learnedly and clearly thereof as well as experimentally and practically makes me much admire at the learned Doctor More who in his Enchiridion Metaphysicum in the 11 12 and 13 Chapters and in a Book newly published called Remarks upon two late ingenious discourses c. does not only deny this Gravitation in the parts of Air but of Water quicksilver and other Liquors And instead thereof to solve the Phenomena would introduce into the World a Principle which he terms an Hylarchick Spirit which at command acts and performs whatsoever is necessary to solve all the Phenomena of Mechanical Hydrostatical and in a word all Physical motions and effects In answer to whose Doctrine about Hydrostaticks I shall only urge this one Experiment of the Velocity of the current of Fluids tapp'd and running at several depths under the Superficies of that Fluid which can no ways be solved by the Hylarchick Spirit and we must be fain to come to the Mechanical and plain Rules of motion and to allow every particular of that Fluid to press with its own gravity where ever placed And this I will prove from his own words in his Enchiridion Metaphysicum pag. 113. where explaining very ingeniously the Hypothesis of Gravitation of the parts of Fluids one upon another by the similitude of six men standing in a Line and pressing against a Wall which men he marks with A B C D E F and the Wall with G He says that A the first man cannot press F the last against the Wall G but by pressing B against C and C against D and D against E and E against F nor can A press B against C nor C press D against E nor E press F against the Wall G but at the same time it must be understood that B presses D towards F and D presses F towards the Wall G for A C and E says he are here put for Des Cartes Materia Coelestis pressing the parts of the water within the pores and B D and F for those parts of the water pressing the bottom of the Vessel But says he that B presses D and D presses F appears from this that casting out E and F D doth run to the Wall G and casting out C D E and F B also will run to the said Wall And so says he the state of the matter would be if Gravity did proceed from the meer Mechanical motion imparted to the Terrestrial parts of the Fluid by the Materia Coelestis of Des Cartes to wit the Elements would actually gravitate in their proper places But since there is no such thing it is a sure sign that Gravity doth arise from a higher cause which higher cause he elsewhere supposes to be an Hylarchick Spirit This from so plain reasoning is a strange Conclusion and contrary to all experience Now though I confess I suppose Gravity to be otherwise performed than as Des Cartes has supposed yet do I believe his Suppositions so Rational and Ingenious and so much above the Objections brought against them and so much better than any other I have yet met with as no wise to deserve to be esteemed foeda deliria as the learned Doctor is pleased to term them pag. 125. It shall not be my business to defend Des Cartes Principles at the present nor to set up any new Hypothesis instead thereof but only to urge this Experiment of the running of a Liquor swifter and swifter according as the hole through which it runs is deeper and deeper placed
Pulse it is propagated to 4 below c before the other side of the Pulse touches the Superficies at d the Pulse therefore 44 55 66 c. becomes Oblique to the tendency of the Radiation and by the Superficies ef it is reflected by 77 77 77 till it touches the second refracting Superficies g h where it is observable that the same side of the Ray that entred first the Superficies c d enters first into the Superficies g h in the same manner as if it had proceeded on by the straight Lines f m e l till it met with a Parallel Superficies l m to the first c d for the Ray between the two Parallel Lines f h e g hath the same inclination and respect to the Refracting Superficies h g that the Ray between f m and e l would have to the Superficies m l supposing there were no Reflecting Superficies at e f. I shall not need I hope more particularly to demonstrate every part of this Explanation the very observing the Delineation of the Scheme being enough to make it plain to any one never so little versed in Geometry from which he will plainly perceive that what I endeavour to demonstrate was really so and that I did understand what scope my Demonstration aimed at so far as to hit the Mark which was to shew that Colours were generated where according to Des Cartes own Principles there could be no Rotation of the Globuli Now though the Learned Doctor would not admit of this Demonstration to be sufficient to do the work yet he says Pag. 252. Veruntamen dissimulandum non est non pauca me meapte opera excogitasse quibus pro persuasissimo habeo eorum motus rotationes modis pure mechanicis semper fieri non posse And in prosecution of the destruction of this Rotation of the Globuli which he hath hitherto seemed to defend he adds four several Arguments I shall not now stay to repeat them But whosoever will please to read what the Learned Doctor hath suapte opera excogitated against the Cartesian Hypothesis and set down in the 252 253 254 and 255. pages And compare them with what I have said in the forementioned place to wit at the latter end of the 60. and the beginning of the 61. pages of my Micrographia may plainly find the Arguments brought by the Doctor do very little if at all differ from those I there published I could heartily therefore have wished that the Learned Doctor had made use of some other Mediums to prove the Existence of an Hylarchick Spirit and not have medled with Arguments drawn either from Mechanicks or Opticks for I doubt that such as understand those subjects well will plainly see that there is no need of any such Hylarchick Spirit and if there be no need of it but that all the Phenomena may be done without it then it is probable that there is none there for Natura nihil agit frustra It had been much easier to have proved the existence of it by Arguments drawn from subjects we less perfectly understand as from the generation nutrition vegetation and propagating of Vegetables and animal substances for there the manner of the progress of Nature being infinitely more curious and abstruse and further removed beyond the reach of our senses and understandings one may more boldly assert strange things of this Hylarchick Spirit without fear of controul or contradiction and from whence possibly it may never lie within the power of Reasoning to banish him But to leave this Digression and return to the use of these water-poises A fifth effect may be for washing and refining of Earth Clays Powders and the like the clear water by these contrivances being made to run over gently at the top and so leaving all the settlement from the water at the bottom By any one of these with a receptacle Cistern added to it the stream of water from that Cistern may be accelerated or retarded by any degrees desirable This doth depend partly from the proportion of the Tap of the Receptacle Cistern to the Tap of the counterpoised Cistern and partly from the shape and make of the Receptacle Cistern by the proportion and shape of which the stream of Liquor through the Tap of the Receptacle Cistern may be modulated at pleasure as any one a little versed in Hydrostaticks will easily perceive and demonstrate A sixth effect may be for governing the heat of Lamps for Distillations Digestions Fermentations Putrefactions Dissolutions hatching the Eggs of Birds or Insects accelerating and seasoning or timing the growth of Plants nealing of Glasses and Metals by the gradual access of the heat so as to make them fit for stronger degrees or by the gradual recess to bring them out of the greater degrees to make them tough and capable to receive the cold of the Air. It would be too long to give instances of contrivances for every of these operations but the skilful Mechanist Philosopher or Chymist will easily supply his own desires by some one of these I have instanced in or at least by a composition of them I shall therefore only add a description of a Clepsydra or time-keeper or two and so leave this subject for the present A description of a new sort of Clepsydra THis contrivance is nothing else than that Two of the second sort of Vessels are so contrived as to run into each other and to empty themselves and be filled alternately and their bigness or capacity and the hole through which the Liquor is vented are so proportioned as to be emptying the space of an hour which is easie enough and may be adjusted to what accurateness is desired Then the convex Superficies of the Cylindrical poise is divided into sixty equal parts by straight Lines drawn upon its Surface Parallel to the Axis and to each other these lines by the sinking or turning of the said poise denote the minutes and if smaller Divisions of time be desired the spaces between them may be divided by other smaller Parallel Lines denoting the parts of each minute to what niceness is desired One of these Cylindrical Receptacles may be fixt and the other by an easie apparatus may be made to rise a little when it is top-full and fall a little when quite empty below the Level of the other that is fixt The Chanel between them through which the water is to run out of the one into the other may be a small pipe with a hole in it of a bigness proportioned as I said above to let the Liquor run out of one into the other in the time desired and its ends may be fastned to the two Receptacles by a part of the neck of a bladder or gut so that it may be limber and may always have a Declivity into the Vessel that is to be filled the Declivity need not be above half an Inch. The Liquor used in it may be Water Oyl or any other Liquor that doth not easily evaporate But
