of Alom Stones make Vitriol and the Vitriol-worker out of Vitriol Stones should make Alom Besides a solution of this yellow Earth or Salt will by Filtration and Evaporation perfectly become a mineral aluminous Salt as you may see in my Hydrol. Chym. which yellow Salt will also undergoe all the mutations of colours equally with the Spaw As to what you say Hydroph p. 45. That the Cliff out of which this Spring flowe 's plainly Iron is surely a very gross mistake for all along that Bank yea even over the head of the Spring it self is most-what Alom Stone as is obvious to all that see it and as to what you say that though at first when it falls it be like ordinary Earth yet at length by the weather it becomes hard as Iron and heavy and is fusible in the fire I must tell you that what is fallen down and you denote to be Iron Stone is not one of the hundreth nay I may say scarce one of the five hundreth part either Iron or Iron Stone for we had much adoe amongst it all to procure a few pieces even of that Stone which may at the best be suspected to be Iron Stone for indeed those heaps are most what nothing else but a farraginous mixture of many sorts of Stones Sand Earth c. fallen off from the Bank and crusted together with the beating of the Sea and so hardned by the Salt of the Sea and Weather into confused heaps Thus far reacheth your first way or manner of Waters being impregnated with Minerals viz. by taking in their Vapours The second is when some of their Juyce is dissolv'd in the Water and that whilst the Minerals are in solutis principiis to which as before so now we assent But as to the third way Corrosion of the substance of Minerals pag. 46. viz. By corrosion of the substances of the Minerals and that by the help of the Concrete Juyces which extract and corrode Mineral Substances to confirm which Hydroph you tell us that the Concrete Juyce of Vitriol which is of a corrosive property being imbibed in a Spring Water will corrode other Minerals or Metals so saith Helmont in the place before cited that it passeth through as Iron and Alom In answer to which I shall refer the judicious Reader to what I object against this in p. 12 13. of my Hydrol. Chym. where supposing in favour to his Doctrine a Juyce of Vitriol to be in the Water yet how improper a Menstruum would it be for extracting or corroding Mineral Substances seeing that the Esurine or Sulphureous Salt or Spirit had already coagulated it self upon a mineral or metalline body thereby to make up a Vitriol which we have shewed before must necessarily have those essential principles to concur to this constitution So that if the Esurine Spirit in Vitriol must become a menstruum to extract or corrode any other Minerals it must first deposite that body it hath already dissolv'd And therefore we see that if a strong solution of Vitriol be boyl'd a long time in an Iron Pot which according to your opinion Hydroph must needs make a considerable corrosion thereof that no more of the Iron Vessel is dissolv'd then is precipitated of the innate cuprous body inherent in the Vitriol which we find tingeth the superficies thereof Nay if I affirm to you I shall not say more then I can prove That Vitriol whether in fieri or in facto esse cannot become a menstruum for mineral bodies nor menstrual apperients for the humane body till it lay aside its first dissoluable whether it be Copper Iron c. As to mineral bodies it 's evident that after the esurine or sulphureous acid Spirit hath once prey'd upon and coagulated it self upon any mineral or metalline body it ceaseth to act upon any other till it be loosened from the first and then it 's at liberty to be married to another otherwise bodies would be solvents for bodies whereas it is that Salts are the proper menstruums and apperients for bodies and as to humane bodies we see that if those usually prepared Salts of Vitriol or vitriolum album be taken inwardly act not suddenly as apperients because having in them a colcotarine body makes them hostile to the ferment of the stomach which presently throws them up again by Vomis which indeed is the main reason why Vitrioline Vomits are the most sudden in their operation for if they should stay so long as sometimes they do in the stomach and intestines till the metalline or mineral body be by the diluting moisture precipitated then they cease to act as Emeticks and only in part pass away by Stool while the Salt which was the menstruum in those sorts of Salts called Gilla Theophrasti or Vitriolum Album becomes set at liberty and proves an apperient of otherwise obstinate Obstructions and that these Salts of Vitriol so called as also the white Vitriol have in them a metalline body is apparent by calcining even these Salts yea the Vitriolum Album though exquisitely depurated by frequent Solution Filtration and Distillation or Evaporation as I have often done will with no very strong fire calcine red from whence by solution c. more of a mineral body may by art be separated Thus far you see Hydroph that though we should grant a Vitrioline Juyce to be an Ingredient of the Spaw yet can it not be a competent menstruum to corrode or extract other mineral bodies and that for Reasons before alleadged yea and that notwithstanding what you quote out of Helmont's fourth Paradox where he saith That that which is volatile viz. a Spirit whether it be concrete or liquid may corrode other mineral bodies Pray take in the whole Sentence and it runs thus Corpora non corrodunt corpora quatenus talia neque fixa in invicem agunt sed duntaxat quatenus alterum corum velatile est id est spiritus sive is concretâ—â— est sive liquidus Here you must know that he is treating of the Esurine Salt where indeed if you had duly weighed what he saith a few lines afore you might have had light enough to have led you out of your former Errors which an ingenuous Spirit would own though it was to the casting down his former wrong apprehension of things for it 's the truth of the matter we contend about that we should aim at and not our prejudicated Opinions He tells you that the natural Vitriol of Iron is made by an Esurine Salt of an embryonative Sulphur corroding a Vein of Iron in which act of Corrosion there happens a kind of solution of the Vein and a coagulation or fixation of the Volatile Salt Which Salt saith he as long as it is Volatile may be reckoned amongst Spirits This Spirit and not bodies one upon another is this agent and that whether it be concrete or liquid that may dissolve bodies Here Hydroph take notice that he doth not mean nor say that
not much necessary now to determine and so what taste or smell it hath in coyn'd pieces or otherwise is to be ascribed to its Vitriol and not to the body of Copper We see where ever Copper or Brass is whether aloyd with other Metals so as it out-proportions the united Metal or alone is very apt unless constantly kept drest and clean to gather greenish Rust which is nothing else but a Vitriol thereof and this and not the Metal singly is that which both gives the taste and smell both to Liquors that stand long or are boyled in such Vessels or to coyn'd pieces And therefore Paracelsus and others together with your self not well weighing this considerable circumstance might easily be deceived and suppose the bodies of those two Metals when it was nothing but the Vitriols thereof to give that taste smell which is sometimes found and therefore the instance my Antagonist then brings to confirm that emission of Vapours from Copper p. 25. by putting Carps into a Copper Brewing-Vessel with fresh Water to be preserv'd for one night were all found dead in the morning is I say invalid and that first because the Copper Vessel for ought you know had not been used lately before and perhaps was not carefully cleans'd and thereby might as we have shewed before easily gather a greenish rustiness or Vitriol which by the pouring Water therein might easily dissolve and as readily kill the Carps as if so much other natural or artificial Vitriol had been put therein next to which the change of the Water which might very likely have a touch of some Salt that many times is not easily discoverable might prove altogether disagreeable to the Fish Whether way we take it you see there is no need to ascribe it or justly think it ascribable to the Vapours of the Copper Which suppose we should grant how absurd and incongruous to our health would it be to sup our Broth eat our Meat and drink our Drink so constantly made ready by those vessels whose steams were able to kill Fish Would it be at all safe to prepare our ordinary Food in such Vessels as have such poysonous Vapours Yea and that I might confirm what I say by matter of fact I procured seven or eight small Fish taken in a Net in Colder which I ordered to be caried to my House in some of the Water they were taten in which with more of the same Water I put into a bright clean scoured brass brewing Pan which â— caused to be set into the open Air for probably â—â—ant of fresh Air might amongst other things not a little contribute to the destruction of the Fish and found them not only to be alive the morning following but to be as lively and brisk in their motions as when newly put in where for tryal sake I kept them another night and found them the morning after in a manner as brisk and active as at the first And whereas I say that all compact Metalline Bodies must have proper and peculiar Menstruums to unlock them if any Medicinal Arcanum be thence expected My Antagonist answers p. 25. Why I can assure him upon tryal that the filings of Steel suppose a pound set to infuse in a quart oâ— clear Spring Water for a few dayes the Water upon evaporation afforded a clear Salt of greenish colour To which I return That it is my Antagonists hap to be very unfortunate in the proposal of his Experiments and therefore should not be one intrusted to make those Experiments from whence a well-grounded Hypothesis of natural Philosophy should be deduced for he is unwary in the due poysing of those concomitant circumstances which make Experiments critical and from whose management depends the successfulness or the contrary of most Experiments For had he rightly considered that all or most Spring Waters we meet with have a sleight touch of some one or other Mineral Salt oâ— Earth which is that which gives the difference oâ— tasts Spring Waters have one from another distinguishable by curious Palates accustomed to drink Water he would not have made use of that as hâ—â— Menstruum for the tryal of extracting a Vitriolic Salt out of Iron I did indeed try the like Experiment with Spring Water which we have by us poured upon clean filings of Steel for that 's another circumstance which unheeded may also make his Experiment as â—o what is intended thereby miscarry which being decanted after it had stood some dayes and evaporated gave as my Antagonist saith a greenish coloured Salt which had I not been further inquisitive in weighing the circumstances better I had concluded with my Antagonist that it had been a salt from the Iron but I considered whether or no indeed this Spring Water might not contain in its self this sort of Salt which upon tryal by evaporating it away alone in a Jar Glass I found that it â—est the very same sort of Salt and as near as could â—e esteemed the like quantity with that left after the â—â—fusion of the Water upon the Iron Therefore for further satisfaction I poured some distilled Water upon filings of Steel which being bured off after several dayes infusion found no â—â—ch Salt at all left behind nothing being left in â—e bottom that had any Salt by which I have early demonstrated how easily for want of due circumspection in circumstances essential to things to 〈◊〉 tryed by matter of fact my Antagonist can impose upon himself and others by fallacious Experiments And as to what you say that the Apothecaries â—â—yes would laugh at me for denying Iron as a impact body to impart a vapour to a Liquor I â—â—ght tell you that if I could spare so much vacant â—â—e I could both laugh at you and them at you â—â—â—t and chiefly for your ignorance of the very nature of the Metals you treat of supposing Chalybeat â—â—inks frequently ordered for Hypochondriack Maladies to be made after such a manner as wherein the Iron gives it self by a Vapour to the Liquor not Understanding at least not recollecting that to make Chalvbeat Waters they most frequently if noâ— alwayes add some Saline or Acid Spirit to make the Iron capable of being dissolved in part in the affus'd Liquor and that either by taking the Crocus or other preparation of Iron wherewith to satiate their Liquors which become so much dissoluble as to give them the name of Chalybeat Waters or Liquors For in all Chalybeat Extractions you should not Hydroph be ignorant that there is require either that the Iron be reduc'd into a Crocus which is done either by Calcination and that either pâ—se or with Sulphur or by Acid Spirits such a distilled Vinegar Spirit of Salt Niter Sulphur or else that the Menstruum to be affus'd have son innate acidity I would gladly know Hydroph whether yet ever order your merry Apothecaries Boyes to maâ—â— you any Chalybeat Liquors by barely pouring supple distilled Water upon fresh filings of Steel aâ—
of Sulphur will thereby be so opened as to yeeld both its tincture as red as blood and odour also which last will be made to appear by the addition of any acid Juyce yea its acidity will plainly be evident by burning it under a Glass Bell witness the Oil of Sulphur made after that manner so that where mineral bodies are to be dislolv'd or unlock'd their Menstruums are to be acuated and duly prepared Wherefore in confirmation of what I elsewhere assert in my Hydrol. Chym. concerning an Acid Sulphureous Spirit or Salt which being dissolv'd in a Water Spring becomes a sutable Menstruum to make Solutions or to take in the tinctures of Mineral or Metalline Bodies which lie in their way I say in confirmation hereof I find the ingenuous Swelfer in his Appendix p. 97. saith to the very same purpose thus Etenim vitriolum caerulcum quod me judice nihil aliud est quam cuprum quandoque etiam ex venâ argenteâ ortum ducens in visceribus terrae a spiritu sulphuris solutum quemadmodum viride vitriolum à venis ferri est eodem spiritu sulphuris in terrae autris dissolutum è cupreis venis exortum c. And that this is a sulphureous Salt or Spirit which acuates the Water of this Spaw compatible as well to Alom as Vitriol is evident both by the profound Helmont's definition of this Esutine Salt viz. Est partus immaturus sulphuris embryonati As also by this experimental Observation which confirms both viz. That in the burning or calcining the Alom Stone to make it capable to yeeld its imbred Salt a Sulphur is found thrust forth to the surface of the Stone by the force of fire which will take flame at a Candle and burn with a blew flame with the same sulphureous smell as common Sulphur which lies in a crust driven from the body of the Alom Stone and adheres to it of which I have some by me and have tryed the Experiment therewith by which it appears that that Salt connatural with the Alom Stone hath also espoused to it self an embryonate Sulphur which lies dormant in all mineral acid Spirits whether of Vitriol or Alom this not being able to abide the force of fire in the calcination of the Alom Stone is pressed forth to the superficies thereof chiefly at the outside of the heap and there appears in the real form of Sulphur as combustible as any common one Thus the Legich by which I argue from calciu'd Alom Stone to the crude aluminous Juyce in the Water is no less then by an autoptical induction as apparent as the Sun at noon day and no less demonstrable but indeed more obvious then that three Angles of a Triangle should alwayes be equal to two right Angles or then that the Angles of incidence and reflexion should alwayes be the same But that we may be the more certain whether if there were any such thing as Vitriol in this Spaw Water it might not by tryal be discovered I therefore for better satisfaction made a solution first of Vitriol and Nitre in distilled Water mixed and evaporated them in an easie heat of a Sand Furnace until they did shoot in Chrystals which were plainly distinct each from other so as one might see them severally in the bottom of the Glass Then I took Vitriol and Alom Salt viz. the true Alom of each an anatical proportion whole Solutions in distill'd Water were filtred mixed and evaporated to Chrystals which also were distinct viz. the Chrystals of Vitriol from those of Alom Then I took the Solutions of Vitriol Alom and Nitre of each alike in distilled Water which being filtred mixed and evaporated ad cuticulam gave three distinct sorts of Chrystals viz. long styriate which were of Nitre white Chrystals which were from Alom and green which were from Vitriol every one in their several form