Revolution of the body of ♃ upon its Axis I first discovered in May 1664. and published in the first Transaction which was a considerable time before it was discovered by Monsieur Cassini but we are obliged to him for the perfecting the Theory as we are also for many other rare Discoveries and excellent improvements in Astronomy to be 9 hours and 56 minutes is as it were a watch for visibly pointing the hours and minutes to half the Earth at once so that it shews the same time to all under the same Meridian and a different time to different Meridians according as they differ in Longitude It hath for an Index of its motion one principal spot which is very neatly distinguished from the rest of its surface and seems from its figure and situation to have some resemblance to the Caspian Sea of the Terraqueous Globe By the help of good Glasses it may be seen passing the under Hemisphere of it from the East to the West with a velocity so sensible that one may determine to one or two minutes the time that it comes to the middle of the Disc which is the place the most fit for establishing of the Epochas and for finding the difference of Longitude There may be a great number of such Revolutions observed since in one year of 365 days there are made 882 Revolutions But it doth not appear in every year but as if it were some kind of Marish which is dried at certain times and so disappears during two or 3000 Revolutions and after it hath remained thus imperceptible for some years it returns again to its former state After it had been observed the last six months of the year 1665. and some months of 1666. it became invisible till the beginning of the year 1672. then being returned to its former appearance Monsieur Cassini compared the intervals of the six years and limited the revolution to be made in 9 hours 55 minutes 51 seconds and continuing his Observations to the end of the year 1674. he found by these two years that it was too slow by two seconds and a half so that it appeared to be in 9 hours 55 minutes 53 ½ seconds This spot hath been invisible in 1675. and 1676. during which space there happened other very considerable changes in the body of Jupiter for the clear interstice which was between the two dark belts of Jupiter was separated into many little parts in the manner like so many Islands as if the two obscure belts had been two great Rivers broken one into the other and had left these parts which appeared like Islands which yet were at last all effaced and the two dark belts and the interjacent space at length all coalesced into one large belt But after the coming of Jupiter out of the Rays of the Sun in the year 1677. the belts again took their form and situation which they had heretofore to wit the same which is described in the 24 figure The principal spot appeared anew after the beginning of July last Monsieur Cassini found this spot in the middle of Jupiter the night after the eighth of the said month at 13 minutes after one at night and hath hitherto ever since observed it at the hours proper to its revolution Having compared many Observations of this year with as many others made the same days of the year 1665. for avoiding the scruples which may arise from the inequality of times he hath found by the intervals of twelve years that those revolutions compared the one with the other complete themselves in 9 hours 55 minutes 52 seconds and 5 or 6 thirds And because that in the years 1672 1673. they appeared more slow by 2 seconds and a half during the time that Jupiter was in its greatest elevation from the Sun Monsieur Cassini inclines to suppose that these revolutions have some little inequality depending on the variation of the distance of ♃ from the ☉ and that they are a little slower when ♃ is more â—emoved and somewhat faster when nearer approached that body the same which several great Astronomers have supposed to happen to the Diurnal Revolutions of the Earth in the Copernican Hypothesis In this account he hath separated the inequality which doth result from the variation of the two equations of Jupiter as he hath explained in divers Letters in 1665. the which may amount to one half hour besides the inequality of natural days which according to his Hypothesis may amount to 16 minutes For the finding then of the return of the principal spot to the middle of ♃ for many years to half an hour or thereabout there needs nothing but adding still the time of the period to the Epoche of the 8. of July 1677. and for the finding precisely even to some minutes the two inequalities of Jupiter must be observed according to the following Rule Differentiam inter medium locum Jovis apparentem converte in tempus dando singulis gradibus min. 1 â…” hoc tempus adde tempori restitutionis maculae supputato si locus apparens Jovis excesserit medium subtrahe vero si defecerit à medio We have then the mean time of the return of the spot and to get the apparent time the equation of days according to the method of Monsieur Cassini of which a Table is inserted in the Ephemerides of Monsieur Flaminio de Mezzavachi must be made use of MICROSCOPIVM OR Some new Discoveries made with and concerning Microscopes A Letter of the Ingenious and Inquisitive Mr. Leeuwenhoeck of Delft sent to the Secretary of the Royal Society October 5. 1677. IN this Letter after the Relation of many curious Observations made with his Microscope he adds By some of my former Letters I have related what an innumerable company of little Animalcules I have discovered in waters of the truth of which affirmations that I might satisfie the Illustrious Philosophers of your Society I have here sent the Testimonials of eight credible persons some of which affirm they have seen 10000 others 30000 others 45000 little living Creatures in a quantity of water as big as a grain of Millet 92 of which go to the making up the bigness of a green Pea or the quantity of a natural drop of water in the desiring of which Testimonials I made it my request that they would only justifie that they might be within compass half the number that they believed each of them saw in the water and even so the number of those little creatures that would thereby be proved to be in one drop of water would be so great that it would exceed belief Now whereas by my Letter of the 9th of October 1676. I affirmed that there were more than 1000000 living Creatures contained in one drop of Pepper-water I should not have varied from the truth of it if I had asserted that there were 8000000 for if according to some of the included testimonials there might be found in a quantity of water as big as
a millet seed no less than 45000 animalcules It would follow that in an ordinary drop of this water there would be no less than 4140000 living creatures which number if doubled will make 8280000 living Creatures seen in the quantity of one drop of water which quantity I can with truth affirm I have discerned This exceeds belief But I do affirm that if a larger grain of sand were broken into 8000000 of equal parts one of these would not exceed the bigness of one of those little creatures which being understood it will not seem so incredible to believe that there may be so great a number in the quantity of one drop of water Upon the perusal of this Letter being extremely desirous to examine this matter farther and to be ascertained by ocular inspection as well as from testimonials I put in order such remainders as I had of my former Microscopes having by reason of a weakness in my sight omitted the use of them for many years and steeped some black pepper in River water but examining that water about two or three days after I could not by any means discover any of those little creatures mentioned in the aforesaid Letter though I had made use of small glass canes drawn hollow for that purpose and of a Microscope that I was certain would discover things much smaller than such as the aforesaid Mr. Leeuwenhoeck had affirmed these creatures to be but whether it were that the light was not convenient the reason of which I shall shew by and by having looked only against the clear sky or that they were not yet generated which I rather suppose I could not discover any I concluded therefore either that my Microscope was not so good as that he made use of or that the time of the year which was in November was not so fit for such generations or else that there might be somewhat ascribed to the difference of places as that Holland might be more proper for the production of such little creatures than England I omitted therefore farther to look after them for about five or six days when finding it a warm day I examined again the said water and then much to wonder I discovered vast multitudes of those exceeding small creatures which Mr. Leeuwenhoeck had described and upon making use of other lights and glasses as I shall by and by shew I not only magnified those I had thus discovered to a very great bigness but I discovered many other sorts very much smaller than those I first saw and some of these so exceeding small that millions of millions might be contained in one drop of water I was very much surprized at this