distinguishable enough to the bare eye But that I might leave no stone unmoved that might lie in my way or upon which my Antagonist might have the least foundation for his fictious Hypothesis of the existency of Vitriol in this Spaw that I might I say unravel to the very bottom of his Clew whose deepest reserve and by which he thinks he hits the nail o' th head is fetche from a supposition of the presence of Vitriol in this Water by its Juyce or in succo primitivo I therefore took some of the Marcasite Stones of Vitriol which I got out of the black Bog near the Sulphur-Well at Knarsbrough which is the minera of Vitriol in which if any where the Vitriol is in succo upon this pulverised I poured a Solution of Sal marine and let them stand together in a Matrass for several dayes which by standing in stigido extracted a green tincture from the Marcasites This I decanted and filtred which with the addition of Galls would strike a tincture not inferiour to the Solution of the body of Vitriol This yellow green salty Liquor I caused to be evaporated in a gentle heat in a Jar Glace placed in Sand which shot into curious yellow ting'd Chrystals which left in the bottom an Oaker or Terra Vitriolica after the manner as is found upon the like process with other factitious Vitriols That which was very remarkable was That the yellowish Liquor wherein these Chrystals did shoot would not with Galls strike any colour but remain'd clear as before the addition thereof but when I added some more clear Water and thereby diluted it I found that then it gave a purple colour The very like to which I observed to happen to a strong Solution of Dantz-Vitriol brought to an oyly consistence immediately before shooting which with the addition of Galls I found would give no alteration of colour but when I diluted it with more Water it then gave its purple tincture and that the deeper by how much to a certain proportion the more Water I added just as some menstruums may be graduated too highly and made too strong to corrode or dissolve their proper bodies the Solutions of which they cannot perform till they be made weaker Here if I should tell my Antagonist That I know by a menstruum not rare amongst Chymists with the addition of mine or his breath how to calcine a Metal viâ humidâ as the Chymists speak without which or somewhat equivalent thereto the humid calcination of that Metal cannot be performed also how to melt another Metal prepared after a certain manner with the help of one single Lamp unassisted by any blast he would without doubt look upon them as Paradoxes But to confirm yet further the existency and precedency of Alom in the Scarbrough Water I observe that in the very minera of that Stone and Earth found upon the Bank a thin Scale of a bright Chrystalline Marcasite of the very colour and brightness like another which I do by an artifice upon that Water separate therefrom which is indeed a bright clear Talk yea I find other
gritty parcels of a sabulous Earth much-what like the others separated from the Spaw Water by the foresaid Artifice Now from a collation of Experiments these following Corrolaries will naturally result First That a Mineral in its crude succulent parts may easily be dissolv'd in Spring Water alone when it s more compact body whose parts are lockt up more strictly require a sulphureous Menstruum to dissolve it or take it in pieces witness the crude succulent Alom Stone readily giving its tincture with Gall in fresh Water when the hard slate thereof requires Water acidulated with is sulphureous Spirit to open the body thereof to make it give its vertue Secondly That the Marcasites of Vitriol and Alom have an embryonative Sulphur connatural with them produc'd out of the same Mineral Seed for instance the Sulphur crust separated by Calcination of the Alom Stone and in the Vitriol Marcasites I find that putting them into the fire they burn of a blew flame and have a sulphureous smell in both these the Sulphur is really answerable to the common Sulphur or Brimstone Thirdly That several Mineral Salts and other connatural bodies may consist disguis'd under one liquid Mask which when taken off by a gentle distillation or evaporation each shews it self in its own likeness Thus Alom Vitriol and Nitre being dissolv'd in Water and so mixed together appear in a liquid form with very little discrimination but when this Water is taken away by easie distillation or evaporation then they appear statu quo prius viz. Alom Vitriol and Nitre again each in their several shapes Thus the several constitutive Ingredients of the Scarbrough Spaw Water whilst under that liquid Mask shew as one simple limpid transparent body but take off the Mask as aforesaid and then they appear each in their own form such as they were before their Solution in that Spring Fourthly That the minera or Marcasites of Alom or Vitriol do as really give their tinctures or yeeld their Solutions in Water yea do every way answer the operations agreeable to what is expected or may be performed by their factitious bodies Thus the solution of the succulent Alom Stone gives the same mutation of colours as the Liquor drawn from the body of the calcin'd Stone so in like manner doth the solution of the Vitriol marcasite in Water give the same tincture by Galls as the factitious body of Vitriol doth yea and precipitates the same Vitriolick Oaker or yellow Sediment as the other doth Fifthly That a mineral or metallick solution may have its parts so concentred as it may not admit of that alteration of colours compatible to the same solution diluted or thin'd Thus the strong yellowish Liquor made from a solution of Salt extracting the tincture from the Marcasites of Vitriol would not with Galls give any alteration of colour which yet it would do when diluted by adding more Water thereto and thus a strong solution of Vitriol would strike no purple nor other colour with Gall when yet the same diluted did so But the truth is saith my Antagonist I have tryed it of that sort of Alom-Mine which is in the Cliff near the Well pag. 91. having broken it to Pouder and infus'd it in Spring Water some hours and it received no tincture from Gall Nay I calcin'd that very Stone and then dissolv'd it in Spring Water and yet it received no tincture from Galls Which how true I shall appeal to those many Gentlemen at the Spaw who saw the Experiment ocularly demonstrated yea the Royal Society to whom I sent up so much as was sufficient to pass the test before them yea to those who have seen the Experiment tryed at publick places and elsewhere in York To confirm his Opinion That Alom Stone gives no tincture nor yeelds any vertues to Water my Antagonist brings in this instance p. 29. viz. That at the Alom Mine at Whithy in the middle thereof a Spring of fresh Water breaks forth having twelve fathom of Mine about it which yet gives no tincture with Galls having taken no vapot odor or sapor from the Mine To which I answer First by observing how inconsistent my Antagonist is to what he declares p. 16. of his Mimick accounting with Kircher That Spring Water is a proper menstruum to take in the vertues of Minerals and Metals witness that at St. Lucas in Italy which hath imbibed Iron and Alom another in Germany impregnated with Alom and Nitre and yet here denies it either to take vapor odor or sapor from the Mine it passeth through Next to which I endeavoured by climing that steep Bank at Whithy to have examined the source of that Spring but having not time I procured this account thereof from an ingenuous Friend viz. That it runs not through the Alom Work but under the bottom of the stony Quarry full of Cleffs about which there are divers Earths about the height of eight or ten yards to the surface of the ground underneath which Quarry is a Mine in colour much resembling that of Alom but is not the same in nature with it nor accounted so by the Workmen but is usually called by them Doggers or Cats-heads betwixt which and the abovesaid Quarry issues forth that Spring and therefore no wonder it partakes of no vertues therefrom in some of these Cats-heads being broken are found in the middle thereof a kind of transparent Talk Thus as he concludes pag. 93. Alom Stone to give neither vapor odor or sapor to spring Water which how true let the World judge So he further proceeds to tell us That neither doth Iron give any tincture in Spring Water with Gall nor yeeld any Sediment upon evaporation witness the Spring of fresh Water which runs out of an Iron Mine near Barnsley upon the edge of Derbyshire the which my Antagonist contradicts by closing with what he relates out of Paracelsus by which he hints in his own words as if simple Water alone were sufficient to imbibe a Metal as Iron while it hath not attained its perfection which in truth is the case of the Iron Mine at Scarbrough and yet here according to him it neither gives tincture with Gall nor yeelds any Sediment but this also contradicts his Experiment of a Vitrioline Salt made out of Iron by an infusion in Water A brief Account of the Anom-Works At WHITBY NOW because I find that Alom is the chief and essential Ingredient of the Scarbrough Spaw Water I shall for further illustration give my Observations concerning the Alom-Works at Whitby to which place I purposely made a journey for my own and others satisfaction where first I observ'd that it is not every Alom Mine that the Workmen will imploy their labour and time about as finding some that are unripe and therefore unfit to extract the Salt therefrom amongst which that blew Slate or Earth which they often find near the true ripe Stone which they call Doggers or Cats-heads and other slaty Stone