so wonderful a spectacle having never seen any living creature comparable to these for smallness nor could I indeed imagine that nature had afforded instances of so exceedingly minute animal productions But nature is not to be limited by our narrow apprehensions future improvements of glasses may yet further enlighten our understanding and ocular inspection may demonstrate that which as yet we may think too extravagant either to feign or suppose Of this A later Discovery of Mr. Leeuwenhoeck does seem to give good probabilities for by a Letter of his since sent the which is hereunto annexed it appears he hath discovered a certain sort of Eels in Pepper-water which are not in breadth above one thousandth part of the breadth of a hair and not above a hundredth part of the length of a vinegar Eel Mr. Leeuwenhoecks Second Letter SIR Yours of the thirtieth of November I received not till January whereby understanding the kind reception of my former by the R. S. I here return my acknowledgment to that illustrious Company for their great civility but I wonder that in your Letter I find no mention made of my Observations of the second of December St. No. which makes me doubt whether the same came to your hands Since you assure me that what I send of this nature will be acceptable to the renowned Society I have adventured again to send you some of my farther Enquiries to be communicated to that learned Philosophical Company Since I wrote of the Blood of Eels and of young Eels I have not been idle to view Blood but especially my own which for some time I have indefatigably examined after that I had put it into all conceivable motions Among which Observations I well saw that the globuli of my own blood took the same figure which I formerly mentioned that the Globules of the blood of Eels appeared of to the eye upon seeing which I doubted again at the cause of the smart which the blood of the Eels causes in the eye These my many times repeated Observations of my own blood I made to no other end than if it were possible to observe the parts out of which the Globules of the blood consisted With observing this I found the globulous blood much more pliable than I did imagine the same before I have at several times bended these Globules before my eyes that they were three times as long as broad without breaking the Vesicule of them and besides I saw that the Globules of blood in passing by and through one another did by reason of their pliableness receive many sorts of figures and coming thence into a larger place they recovered their former globulosity which was a very great pleasure to observe and withal that the Globules of blood coming many together and growing cold thereby came to unite and made a matter very smooth wherein there were no more parts distinct to be taken notice of much after the same manner as if we supposed a Dish filled with balls of wax set over a fire by which they would quickly be melted together and united into one mass by which uniting of the Globules I concluded this to be the reason of the accident which is called the cold fire and of that also which causes the hands or fingers to be lost by cold but I leave this to others And I did very clearly also discover that there were six other smaller Globules of blood contained within each of the former and larger Globulous Vesicles and withal I took much pains to observe the number of the same very small globules out of which the greater Globules do consist that at last I strongly imagined that every of the greater Globules consisted of six smaller Globules no less pliable than the aforesaid for oftentimes I saw very clearly how the small Globules joyned and adapted themselves according to the figure the Vesicle or larger Globule stretched at length had taken being themselves stretched after the same manner and thus made one of the larger Globules stretcht out to appear by the lesser within it stretched also with it as if it consisted of long threads Moreover I put the greater Globules into so violent a motion that their Vesicles burst in pieces and then the lesser Globules appeared plainly to be scattered This first Globule I
can see as plainly and great as with the naked eye one should look upon the eggs or spawn of a Cod-fish About nine or ten years since Dr. Graff opened in my presence the vein of a Dog and let out so much blood that the Dog grew faint then he opened the Artery of another Dog and by a pipe transfused the blood of this second into the first whereby the first was recovered the second was faint Then the said Doctor injected back into the Artery of the second a quantity of Cows milk supposing thereby to preserve the second dog alive saying milk was blood but no sooner was the milk put into the artery but the dog died And whereas 't is commonly said that milk is Blood therefore I shall relate of what parts the Milk consists so far as I have hitherto discovered I have said heretofore that the Milk doth consist of Globules swimming in a thin clear watery matter which we call Whey but as the great Globuli of Blood are all of the samebigness so in the Milk they are quite differing being of as many sizes and magnitudes as we can imagine between the smallest sand and a barley corn all of them being as clear as Crystal save only that through and between the same drive some irregular particles for the most part rounded these had a fatty substance which I imagined to be the latter their irregularity I imagined came from the impression of the encompassing Globules made on them in which posture they grew cold Viewing the aforesaid differences of the Milk Globules I supposed that the Milk vessels have no other parts included but the matter out of which they are all made and that the same matter so long as included in the vessels consisted of one uniform matter so that one could not distinguish parts and that the same vessels discharging this uniform matter into other vessels containing a substance of a quite differing nature which I suppose to be the Whey comes to be separated into these Globules of so differing magnitudes This may be represented by having two vessels filled the one with Fat representing Whey the other with Quicksilver resembling the uniform matter of the Milk these blended together the Quick-silver will be separated into small Globules of differing magnitudes and kept distinct by the fat Or further it may be explained by a dissolution of some gums in Spirit of Wine a drop of which being put into rain water which I compare to Whey the Gum becomes separated immediately into an incredible number of small clear Globules which makes it appear also as white as Milk it self and thence I suppose that the whiteness of Milk hath the same cause I have been often minded by some that flesh was nothing else but clodded blood yet for all my endeavours I was neverable to find the first particles of blood in the fibers of the flesh but only such as are contained in the first Globules The last Summer being sickly for some weeks I voided much Flegm which was green tough and acid in the throat which yet continues but nothing near so much as before and some of it which I voided in the morning was of so heavy a matter that it sunk in the water the ponderosity of it I found to proceed from its not being filled with airy bubbles which most Flegms are mixed with By this means I observed my Flegm very often and found it to consist of tough slimy moisture mixt with many Globules and the tougher the Flegm was the greater was the quantity of Globules and from them also proceeded the green colour of it All these Globules were of one and the same bigness with the first Globules of the blood and indeed the blood is of the same make but only of a different colour for as I observed the greater blood Globules to consist of six lesser so here I could see them more plain only they seemed more slender and tender than in the blood the reason whereof I suppose to be that the vesicules of the Flegm Globules had already received some kind of corruption besides there was mixt with the tough part of the Flegm great quantity of very thin cuticles and in the same manner as I have heretofore explained how our cuticle is supplied underneath as the upper part is rubbed off in scurf so I suppose the inner cuticles of the gullet aspera arteria and other vessels are taken off by the Flegm There drove also through the Flegm some other particles which from their smallness I could not assign them a figure but I conceived them rather cubical than round I did last Summer shut up some Caterpillers to spin Webs and within these few days I broke some of these Webs when from each of them came out a flie which from the cold were very weak and were unable to stand by which I conceive that those which came not out in the latter part of the year remain the whole Winter in their Webs till the warmth makes them come out I was pleased to understand that your self and the Society had seen in so small a quantiy of water as a sand so great a number of Creatures as also that I shall be partaker of what you shall observe which I shall with longing desire expect I cannot but mention that that small sort of Creature which I heretofore could give no description of I now see their figure And for the pleasure I take in the various pleasing shapes with their motions which do now and then appear in the water I have the fourth of this month when it froze hard taken a third part of beaten pepper and â…” of high rain water in a clean glass which I set the first night in my Bed-chamber the next day the weather being milder I set it in my Counting-house and in three times 24 hours discovered so great a number and so unexpressible small Creatures that 't is hard to be conceived and according to my judgment the most of them were much less than a thousandth part of the thickness of the hair of ones head and three or four times as long as thick the which made with the hinder part of their body oft-times so swift a progress as when we observe a Pike shooting through the water and every shoot was in length most times about half a hairs breadth the other sorts or kind of which were yet smaller whose shape for brevity I omit only I shall say that oft-times in pepper-pepper-water which hath stood somewhat long among the very small Creatures I have seen a sort of small Eels which had their shapes and motions as perfect as great ones these were to my appearance a thousand times thinner than the hair of ones head and that if 100 of these small Eels were laid in length one behind another the whole length would not extend to the length of the Eel in vinegar Whether you have also observed these small Creatures with your Microscope I shall
rather than instruct him especially of such substances as are not perfectly fluid and will not readily and naturally smooth their own superficies such as Tallow concreted Oyls Marrow Brains Fat inspissated juyces c. for if those substances be so examined by spreading them upon this plate and be looked upon against the candle or other small defined light all the inequalities left on the surface by the spreading do by the refractions of the rays of light render such odd appearances that they will easily deceive the examinator and make him to conceive that to be in the texture of the part which is really no where but in the make of the superficies of it This therefore as another great inconvenience to be met with in Microscopical Observations I prevent by these ensuing methods First all such bodies as Fat Oyl Brains Rhobs Pus tough concreted Flegm and the like whose surfaces are irregular and ought to be reduced to smoothness before they can be well examined I order in this manner First I provide a very clear and thin piece of looking-glass plate very smooth and plain on both sides and clean from foulness upon the surface of this I lay some of those substances I last mentioned then with such another piece of Looking-glass plate laid upon the said substance I press it so thin as not only to make the surfaces of it very smooth but also to make the substance of it very thin because otherwise if the substance be pretty thick as suppose as thick as a piece of Venice paper if it be a whitish substance the multitudes of parts lying one upon another in such a thickness do so confound the sight that none of them all can be distinctly seen but if by squeezing the said plates hard and close together it be reduced to a twentieth part perhaps of that thickness the substance may be well looked through and the constituent parts may be very plainly discovered Thus also 't is very visible in the Globules of milk and blood discovered by the ingenious Mr. Leeuwenhoeck for when either of those substances are thick the multitude of those little Globules confound and thicken the liquor so as one cannot perceive any thing until it be run very thin for then all the remaining Globules with their motions may very distinctly be apprehended This therefore is an expedient by which thousands of substances may be examined and therefore the more fit to be communicated that there may be the greater number of observers well accommodated for such trials These plates therefore may be contrived so as to be pinched together by the help of screws and a frame that thereby they may be forced the closer and the evener together as there shall be occasion and may be kept firm and steady in that posture and then that it may some ways or other be conveniently fastned to the former plate so as to be moved this way or that way steadily as there shall be occasion But there are other substances which none of these ways I have yet mentioned will examine and those are such parts of animal or vegetable bodies as have a peculiar form figure or shape out of which if it be put the principal thing looked after is destroyed such are the Nerves Muscles Tendons Ligaments Membranes Glandules Parenchymas c. of the body of Animals and the Pulps Piths Woods Barks Leaves Flowers c. of Vegetables Some of these which are not made by dissection or separation from other parts may be viewed alone but there are others which cannot be well examined unless they be made to swim in a liquor proper and convenient for them as for instance the parts of flesh muscles and tendons for if you view the fibres of a muscle encompassed only with the air you cannot discover the small parts out of which it is made but if the same be put into a liquor as water or very clear oyl you may clearly see such a fabrick as is truly very admirable and such as none hitherto hath discovered that ever I could meet with of which more hereafter when I shew the true mechanical fabrick thereof and what causes its motion Thus if you view a thred of a Ligament you shall plainly see it to be made up of an infinite company of exceeding small threads smooth and round lying close together each of which threads is not above a four hundredth part of the bigness of a hair for comparing those of Beef with a hair of my head which was very fine and small viz. about a 640. part of an inch I found the Diameter thereof to be more than twenty times the Diameter of these threads so that no less than 163 millions besides 840 thousands of these must be in a ligament one inch square I shall not here enlarge upon the admirable contrivance of Nature in this particular nor say any thing farther of the reason of the greater strength of the same substance drawn into smaller than into greater threads but only this in general that the mechanical operations of these minute bodies are quite differing from those of bodies of greater bulk and the want of considering this one thing hath been the cause of very great absurdities in the Hypotheses of some of our more eminent modern Philosophers For he that imagines the actions of these lesser bodies the same with those of the larger and tractable bodies will indeed make but Aristotles wooden hand at best This put me in mind likewise of advertising the Experimenter that he provide himself with instruments by which to stretch and pull in pieces any substance whilst the same is yet in view of the Microscope of which there may be many which any one will easily contrive when he hath this hint given him of the usefulness thereof in the examination of the texture of several substances as of Tendons Nerves Muscles c. those I have made use of were made to open like a pair of Tobacco Tongues by two angular plates of thin brass rivetted together which by pinching the opposite end would either open or shut at the other as I had occasion These having a part extended between the two tops were fixt at a due distance from the object-glass that the body extended between them might be distinctly seen then with my finger squeezing together the opposite ends the other ends opened by which means how the parts stretched and shrunk might be plainly discovered Now as this is of use for some kind of substances so the two glass plates are for others and particularly for squeezing of several substances between them so as to break them in pieces as those little Creatures in pepper-water or the Globules in blood milk flegm c. whereby the parts within them may yet farther be enquired into as Mr. Leeuwenhoeck I find hath done by his latest Observations Whether he makes use of this way or some other I know not Having thus given a description of the appurtenances
for certain uses pag. of Dioptrique Oculaire and in the Fourth Chapter of the Fourth Part of this Book But to digress no farther from what I was describing I must add that with both these kinds of Microscopes have I examined several substances as particularly the steepings of several grains and seeds in rain-rain-water And though I have not yet found any one tincture more prolific than this of Pepper yet 't is not the only tincture in which they do both breed and increase I have seen several sorts in the steeping of Wheat Barly Oats Coffee Anniseeds Pease c. some not above a third part of a hair in thickness others not above the twentieth part of the breadth of a hair and some not more than a thirtieth part of that breadth so that no less than 900 of these least must go to make an area as big as that of an hair cut transversly and 27000 to make a Cylinder as big as the hair of ones head and of equal height with the Diameter of that hair which one may just call a visible point and no more few eyes seeing things distinctly much smaller Now the Diameter of a hair of my head being by examination found but the 640 part of an inch it follows that no less than 19200 or to use a round summ about 20000 of them may lie in the length of an inch and consequently that a circle an inch Diameter will be to the area of one of these cut transversly as 400000000 to 1. four hundred millions to 1 and a Cylinder one inch Diameter and one inch high will be to one of these mites as 8000000000000 to one eight millions of millions to one If therefore we compare the magnitude of one of these animals to the