here is apparent first because it will strike no tincture with Galls which any Mineral Water that hath but the least participation of Vitriol will readily do but this Spring with the addition of Galls gives no purple at all next because upon evaporation or distillation of this Water no Vitrioline Ocre is found with which such Waters whilst in the vigour of their Operation are constantly impregnated and as certainly let fall to the bottom when effaete in their Vertues Nay further the same is apparent by this following Experiment viz. I took some of the Vitriol Marcasites of which more anon found in the Bog about 240 paces North-west from the Well upon which grosly bruised I poured a strong solution of Sal marinum Hispanicum made in distilled Water and set them in frigido in a long glass body from the commixture of which I found no sulphureous apporrhea to arise but the solution became green which being decanted and evapored or distilled which last as I remember I did to try if it would yeeld any effluvia of Sulphur but found none I obtained a yellow Salt in Chrystals with a Vatrioline Ocre or Sulphur at the bottom which Salt was the Sal-marine ting'd with the vitrioline body of which I have some by me for being dissolv'd again in fresh distilled Water it will with the addition of Galls strike a deep tincture yea the liquamen viz. the Mother as the Vitriol or Alom-workmen call it which shoots not will if diluted with Water give the same colour By which it is plain that as Vitriol gives no odour or effluvia of its Sulphur to a solution of Salt so neither consequently doth it yeeld the same to this Salt Water considered simply as such we will suppose that the Salt Spring in the Earth I mean the Spring impregnated with Salt may in its passage run through these Marcasites of Vitriol which are found not far from thence as I shall afterwards prove it doth it would of necessity if simple Salt make some sleight solution thereof and give its Indications answerable to our Experiment by receiving a tincture from Galls c. But by matter of fact I find it not so to do Ergo Vitriol as such is no Ingredient of this Sulphur-Well Secondly That there is no Nitre is as evident in as much as in the Analysis of this Water no such Ingredient is to be found for neither doth there appear any Salt which shoots into such Styria's nor that hath any inflammable property both which are essential to Nitre as such Thirdly Nor is Sulphur as to the body thereof an Ingredient of this Spring notwithstanding that it hath its denomination therefrom being called the Sulphur-Well and this is evidently apparent because in the genuine resolution of this Spaw Water into its Principles not one grain of a combustible Sulphur is to be found for upon a gentle distillation thereof in Glass Vessels closely stopt the sulphureous odour goes off in much less then the third part of the Water which is first distilled The rest which distils is simple Water without any odour or taste and what remains in the bottom which I filtred though it stood not in much need thereof was a liquamen of Salt which being evaporated a little more shot into a Salt of cubical Figures exactly in taste colour figure c. resembling yea the very same with a Fossil or Marine Salt having an inconsiderable addition of Alom Salt lest after precipitation of the Sulphur so that nothing of Sulphur or any the least inflammable matter can be separated from the Spaw Against what I say hereof I have met with an Objection urg'd by a Physitian of note who grounds it upon this Experiment viz. That upon this Sulphur Water or others of the like nature which break forth higher upon the Bank above the usual Spring I say that upon these Waters restagnating is found a kind of white Cremor which sometimes is of various colours this being skim'd off and dryed will take flame and burn which by matter of fact I have my self upon tryal found true To which I answer That this Sulphur which thus separates from this restagnating Water is the same with that which swims upon other sorts of Mineral Waters upon long standing being a blewish cream or skin which swims as well upon the Sweet-Spaw and any Vitrioline or other Mineral Waters and as Dr. Heer 's saith being put upon the fire is inflamed and yeelds a sulphureous odor The same is also found in an Azure coloured skin swimming upon the restagating Scarbrough Spaw Water Yea the like is frequently to be seen upon Water that stands long upon any Bog This Sulphureous skin which swims upon most Mineral Waters is referrable to a double Original viz. Either they are such as have a bituminous matter swimming upon them which with the Water Spring issues forth joyntly out of the bowels of the Earth from some sulphureous or bituminous source witness the Spring at Pitchford in Shropshire and in Averna in France The Mare Asphaliticum called Mare Mortuum which hath plenty of Naptha and Bitumen issuing from the Shores which have store of bituminous Pits As also that Water in agro Parmensi Falop. 24.6 according to Falopius of which Water he saith Est usque aduò bituminosis vaporibus referta ut ex flammâ vix sibi admaeâ accendatur And that likewise in agro Patavino and all other Waters upon which swim Camphire Amber in succo suo soluto both which by Falopius Cardanus Agricola and Casius are accounted è genere bituminis Pisasphaltum Petroleum Balsamus Indicus c. all which are reckoned as various species de genere bituminis in all which the bituminous skin will take fire and burn with a sulphureous flame for as no Oil so neither Sulphur nor the Bitumina will mingle per minima with Water Oyls and Sulphurs consisting of similar parts which bear no proportion with watery Particles unless the watery be subjugated by an oyly Ferment Or Secondly They are such as whilst in the bowels of the Earth are impregnated with Minerals although perhaps not sulphureous but when they come into the open Air presently especially by restagnation let fall their imbibed Ingredients and by continuance of time suffer a sulphureous matter to be generated de novo or rather indeed as I apprehend by long standing suffer the Air by a kind of putrefactive ferment to cause a slow resolution of the very compage of Water and in this gentle Analysis makes the restagnating Water cast its Sulphur which was not preexistent in the Water as a Mineral Sulphur but is as I said either a bituminous Cremor or a Sulphur of Water ingendred by a putrefactive resolution thereof which will being dryed take flame and burn That I might make a sesemblance of this Water the better to inquire into the nature thereof I took one ounce of Hepar Antimonii upon which pulverized I poured some warm Water into which