magnitude of other creatures living in the water we shall find that these will be found much smaller in comparison to the body of an ordinary Whale than the body of the same Whale will be to the body of the whole Earth which may prove an argument for an anima mundi perhaps to some But let every one make his own inferences and believe his own eyes for they will make the best impression on his reason and belief Now if the Creature be so exceeding small what must we think of the Muscles Joynts Bones Shells c. certain it is that the Mechanism by which Nature performs the muscular motion is exceedingly small and curious and to the performance of every muscular motion in greater Animals at least there are not fewer distinct parts concerned than many millions of millions and these visible as I shall hereafter shew through a Microscope and those that conceive in the body of a muscle little more curiosity of mechanism than in a rope of the same bigness have a very rude and false notion of it and no wonder if they have recourse to Spirits to make out the Phaenomena but of this hereafter more Further I have examined the constitution of Blood Milk Flegm c. and found them much the same with what Mr. Leeuwenhoek has declared A little fat laid upon the glass plate whilst warm melts and becomes transparent but observed in a convenient posture against the light of a candle c. till it congeals and shrinks make a pleasant fluid and shews how considerably a fluid and solid body do vary and may give us a good hint to conjecture at the reason of the swelling and greater lightness of Ice than of Water The first beginnings also of the shooting or crystallising of Sugar into rectangular parallelipipeds Alum Salt Vitriol c. are strangely surprizing and instructive I could enumerate multitudes of these But that I may not detain the Reader toolong in the perusal of these anatomical descriptions of the minute and invisible parts of animal substances to ease both his eyes and imagination I shall proceed to acquaint him with some Anatomical Observations more sensible and which do seem more nearly to concern us And those are contained in the ensuing Discourse being A Relation communicated to me in a Letter by that ingenious and experienced Chirurgion Mr. James Young of Plimouth in the beginning of January last of the fatal Symptoms caused by a Bullet swallowed into the Lungs SIR In the beginning of April 1674. one Mr. Anthony Williamson of Liscard in Cornwal aged about 65 years of a brisk firm habit became after a too liberal drinking of Cyder afflicted with the Colick of which in four days he cured himself by swallowing two Musket Bullets and receiving some Carminative Clysters On the 12. of the same month his pain returning somewhat smarter than before he attempted to swallow three Pistol Shot and supposing it the easiest way he lay on his back and threw them all at once into his throat where they choaking had almost strangled him constraining him to vomit c. When they were past down he became seized immediately with a violent Cough Wheasing pain in the left side of his Breast a great noise in respiration more especially after a fit of Coughing for then his Breast would hiss like the sucking of a Pump when the Air descends through the boxes These accidents so suddenly occurring without any manifest cause did much surprize him and the more because he was naturally of a sound breast the Colick was cured by Clysters Potions of Manna ol amyg.d c. and two of the Shot were soon ejected ex ano and maugre the other accidents he became indifferently well and able to walk about house Five or six weeks after this those symptoms became more fierce depaupering his spirits prostrating his appetite disquieting his sleep with dreams a Dyspnoea and rutling violent Cough a straitness and load in his Breast kept him in bed extenuated his body which without help of Milk Clysters was costive he frequently fainted with sweats and a tickling sleepiness in both legs Under the tyranny of this legion of symptoms our Western Apollo Dr. Bidgood of Exeter was consulted who affirmed them all to be caused by the remaining Bullet which passing through the Larynx was fallen into one of the branches of the Trachea where it would abide in despight of any endeavours to eject it yet to alleviate the violence of the accidents he directed to the use of emollient Eclegma's temperate Cordials c. by help of which and some other propitious circumstances he not only recovered his legs becoming able to walk and ride a small Journey but also consummated Marriage with a young woman of 25 who afterward brought him two Children whereof one is now alive and very lusty and was seven months gone with a third when he died the more wonderful if the woman were just to him of which there appeareth no reason to doubt because a very little motion would so increase his difficulty of breathing as to make him faint After Matrimony he had divers lucid Intervals at times would be very brisk and at others very languid and faint like a
minute of time their motion being of such a Velocity impressed from the Ambient on the two extreme Particles 1 and 8. First if by any external power on the two extremes 1 and 8 they be removed further asunder as to CD then shall all the Vibrative Particles be proportionably extended and the number of Vibrations and consequently of occursions be reciprocally diminished and consequently their endeavour of receding from each other be reciprocally diminished also For supposing this second Dimension of Length be to the first as 3 to 2 the length of the Vibrations and consequently of occursions be reciprocally diminished For whereas I supposed 1000000 in a second of the former here can be but 666666 in this and consequently the Spring inward must be in proportion to the Extension beyond its natural length Secondly if by any external force the extreme particles be removed a third part nearer together than the external natural force being alway the same both in this and the former instance which is the ballance to it in its natural state the length of the Vibrations shall be proportionably diminished and the number of them and consequently of the occursions be reciprocally augmented and instead of 1000000 there shall be 1500000. In the next place for fluid bodies amongst which the greatest instance we have is air though the same be in some proportion in all other fluid bodies The Air then is a body consisting of particles so small as to be almost equal to the particles of the Heterogeneous fluid medium incompassing the earth It is bounded but on one side namely towards the earth and is indefinitely extended upward being only hindred from flying away that way by its own gravity the cause of which I shall some other time explain It consists of the same particles single and separated of which water and other fluids do conjoyned and compounded and being made of particles exceeding small its motion to make its ballance with the rest of the earthy bodies is exceeding swift and its Vibrative Spaces exceeding large comparative to the Vibrative Spaces of other terrestrial bodies I suppose that of the Air next the Earth in its natural state may be 8000 times greater than that of Steel and above a thousand times greater than that of common water and proportionably I suppose that its motion must be eight thousand times swifter than the former and above a thousand times swifter than the later If therefore a quantity of this body be inclosed by a solid body and that be so contrived as to compress it into less room the motion thereof supposing the heat the same will continue the same and consequently the Vibrations and Occursions will be increased in reciprocal proportion that is if it be Condensed into half the space the Vibrations and Occursions will be double in number If into a quarter the Vibrations and Occursions will be quadruple c. Again If the conteining Vessel be so contrived as to leave it more space the length of the Vibrations will be proportionably inlarged and the number of Vibrations and Occursions will be reciprocally diminished that is if it be suffered to extend to twice its former dimensions its Vibrations will be twice as long and the number of its Vibrations and Occursions will be fewer by half and consequently its indeavours outward will be also weaker by half These Explanations will serve mutatis mutandis for explaining the Spring of any other Body whatsoever It now remains that I shew how the constitutions of springy bodies being such the Vibrations of a Spring or a Body moved by a Spring equally and uniformly shall be of equal duration whether they be greater or less I have here already shewed then that the power of all Springs is proportionate to the degree of flexure viz. one degree of flexure or one space bended hath one power two hath two and three hath three and so forward And every point of the space of flexure hath a peculiar power and consequently there being infinite points of the space there must be infinite degrees of power And consequently all those powers beginning from nought and ending at the last degree of tension or bending added together into one sum or aggregate will be in duplicate proportion to the space bended or degree of flexure that is the aggregate of the powers of the Spring tended from its quiescent posture by all the intermediate points to one space be it what length you please is equal or in the same proportion to the square of one supposing the