of Iron which is melted from the Iron-Mass in the Forge where Iron is made out of its Minera From what hath been already said there seems to be no small incouragement towards prosecuting a further discovery of the nature of this Water by digging the Spring and following it to the fource or original where it receives the first impregnation with Sulphur for I see nothing yet to the contrary that may perswade why it should not be found to be a hot Spring at that place where the first imbibition of Sulphur is especially if the succus Laâ—â—is calcari or Minera of Calx Vive be found with it which for ought I know might be found quivalent in vertue to the Aqua Aponensis that â—â—mâ—d hot Bath near Padua so much discoursed by â—â—lopius whom I find to enumerate the very same mineral Ingredients in that which I find by Experiment aforesaid to be in ours before its precipitation by an aluminous acid Juyce for he saith Certò tellegi illa tantum tria i. e Sal copiosum succum lapidis calcarii vaporem sulphureum in illâ Apounsi aquâ conteneri and saith further Est aqua ferventissima dum calida est sapit sulphur â—itumen refrigerata neutrum per se fert and speaking on of hot Waters saith Aquae Thermales quae actu frigidae scatent in suâ origine esse ferventes and that onely happens from the distance of space betwixt the impregnation of Waters first with their Minerals and their place of breaking forth And as Dr. Jordan saith That all hot Waters are not Sulphurous witness the Baths of Caldenella and Avenian c. which are all hot and yet give no sign of Sulphur proceeding rather from the Minera of Calx Vive or from other the like causes of hot Waters as aforesaid nor are all sulphurous Waters hot and that because of the distance of the Minera where the Water first receives heat from the eruption of the Spring-head Amongst these sulphurous Springs as some are replenished with a common Fossil Salt witness the Sulphur-Well we discourse of So there are found others no less sulphurous in taste and smell which yet have not the least specimen of any such Salt for instance One of the Springs which is in the black Bog where the Marcasites are got and one at Braughton not far from Skipton in Craven as also one I found in Ferndale upon Blacomore all which are caused by a combination of a mineral Sulphur and a natural Lime-stone the one opening the body of the other without the addition of any common Salt onely these Springs having imbibed these Minerals meeting afterwards with an acid Juyce of the Alom-Salt make a precipitation of the body of Sulphur and onely leaves the Water perfumed with the odor thereof That this Sulphur Water should coagulate Milk if boyled therewith proceeds from a sleight touch of the acid Juyce of Alom which although in the coagulation of the Sulphur it also precipitates a great part of its own body yet so much thereof remains as doth make it capable of curdling Milk for the Sulphur doth not in as much as it retains that coagulating property after the sulphurous odour being evaporated yea the very Salt left after distillation or evaporation will do the same nor may the common Salt the chief Ingredient of that Water do it because we see the contrary in putting Salt to Water and Milk which doth not curdle it therefore it must be from some small imbibition of the Alom-Salt which yet is so little in quantity as doth not alter the cubical figure of the common Salt And to try whether we could separate the common Salt from the body of the Sulphur Water and the Water only to retain the odour thereof I took of the sandy Earth which lies upon the Bank opposite to the Well wherewith I caused a tap'd Vessel to be filled upon which I ordered the Sulphur Water to be poured and about two hours and a half after during which time I was digging in the Bog above I caused some of it to be let forth at the Tap into a Glass and found its brackishness not only much diminished but that also it lost its sulphurous odor quite having not the least smell or taste thereof From which experiment may probably be confirmed these two Suppositions first That the breaking forth of this Spring is not far from the place of its imbibed Minerals for although it be so far as the first contracted heat is lost in its passage yet it 's not so far but that it retains its odor after the precipitation of the most part of the Sulphur by the acid aluminous Juyce Next That if this Sulphur Water had been carried through a longer tract of a supposed Strainer before its eruption it would not only have been diminished in its Salt but also its sulphurous odor would have been very weak if not wholly spent That the Earth about the Sulphur Well is replenished with variety of Mineral Glebes is evident from the diversity of Waters found thereabouts for near the Sulphur-Well there is not more then ten or twelve yeards distant upon the Banck on the other side of the current of Water a Spring which drills out of a small Alom Rock which leaves a red Sediment behind it and runs forth with so great a disadvantage as to the saving any of it clear that I could not that little time I had to stay procure any clear Water to make tryal thereof but it promiseth much for an Alom Spaw And in the black Bog about two hundred and forty yards above the head of this Well where the Marcasites are chiefly found are several slow Springs all which I have caused to be digged further that which lies on the North side of the Bog is that which the Water-women call improperly an Alom-Water this with a little Gall strikes a deep purple and in taste is very strong of the Vitrioline Marcasites yea the most of the Earth digged up is Vitrioline That Spring towards the West hath a both sulphurous odor and taste also but not very brackish this I caused to be digged a little depth to find out the Marcasites where we found many little metalline Stones perforated and corroded into Shells or Scales and worn as I may say into Sceletons I found in the Earth lying along the current of the Spring a bright Floscule which runs in streaks very thin and almost impalpable which lay much in Veins I look upon it as a crude mercurial Juyce which with its connate embryonative Sulphur was as a Seed laying a foundation for a mineral or metalline production the Spring by digging proved more large and fluent the Earth about it was a black soft marly Ground very unctuous and appeared as if it were much impregnated with Mineral Juyces the Earth grained dryed and burnt gives a Brimstone-like smell Those Marcasites we found were below the current of the Spring and therefore it
's likely that Water had not penetrated them for it gave no tincture with Galls The Spring towards the South had plenty of a black spongy Marcasite out of which we took several pieces yea all about that place is full thereof round about the sides and in one place where the Air had wrought upon the Marcasite it did shoot by the heat of the Sun into green Chrystals like Vitriol as indeed being nothing but Vitriol it self of which I have some by me The Water that stagnates there for it hath no current will with Galls give a deep purple tincture being very acid in taste and so undergoes the other mutation of colours like other Vitrioline Waters And now I have shown how Mineral Juyces by their coincidence and mutual contact with their various fermentations become the original efficients of Hot Baths and Sulphurous Waters in the secret Meanders of the Earth where Metals and Minerals are in solutis principiis in their primitive spermatick Juyces from whence proceeds the great variety of tastes smells alterations of colours fermentations and different operations of all Mineral Waters and as these are the true causes from whence the most natural Phaenomena of Concrets peculiarly belonging to the Mineral Kingdom are deducible so in like manner the various fermental Juyces which circulate in the Channels of the bodies of Animals and Vegetables are the causes of those manifold Phaenomena proper and incident to all Concrets belonging thereto For what is Heat Fermentation Motion Nutrition c. with all the concomitants thereof but products from the coincidence and combination of Seminal with adventitious Juyces of the bodies of Animals What are the Juyces of the Body undergoing various fermentations but such as thereby are made capable by a natural symetry of performing the functions of Life And what are the acid Juyces scituate in their proper places but actual Ferments which macerate prepare dissolve and digest the food we take in which being altered by its passage through other subsequent ferments undergoes various transmutations and diversifications which succeeding in a constant circulation upholds the fabrick of the body Doth not the natural heat of the body proceed from a due fermentation of the Juyces as when the nutritive Juyce undergoes such alterations by praevious preparations as when in the form of a milky Liquor it coincides with the blood in the subclavial Vessels and both carried by the Vaena Cava