said space infinitely divisible into the fractions of one to two is equal or in the same proportion to the square of two that is four to three is equal or in the same proportion to the square of three that is nine and so forward and consequently the aggregate of the first space will be one of the second space will be three of the third space will be five of the fourth will be seven and so onwards in an Arithmetical proportion being the degrees or excesses by which these aggregates exceed one another The Spring therefore in returning from any degree of flexure to which it hath been bent by any power receiveth at every point of the space returned an impulse equal to the power of the Spring in that point of Tension and in returning the whole it receiveth the whole aggregate of all the forces belonging to the greatest degree of that Tension from which it returned so a Spring bent two spaces in its return receiveth four degrees of impulse that is three in the first space returning and one in the second so bent three spaces it receiveth in its whole return nine degrees of impulse that is five in the first space returned three in the second and one in the third So bent ten spaces it receives in its whole return one hundred degrees of impulse to wit nineteen in the first seventeen in the second fifteen in the third thirteen in the fourth eleven in the fifth nine in the sixth seven in the seventh five in the eighth three in the ninth and one in the tenth Now the comparative Velocities of any body moved are in subduplicate proportion to the aggregates or sums of the powers by which it is moved therefore the Velocities of the whole spaces returned are always in the same proportions with those spaces they being both subduplicate to the powers and consequently all the times shall be equal Next for the Velocities of the parts of the space returned they will be always proportionate to the roots of the aggregates of the powers impressed in every of these spaces for in the last instance where the Spring is supposed bent ten spaces the Velocity at the end of the first space returned shall be as the root of 19. at the end of the second as the Root of 36. that is of 19+17 at the end of the third as the Root of 51. that is of 19+17 +15. At the end of the
the Plate E E from being drawn or separated too far from the hole D in working it to and fro K K are two Pins serving both to force down and keep open the Valve H H. L L are two Appendices sodered unto the top of the Pipe F F serving both for a handle to the Rod of the forcer and also to keep down the forcer M M are two other appendices or buttons fastned at the top of the two small pillars N N so as to turn upon the same and serve to hasp or button down the ends LL of the handle of the forcer that it be not driven up again OO is the Basin for receiving the water that falls from the Jet or stream from which it may be forced again into the Fountain or Receptacle For charging this Machine the Basin O O must first be filled with water and then the Pump must be worked to and fro In doing of which when the Plug is drawn upwards the water in the Basin runs in through the cross through which the Rod F F passes where finding the hole Dopen it fills the spaces of the bottom of the Pump then the Pump being thus filled the Plug is to be forced downwards whereby the Plate E E being closely applied to the brims of the hole D hinders the water from returning back again through the same but is forced through the valve H H into the Fountain A A. And by repeating this operation all the water of the Basin O O is easily forced into the aforesaid Fountain whereby all the Air that was therein contained is compressed more or less according as more or less water is forced in and kept in that compression by the valve H H which hinders the water that it cannot return through the same But when you desire to have it return you force down the Plug hard against the bottom or plate which by the help of the aforesaid Pins or Appendices K K force and keep open the valve H H and the Rod F being kept fast down in this posture by the aforesaid Buttons or Hasps M M upon opening the Cock G the water returneth through the valve H H so kept open through the hole D and through the whole length of the Pipe F. This way of putting a valve into the Plug of forcing Pumps will be of great use for all such as serve for supplying Towns with water and for quenching of fire as preventing a great inconvenience to which the common Pumps are usually subject from the Air which is apt to be generated within them which Air upon working the said Pump remaining below the forcer and by its Expansion when the Plug is drawn upwards hindring the water from filling the whole Cavity beneath it and by its Condensation when the Plug is forced downwards losing a great part of the strength of the force much of the effect of the said Machine is frustrated For preventing of which Inconvenience care is to be taken that the water in all these forcing Pumps be admitted by the top thereof as in the present Machine whereby whatever Air shall be generated below the Plug will readily rise into the hole D as being the highest place next the Plate E E from whence when by the drawing up of the Plug the Plate is lifted from the brims of the hole D the Air will readily slip up and the water as readily descend and fill all the parts of the Pump below the Plug As I have often experimented in this present Machine Some Persons may object against these kind of valves assupposing the pressure of the water to be on the wrong side thereof But it is easie to be noted that this objection is groundless since it is the same thing whether the Plate be pressed against the Rim of the valve or the Rim of the valve against the plate In common valves the Pressure of the water forceth the Plate against the Rim But in this the Rim against the Plate for the remaining solid Rim of the valve being made thrice as big as the hole or Cavity thereof the pressure of the water against that Rim forceth the said Rim against the Plate in the middle three times harder than if the pressure of the water lay only on the plate of the value the same would be pressed against the Rim. To this Discourse of an Artificial Fountain I thought it not improper to add an ingenious Discourse of M. James Young of Plimouth conteining his own Observations and Opinion concerning natural Fountains and Springs SIR HAving now gained time from my other avocations I have drawn up those observations I told you I had made in my travels which had confirmed in me the opinion of my Lord Bacon that Fountains and Springs were the Percolation of the Sea not as your self Mr. Ray c. do assert from the rains descent into the Earth I now represent them to your consideration rather as an Apology because they seem rational to excuse than Arguments to justifie and avow the presumption of my dissent Its aperans S S W. from you about 6 Leagues distant The said Pond is in a large Bay at the West side of the Island which hath from one point to another a bank of Sand about two or three foot above water covering the Bay like a string to a Bow the said bank in the Flemish Road is about 150 foot wide at the English Road it is as broad again there is never any sensible ebbing or flowing of the Sea only at full Moons or a day before It riseth in high Billows which break over the Bank at the North end of the Pond where it is lowest By which means the Pond is replenished with water which condenseth into Salt in two days The Sand dividing the said Pond and the Sea is very fine and loose Now because the before-mentioned Rivulet disembogues far from the Roads at an inconvenient place for Boats they are constrained to dig Wells in the midst of the bank of Sand between the Pickle of the salt Pond and the Sea the manner thus They first dig a pit about eight foot deep and therein lay two Hogsheads the one on the top of the other the head out of both save the lowermost of the deepest the sides of both are also full of Gimlet holes and the sand laid close to them After twenty four hours they have three or four foot of very clean water in them which being dipped out you plainly see the new water strain gently through those holes in the sides of the Cask After which in a days time one man attending it may draw about ten Hogsheads or more of water a little tasting of Salt not so much but that it is drinkable and very fit to boyl meat in and is used by those that come there to load Cattle for their common drink I have in the Map placed the Sign O where our Well was made The next observations pertinent to this subject I made at