into the Heart doth there strike up a vital heat in the taper of life the vital Spirits but if it come raw for want of a due preparation by a defect of previous ferments then it produceth a spurious febrile heat which rather dissipates the natural heat and destroyes then binds up the right tone and texture of the parts And lastly Doth not the acid Juyce of the first digession of the Stomach dissolve loosening the Vinculum of our nutritive Juyce and so open the body thereof as to make it become one similar milky Cremer and doth not this dissolv'd and opened Chyle receive a second Menstruum coming from the Gaul that Balsam of the Body by the ductus communis inserted into the duodenum and there besides the peristaltick motion it gives to the intestines in part precipitates the opened body of the Sulphur of the nutritive Juyce and causeth a volatile faetid flatus peculiar to those parts which not finding vent per inferiora sometimes works into the Stomach and by the mediation of the Nerves of the sixth conjugation into the Head and other parts is not this faetid flatus native to the intestines caused by a commixture of a saline Ferment dismis'd I say from the Gaul which precipitates the opened body of the Sulphur in our nutritive Juyce which before such precipitation is a similar Cremor And to conclude is not the growth budding hearing and specifical endowments of Vegetables the product of fermenting Juyces And is not the changing of Fruits by grafting and inoculating one sort into another as that a pleasant Apple should grow from a Crab-stock and a Pear from a Thorn caused otherwise then by different fermentations and specifications of the nutritive Juyce which no sooner undergoes any different ferments or passeth various Strainers but forthwith becomes metamorphosed thereby so that the metastasis of all bodies in the whole triplicity of nature depends upon the variety of fermenting Juyces and their mutual complications implanted in the Seminal Principles of all Concretes But to return to treat a little of another Ingredient of this Well and that is Sal marine or Fossil Salt both are one that of the Sea having its original according to all probability from Fossil Salt concerning which I find my Antagonist p. 119.122 of his Mimick about to impeach me of two Contradictions the first is in that I say The saltness of the Sea proceeds from Fossil Salt which being dissolv'd in Water is carried into the Ocean and yet maintains a circulation of the Sea-Water from the Sea to the heads of Springs by Subterraneal Channels Now the force of the Contradiction as he supposeth lieth in this that he imagineth that I would assert that the same Channels should convey a Salt into the Sea and also convey the Sea-Water to the Springs two contrary Currents in the same Channels To which I answer That there is no need in that Hypothesis of the Springs having their original from the Sea and the Sea 's having its saltness from the Earth to assert two contrary Currents in the same Channels and that first because of some Rocks and Bodies of Salt which are often found in the Sea and next because of the saltness dispersed throughout the whole body of the Earth easily imbibed by Waters as the Learned Dr. Highmore notes upon the Controversie Philosophical Transactions Numb 56. P. 1129 c. and may as easily be conveighed into the Sea by Subterraneal Channels passing through Salt Beds in their passage from one Sea to another which Subterraneal Channels by which Seas communicate we have demonstratively illustrated in the Appendix to our Hydrol. Chym. p. 307 c. But I find my Antagonist taking sanctuary at his wonted Asylum of Putationary Philosophy comming in with his I do verily think that all the Fossil Salt in the body of the Earth which we see is very rarely found if it were dissolved would not serve to supply a twentieth part of the Salt that is in the Sea whom I answer That surely he is either ignorant or at least oblivious of what is writ concerning Rocks of Salt in Bohemia in Monte Carpato in Polonia within two miles of Cracovia in Helvetia and Rhetia where they have no other Salt but from the Rock as also by the Caspian Straights are great Rocks of Salt there are also many Rivers of Salt Water by the Caspian Straights and in Spain and Caria and in Bactria Ochus and Oxius also there are Salt Lakes as the Tarentine Lakes in Italy the Lake between Strapela and
Hydrological Essayes OR A VINDICATION OF Hydrologia Chymica Being a further Discovery of the Scarbrough Spaw And of the right use thereof And of the Sweet Spaw and Sulphur-Well at Knarsbrough With a brief Account of the Allom Works at Whitby Together with a return to some QUERIES propounded by the ingenious Dr. Dan. Foot concerning Mineral Waters To which is annexed An ANSWER to Dr. Tunstal's Book concerning the Scarbrough SPAW With an Appendix of the Anatomy of the German-Spaw And lastly Observations on the Dissection of a Woman who died of the Jaundice All grounded upon Reason and Experiment By WILLIAM SIMPSON Dr. in Physick and Practitioner at Wakefield in Yorkshire London Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswel at the two Angels Crown in Little-Britain 1670. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Impartial candid Reader IT is my hap once more to appear in publick being necessitated thereto in vindication of the truth I have asserted touching the Scarbrough-Spaw c. Were I not constrained and did not the expectation of many oblidge me thereto I could I confess as willingly have laid my Pen aside as have taken it up At the first glance upon my Antagonist's Book I thought he had some colour of Authority on his side but upon second and therefore more mature thoughts unravelling his Clew I found his quotations of Authors in general either impertinent nothing to the purpose in the main or their sence perverted and wrested or their words falsly translated out of the Latin This he who gives himself the trouble of reading his Book will find all along that where he falls short in strength of Argument he makes supplies in an over measure of Calumnies Taunts Scoffs and groundless Accusations Unto all which ungentile and unscholar-like usages I shall only answer by desiring thee Reader to consider That hereby he hath given me so much the advantage over him that I could not have wished for more or better for first I will remarke that his Morals and his Naturals are much of a scantling and it seems probable that he that taught him Physicks read Ethicks to him also and his mind in which they are implanted is equally productive of both measure one by the other and they differ not a â—airs breadth and either extends not beyond the dimensions of vulgar and weak Souls and Intellectuals Next let it be observed that it is the common guize of persons less fraught with right conceptions of things to defend them with disingenuous and discurteous Apologeticks as we see some soyls that naturally bear unsavory Weeds will amongst them put forth also Nettles and Thistles which shall prick and sting the fingers of that Weeder that aims at the improvement of that ground Again consider that thus he hath rendred himself an object of reproof not to say contempt and forgiveness which last I will only take the advantage of and here publickly give it to him and though it was his business to throw dirt mine shall be only to wipe iâ— off and calmly to tell thee Reader â— who threw it and why I should entertain thy eye but coursly enough to repeat his Repartees suffice iâ— therefore that I think them noâ— worthy a Reply not that I want sufficient Arguments or a competent testimony from others to vindicate my self and invalidate his unjust reproaches but judge it my concern to imploy my time at an other guess rate then to trifle it away with such impertinencies His Epistle goes off at the wrong end it was aim'd at me that stood before it but like a foul Gun it strikes the Discharger Can you Reader or I now help it However I shall prompt thee to carry it with thee to the Spaw for there both that and the whole Book may be of use to thee I confess I could have wished he had used his silence not for my sake but his own for then he might have passed for a wise man who now hath told you himself what he is and what he contains let this dragm of his Ethico-Physical Spirit inform your taste But I injure my assertions demonstrated by Reason and Experiments if I overween not truly sufficient Therefore Reader