the root some quantity of water which is always soaking and gliding down from the Branches and body of the Tree the leaves sprigs and branches of the said trees collecting and condensing continually the moyst part of the Air the same being indeed a true and lively representation of a River Nor has it been my observation alone but the same is mentioned by divers Authors And it is affirmed by some Authors that there are some Islands in the Torrid Zone which have no other water in them than what is condensed out of the Air by the Trees at the tops of the Hills and converted into drops of Rain Sixthly That it is generally observed whereever there are high Hills there are generally many Springs round about the bottoms of them of very fresh and clear water and often times some which rise very near the tops of them which seems to proceed from their great elevation above the other plain superficial parts of the earth whereby the Air being dashed and broken against them they help to condense the vapours that are elevated into the higher and cooler Regions of the Air and so serve like Filtres to draw down those vapours so condensed and convey them into the Valleys beneath And hence it is very usual in Countries where there are high Hills to see the tops of them often covered with clouds and mists when it is clear and dry weather beneath in the Valleys And in the passing through those clouds on the top I have very often found in them very thick mists and small rain whereas as soon as I have descended from the higher into the lower parts of the Hills none of that mist or rain hath fallen there though I could still perceive the same mists to remain about the top Consonant to this Observation was one related to me by an ingenious Gentleman Mr. G.T. who out of curiosity with other Gentlemen whilst he lived in the Island of Teneriff one of the Canaries made a journey to the top of that prodigious high Mountain called the Pikc. The substance of which to this purpose was that the Caldera or hollow Cavity at the very top thereof he observed to be very slabby and moyst and the earth to slip underneath his feet being a very moyst soft Clay or Lome like mortar And farther that at a Cave not far from the top there was a great quantity of very fresh water which was continually supplied though great quantities of Ice were continually fetch'd from thence and carried down into the Island for cooling their Wines Consonant to which Observation was that which was related to me by the Inquisitive Mr. Edmund Hally made in St. Helena whilst he stayed there to observe the places of the Stars of the Southern Hemisphere in order to perfect the Coelestial Globe Having then placed himself upon one of the highest Prominences of that small Island which he found to be no less than 3000 foot Perpendicularly above the Surface of the Sea next adjoyning supposing that might be the most convenient place for his designed observation He quickly found his expectation much deceived as to that purpose for which he chose it for being gotten so high into the Air the motion of it was so violent as much to disturb his Instruments but which was more he found such abundance of mists and moysture that it unglued the Tubes and covered his Glasses presently with a Dew and which was yet more the foggs and mists almost continually hindred the sight of the Stars But upon removing to a lower station in the Island he was freed from the former Inconveniences I could relate many Histories of this nature whereby it seems very probable that not only Hills but Woods also do very much contribute to the condensing of the moysture of the Air and converting it into water and thereby to supply the Springs and Rivulets with fresh water And I am confident whosoever shall consider his own observation of this nature and compare them with this Theory will find many arguments to confirm it However Nullius in verba Let Truth only prevail and Theories signifie no further than right reasoning from accurate Observations and Experiments doth confirm and agree with them Having thus delivered here somewhat of my own thoughts concerning Springs and Rivers finding among some of my Papers a Relation wherein a very strange subterraneous Cistern is mentioned I have here subjoyned it as I received it from Mr. Thomas Alcock from Bristol who together with Sir Humphry Hooke was by whilst Captain Samuel Sturmy made this inquiry and who by interrogatories made to him penn'd this Relation for him as it follows verbatim IN pursuance of His Majesties Commands to me at the presenting of my Mariners Magazine I have with much diligence some charge and peril endeavoured to discover that great Concavity in the earth in Glocester shire four miles from Kingrode where His Majesties great Ships ride in the Severn And I find by experience that what has been reported of that place is fabulous whilst I thus describe it Upon the second of July 1669. I descended by Ropes affixt at the top of an old Lead Oare Pit four Fathoms almost perpendicular and from thence three Fathoms more obliquely between two great Rocks where I found the mouth of this spacious place from which a Mine-man and my self lower ourselves by Ropes twenty five Fathoms perpendicular into a very large place indeed resembling to us the form of a Horse-shoo for we stuck lighted Candles all the way we went to discover what we could find remarkable at length we came to a River or great Water which I found to be twenty fathoms broad and eight fathoms deep The Mine-man would have perswaded me that this River Ebbed and Flowed for that some ten fathoms above the place we now were in we found the water had sometime been but I proved the contrary by staying there from three hours Floud to two hours Ebb in which time we found no alteration of this River besides it's waters were fresh sweet and cool and the Surface of this water as it is now at eight fathom deep lies lower than the bottom of any part of the Severn Sea near us so that it can have no community with it and consequently neither flux nor reflux but in Winter and Summer as all Stagna's Lakes and Loughs which I take this to be has As we were walking by this River thirty two fathoms under ground we discovered a great hollowness in a Rock some thirty foot above us so that I got a Ladder down to us and the Mine-man went up the Ladder to that place and walk'd into it about threescore and ten paces till he just lost sight of me and from thence chearfully call'd to me and told me he had found what he look'd for a rich Mine but his joy was presently changed into amazement and he returned affrighted by the sight of an evil Spirit which we cannot perswade him but he saw and
the face of the waters And for this I could produce very many Histories and Arguments that would make it seem very probable but that I reserve them in the Lectures which I read of this subject in Gresham Colledge in the years 1664 and 1665 which when I can have time to peruse I may publish Therein I made it probable that most Islands have been thrown up by some subterraneous Eruptions Such is the Island of Ascension the Moluccus c. Secondly that most part of the Surface of the Earth hath been since the Creation changed in its position and height in respect of the Sea to wit many parts which are now dry Land and lie above the Sea have been in former Ages covered with it and that many parts which are now covered with the Sea were in former times dry Land Mountains have been sunk into Plains and Plains have been raised into Mountains Of these by observations I have given instances and shewed that divers parts of England have in former times been covered with the Sea there being found at this day in the most Inland parts thereof susficient evidences to prove it to wit Shells of divers sorts of Fishes many of which yet remain of the animal substance though others be found petrified and converted into stone Some of these are found raised to the tops of the highest Mountains others sunk into the bottoms of the deepest Mines and Wells nay in the very bowels of the Mountains and Quarries of Stone I have added also divers other instances to prove the same thing of other parts of Europe and have manifested not only that the lower and plainer parts thereof have been under the Sea but that even the highest Alpine and Pyrenean Mountains have run the same fate Many Instances of the like nature I have also met with in Relations and observations made in the East as well as in the West Indies Of all which strange occurrences I can conceive no cause more probable than Earthquakes and subterraneous Eruptions which Histories do sufficiently assure us have changed Sea into Land and Land into Sea Vales into Mountains sometimes into Lakes and Abysses at other times and the contrary unless we may be allowed to suppose that the water or fluid part of the earth which covered the whole at first and afterward the greatest part thereof might in many Ages and long process of time be wasted by being first raised into the Atmosphere in vapours and thence by the diurnal but principally by the annual motion thereof be lost into the ather or medium through which it passes somewhat like that wasting which I have observed to be in Comets and have noted it in my Cometa Or unless we may be allowed to suppose that this fluid part is wasted by the petrifaction and fixation of such parts of it as have fallen on the Land and Hills and never returned to fill up the measure of the Sea out of which it was exhaled for which very much may be said to make it probable that the water of the earth is this way daily diminished Or unless since we are ascertained by observations that the direction of the Axis of the earth is changed and grown nearer the Polar Star than formerly that the Magnetism or Magnetical Poles are varied and do daily move from the places where they lately were and that there are other great and noted changes effected in the earth we may be allowed to conceive that the Central point of the attractive or gravitating power of the earth hath in long process of time been changed and removed also farther from us towards our Antipodes whence would follow a recess of the waters from these parts of the world to those and an appearance of many parts above the surface of the water in the form of Islands and of other places formerly