take no notice of immoralities which I am sure were once no Ingredients amongst the rest of the Spaw and their existency therein did appear as little as that of Vitriol yet oh the riddle I find by experience after all that they are therein for my Antagonist first discovered them there and of this I yeeld him the glory and tryumph but whisper to him it was his own infused addition and shall for the Drinker's sake desire him to throw no more such stuff and filth into those Waters which God and Nature have intended for other purposes Therefore once for all I shall desire the Impartial Reader to determine by the eye of his judgment which Arrow of the two stick nearest the mark levelled at without taking notice which hath the most or greatest Goose-feathers in their other ends and let his Opinion prevail of us two who hath wrote most truth and least calumny The method that I have observed is first to clear up those difficulties and to answer the most material Objections which my Antagonist urgeth and that too as they lay in my way confirming what I have before said by undeniable demonstration grounded upon Experiments adding new Observations pro re nata And for a further discovery of the nature of the other Medicinal Waters at Knarsbrough I have given a particular Discourse both of the Sweet-Spaw and Sulphur-Water found there where I have propounded some Experiments which not onely demonstrate the Nature and Essence of their constitutive Ingredients but also by the same may any simple Spring-Water plentifully to be found any where be made an artificial Mineral Water of the same taste and operation with those made by the wonderful Chymistry of Nature in the bowels of the Earth The Experiments which concern the sulphur-Sulphur-Water by an analogy all other the like Sulphur-Springs are such as no Author which I have yet met with who write upon those Waters have taken notice of which may probably yield no very small light for a further advancement of the knowledge of Sulphurous and other Mineral Waters And because the Essence of the Scarbrough Spaw consists most what of an Aluminous Salt therefore I judg'd it necessary to give an account of the Alom-Works at Whithy describing also the difference betwixt the natural and the factitious Alom comprizing the sum of the whole matter upon that Subject in a few short Corolaries When my Antagonist apprehended that he ran by a wrong byas in his opinion of the existence of Vitriol in the Scarbrough Spaw and that he had spent so many Pages of his Book to so little purpose indeavouring to prove right or wrong that to be in the Water which was ocularly demonstrated not to be even before his own face and in the presence of several Physitians Scholars and other
ingenious Gentlemen and after his last refuge to the ipse dixit of Doctor Tunstal when he had nothing to say for himself but that Dr. Tunstal told him that Vitriol was in it last year was it not a poor not to say childish way of Philosophyzing to ground what a man publisheth to the World upon the bare word and that but conjectural of an other man Now when my Antagonist was thus touched to the quick he call'd my ingenious Friend who had made the Experiment before him aside and told him That if I would then lay down the Cudgels he would not only look upon me as a Brother but also when occasion offered would sooner take me into consultation then any other By which may be concluded one of these two things viz. That either my Antagonist has given a wrong Character of me in his Book drawing my portraiture with as rude as well as unskilfully handled Pensils or he is willing to be accounted of as a Bifrons or else be likened to a Ferry-man who looks one way and rows another speaks one thing and thinks another and writes another But after and notwithstanding all this if my Antagonist shall at any time make any Experiments to the purpose and shall thence deduce due observations whereby the mechanical part of Philosophy may be improved I should as willingly receive them from him as from any other till then I advise him to lay aside his undue and improper contentions and let us love like Brethren for I do declare to the World that I have no enmity to his Person nor hath what I have done been trom any particular prejudice to him but to contend for the truth in things that respect my Profession and the publick good I must confess that as he has behav'd himself as a Magisterial Browbeater of ingenuity and has indeavoured to eclipse the Light of Truth made forth by Experiments discovering his darkness and ignorance in the things he treated of so far very probably I have been as a Remora to his proceeds yea and perhaps by my means he has reflected upon his high presumption of infallibly curing Diseases and knocking them down to use his own expression with the great Hammer whereas indeed the more a Physitian knows daily eying the conjectures whereon depends the practice of Physick the more cautious he is as to his Prognosticks and that in respect of the ignorance of the causes of things and whether such presumptuous Prognosticks if I should use them as my life for his he shall recover he is safe I wish I had a lease of his life c. in the management of the cure of Diseases when yet notwithstanding all these the Patient frequently dies would not be more an Argument that I am a Quack and Emperick rather then a sober Physitian let the Judicious determine And now I shall appeal to thee Reader whether what I have most-what urg'd both in my Hydrol. Chym. as also in this do not tend rather to an illustration of Truth in the discoveries of the Nature and Essence of Mineral and Medical Waters c. then to any verbal jangling Lastly Because I find not only my Person and my Apprehensions but also my Practice under his censure and contempt all styled by him as Chymical I cannot decline that none of the smallest measure of generosity I lay claim to but will now propose to him as a final decision of this matter under debate that we may measure abilities by that unerring Rule Dignoscitur Medicus à Medendo Let us now opportunely at this Spaw-time choose by lot such a number of persons chronically diseased not less then twenty and he of us that shall Citiùs tutiùs jucundiùs cure his number or the greater part thereof let him win both Field Spring and the other depart thence as vanquished either onely for this year or for ever Provided that if the agreement happen to be made only for this year that the vanquished may enter the next with new recruits and attempt afresh then and as often after as he pleaseth but every time the conquered shall depart for that year Pardon me Reader if herein I seem vain-glorious I can reflect so upon it as well as another but I submit to thy judgment whether a better expedient can be proposed to confront a man of words or whether my own just repute absit jactanctia verbis doth require less of me Or lastly whether the matter it self does not naturally lead thereunto And now to add more words will ill sute with this effort Therefore it onely remains that I inform thee I was willing to fill up some vacant Pages of this Tract not then finished with two particular Anatomies freshly made the first of the German Spaw-Water usually to be had in Amsterdam the other of a Woman who recently expired at Leiden of the Yellow-Jaundice both not so repleat with inconsiderables as not to purchase thy favourable acceptance of them from him who every way endeavours to exhibit himself Thine W. S. Hydrological Essayes OR A VINDICATION OF Hydrologia Chymica BEING A further Discovery of the Scarbrough Spaw And of the Sweet Spaw and Sulphur-Well at Knarsbrough With a brief Account of the Allom Works at Whitby Together with a return to some QUERIES propounded by the ingenious Dr. Dan. Foot concerning Mineral Waters To which is annexed An ANSWER to Dr. Tunstal's Book concerning the Scarbrough SPAW All grounded upon Reason Experiment By WILLIAM SIMPSON Dr. in Physick and Practitioner at Wakefield in Yorkshire London Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswel at the two Angels Crown in Little-Britain 1670. Hydrological Essayes OR A VINDICATION OF Hydrologia Chymica THat I may not be too prolix in ushering in this following Discourse by any Praeliminaries nor seem to make flourishes before a pass I shall therefore without making him a Leg forthwith close with my Antagonist at down-right Club-Arguments and my Weapons shall be taken up from his own Authors Yea I shall sometimes turn his own Artillery upon him to the wounding of himself The matter therefore that first and mainly offers it self in Controversie is this viz. Whether Vitriol or Iron are two distinct Ingredients or constitutive Principles of the Scarbrough-Spaw Now my Antagonist asserts that they are two distinct Principles of this Spaw I take it saith he to be Iron Mineral with a touch of the Vitriol or if you please ferrum vitriolatum or vitriolum ferragineum this is a natural Vitriol generated in the Veins of the Earth through which the Spring runs which hath by its acidity or esurine Salt actuated the Waters which thereby is inabled to corrode a Vein of Iron By which I perceive he looks upon Vitriol as a simple Salt without any dependance upon any Mineral or Metalline Body And as such hath no relation to Iron being quite another thing yet calls it ferrum vitriolatum or vitriolum ferrugineum hooking the Iron to partake of the Vitriol