above the Sea now in the form of Mountains so to continue till by the libration or other-ways returning motion thereof it repossess its former seat and place and overwhelms again all those places which in the interim had been dry and uncovered with the return of the same water since nothing in nature is found exempt from the state of change and corruption Further it is probable that Earthquakes may have been much more frequent in former Ages than they have been in these latter the consideration of which will possibly make this Assertion not so Paradoxical as at first hearing it may seem to be though even these latter Ages have not been wholly barren of Instances of the being and effects of them to convince you of which I have hereunto subjoyned a Relation and account of one very newly which hapned in the Isle of Palma among the Canaries Next the clearness of the Air is very remarkable which made an Island which lay eight Leagues off to look as if it were close by To this purpose I have often taken notice of the great difference there is between the Air very near the lower Surface of the Earth and that which is at a good distance from it That which is very near the earth being generally so thick and opacous that bodies cannot at any considerable distance be seen distinctly through it But the farther the eye and object are elevated above this thick Air the more clear do the objects appear And I have divers times taken notice that the same object seen from the top and bottom of a high Tower hath appeared twice as far off when seen at the bottom as when seen at the top For the Eye doth very much judge of the distance of Objects according as the Density of the Air between the Eye and Object doth represent them Hence I have seen men look of Gigantick bigness in a fog caused by reason that the Fog made the Eye judge the Object much farther off than really it was when at the same time the visible Angle altered not This great thickness of the lower Air is sufficiently manifest in the Coelestial bodies few of the fixt Stars or smaller Planets being visible till they are a considerable way raised above the Horizon The third remark about the moistness of the fogs and the production of water at that height I have before insisted on Only the almost continual fogs that this Gentleman observed in the Wood they passed is very remarkable for the origine of Springs Nor shall I say any thing concerning the vast perpendicular height of the same but for a close of this present collection I shall add the short account of the Eruption which lately hapned in the Palma A true Relation of the Vulcanos which broke out in the Island of the Palma Novemb. 13. 1677. SAturday the thirteenth of November 1677. a quarter of an hour after Sun set hapned a shaking or Earthquake in the Island of St. Michael de la Palma one of the Canary Islands from the lower Pyrenna and within a League of the City unto the Port of Tassacorte which is accounted
for that reason will go thither no more Here are abundance of strange places the flooring being a kind of a white stone Enameled with Lead Oare and the Pendent Rocks were glazed with Salt-Peter which distilled upon them from above and time had petrified After some hours stay there we ascended without much hurt other than scratching our selves in divers places by climing the sharp Rocks but four days together after my return from thence I was troubled with an unusual and violent Headach which I impute to my being in that Vault This is a true account of that place so much talk't of described by me Samuel Sturmy Having given you a Relation of something very low within the bowels of the Earth I now shall add An account of a Journey made to the highest part of the earthby my Ingenious Friend Mr. G. T. as I collected it out of the Memorials which he writ at the time of making it The particulars whereof were THat August the twentieth 1674. about Nine in the morning in company with Dr. Sebastian de Franques Mr. Christopher Prancis Mr. Thomas Proudfoot together with a Guide and two other men with horses to carry themselves and necessary provision for the Journey he set out from They passed up a Hill which was very steep till they came to the Pinal or Wood of Pines This Wood lieth very high in the Island and extendeth it self from one end of the Island to the other and is in many places of a great Breadth and is very frequently covered with a Bruma fog or mist which is so thick as to darken and hinder the appearance of the Sun through it and so moyst as to make one wet in passing through it Through this Wood they rode by a pretty steep ascent near two Leagues crossing it till they came to the further or side where alighting they rested themselves under a Pine and Dined And the fog which had accompanied them through the whole Wood here left them and the Sun appeared From hence they parted about one in the Afternoon and after an ascent of about half a mile of very bad stony way they came to a sandy way which for about the length of a League was pretty plain but then they began to ascend a sandy hill which for half a League farther was pretty steep which having passed they arrived at the foot of the Pike Here they alighted and then rested themselves for some time then taking horse again they began to ascend the Pike it self This part of it was so steep that the way up it is made by several turnings and windings to and fro to ease and alleviate the steepness of the ascent which were otherwise unpassable for horses All this part seems to be nothing else but burnt stones and ashes which may have formerly tumbled down from the higher parts of the Pike At this place they alighted and unloaded their horses of the Provision of Victual and water which they were forced to carry with them for their own accommodation as also of the Provender for their horses And presently set themselves to provide against the inconveniences of the ensuing night by getting together in the first place a good quantity of the wood of a small shrub called Retamen not much unlike our English Broom which grows there pretty plentifully and when dry burns very well then having gotten wood enough they endeavoured to shelter themselves against the piercing cold wind by heaping up a wall of stones on the windward side and making a good fire of the dry shrubs they had collected to warm themselves But so furious was the wind which came pouring down from each side of the Mountain that it blew the smoak and ashes into their eyes and forced them though much to their Regret by reason of the extreme piercing coldness of the Air to remove their fire farther off And to keep themselves as warm as they could by lying down upon the ground very close together Thus they passed the night together as well as they could but with very little sleep partly by reason of the cold and partly for the continual expectation they had of the moment when their Guide would call them to be mounting up the Pike which is usually about two or three hours before day to the end that they may get up to the top before the rising of the Sun For at the rising of the Sun the Air is the most clear and all the Islands of the Canaries round about may be then plainly discovered But at two a clock when they should have been on their Journey the wind continued to blow with such violence that their Guide would by no means venter to go up for fear least in the climbing up some steep places the wind should encounter any of them and hurl them headlong down so that they were forced to continue and shelter themselves in their bad Lodgings till the Sun arose and had got some mastery of the wind About six a clock therefore they set forwards on their enterprise having first taken each of them his dish of Chocolatte to fortifie their stomachs the better against the cold so with their Bottle of Strong-water in their Pockets and Staves in their hands they began to mount the Pike the way being just such as they had passed the night before but much more steep and continued on till they came to the Mal pays or stony way which may be about half a mile from the place where they lay This stony way lieth upon a very steep ascent and is compounded of abundance of stones which lie hollow and loose some of them of a vast prodigious bigness and others of them smaller in such manner as if they had been thrown up there by some Earthquake as the Author conjectures with very great probability In the clambring up these stones they took great care in placing their steps on such of them as were more firm for fear of slipping or tumbling so as to break their Legs or Arms. With this difficulty they ascended till they came to the Cave which he conjectures to be about three quarters of a mile distant from the beginning of the stony way At this Cave they found several persons who were come thither to get out Ice to carry down into the Island some of which were below in the Cave digging Ice which was very thick others remained above They found the mouth of the Cave about three yards high and two yards broad and being all of them desirous to descend into it by a Rope fastned about their bodies under their armpits they were all one after another let down into it till they came to set their feet upon the Ice which is about sixteen or eighteen foot from the mouth The Cave is not very large but full of water and Ice which at the time when they were there lay about a foot under the Surface of the water though the men that usually go thither said that at