whether they or your Patients do ever discern aâ— taste or smell of Iron from such Waters Doth no I pray the main reason of Chalybeat Extraction depend upon the reduction of Iron into a Croâ—â— or the acuation or Menstruums by Saline Spirits 〈◊〉 either of which there happens a solution of some the body of Iron into the Chalybeat Liquors which give them a sapor not a vapour It 's true if you â—â— rusty silings of Iron Water upon its affusion â—â— thereby have an Iron taste but this is by reason an acid Salt in the Air which hath fretted the 〈◊〉 and tâ—â—ned it into a Crocus of Iron and theâ— makes it yeeld a solution of some of its parts And now Hydroph by this time I think you and your Apothecaries Boyes have done laughing and may take time to turn your Vapours into Tears and spend them at your leasure Doth not Falopius p. 29 34. who had great experience in Mineral and Metalline Waters say Arbitror non reperiri aquam ferream for certainly if Iron would give it self immediately to Water then should we find frequently those aquae ferreae in places where Waters run through the minera thereof but no such by experience are found therefore our Argument will be strongly inforc'd a majore ad minorem viz. that if in the minera where the parts are more loose it will not yeeld its Vapour or Tincture to Water much less will the compact Body thereof which hath undergone the violence of the melting Forge do any such thing And whereas you cavel at my Philosophical Description of Ink made forth by Colateral Experiments of the Spaw if you could have carpt at any thing therein no question but you would or if you had given a better then you had done like an Artist and so might have passed it over with a joke for though the Subjects sometimes we treat of be but common obvious things yet they require a searching diligence and deep diving Philosophically to solve the abstrusities of the nice Compositions and Commixtures of Bodies to make their Phaenomaena obvious I pray saith my Antagonist p. 35 36. Are Iron and Vitriol all one I think they do as really differ as your Knife and your Ink. Do not all Authors as well Chymical as others that treat of them do it severally And doth not Paracelsus say Natura genorat salem vitriolum dictum c. Do not Gallen Mathiolus Sennertus Pliny Renedeus speak to the same purpose To which I answer That Iron and Vitriol may indeed be two distinct things but then the Vitriol must be such as is made out of some other Metal oâ— Mineral but if you query concerning natural acid Salt Iron as coexistent in the same Concrete theâ— I say they are both one viz. they both together make up that Concrete we call Vitriol from which if you separate the Iron what remains falls short oâ— being a Vitriol and becomes only a Salt which iâ— more simple than Vitriol as being indeed but one Ingredient thereof And out of such a Vitriol oâ— Iron if you be a good Metallurgist and skilful Mechanick you may make as good a Blade as you have a Haft for as to what you urge how that those Authors speak in confirmation of your supposition I am not much sollicitous especially if what they write come in competition with truth as iâ— results from matter of fact besides some of these Authors as they have occasion treat severally oâ— these Concrets as different Subjects and not as they bear any relation to each other in Mineral Solutions and Concretions and so indeed they are different and may be discoursed of as differently And as to what you repeat out of Paracelsus 〈◊〉 am not concern'd seeing he doth not confirm it by matter of fact nor by any evident demonstration I find Paracelsus very incautious in his assertions and as for true Physiology not much to be regarded besides what he there saith doth diametrically oppose what may be made evident by Experiment for he calls that a Salt which after separation of other Ingredients is yet reducible into a more simple Salt witness the Salt of Vitriols which is separable out of any natural Vitriol after the separation of the Mineral or Metalline parts Yea I will tell you Hydroph that if you can produce out of any of the aforesaid Authors so much experiment as to make evident by matter of fact what you would prove yea if you can shew me from any ingenious Chymical Artist to whom you must be beholden if ever it be done such a Vitriol either extracted from this Spaw or elsewhere that is such a simple Salt as from which I cannot separate a Mineral or Metalline Body or if you can separate a Vitriol out of the Spaw after the precipitation of the minera of Iron The Game I assure you shall be upon your side For where you instance what I say p. 47. of my Hydrol. Chym. in p. 105. of your Mamick viz. that I arguing against Vitriol as being inconsistent with that of Iron in the Spaw the reason you blusht not to urge why though Vitriol be in the Water yet it should not vomit was that we used it said you in Juleps and Cordials which doth not cause Vomiting which you confirm and say That the main part of the Vitriol in this Water is the Spirit which is as much yea far more diluted with the Water wherein it is than the force of the Vitriol is corrected by the vehement heat of the fire in the distilling of the Spirit thereof Now to come to the point Hydroph if it were certainly true what you say that the main part of the Vitriol in the Water is the Spirit then it would without controversie demonstrate it self by distillation For seeing according to your own supposition the Vitriol is in Spirits in the Water and these Spirits are also very subtile volatile and penetrative therefore of necessity upon distillation of these Waters fresh from the Spring these Spirits should arise first but that they do not I can assure you by matter of Experiment for I distilled some fresh Water from the Fountain in a Glass Retort at Scarbrough whose joynts was exactly closed up I sav'd the first half ounce yea and in another distillation of fresh Water the first quarter of an ounce of Water which came over supposing that if any volatile vitrioline Spirits would come it would be at the very first whose taste or smell did not I affirm at all resemble the Spirits of Vitriol which according to your Hypothesis they should have done But suppose that what had come off at the first had been of the nature of vitrioline Spirits and had by the sharpness of their taste and sulphureousness of their odour demonstrated themselves to have been such which yet I assure you hapned to the contrary yet would it not thence have followed that these had been Vitriol as you assert for it is if I mistake
violent fire among which he reckons Iron will not calcine into a Pouder out of which Salt may be extracted But in scorias Crocos convertuntur neutiquam in cineres quibus verum Sal eliciend Thus far you have from Snelfer here you stay not but you borrow anothers Weapons and forthwith become lyable to have them turn'd upon your self for presently you pass into tearms expresly contradictory to what you bring him in to vindicate Your words run thus Now if so quoth Hydroph why then should these men expect that these Minerals should calcine in scorias Crocos And p. 67. speaking of Iron precipitated This say you I calcin'd in a Crucible in a very strong sire and it became of a dark brown colour and turns to a gross Pouder hard as a Cinder and is no other than the Scoria of Iron After calcination I dissolv'd and evaporated it it afforded a brownish floscule very sharp and biting upon the tongue Now Hydroph pray you observe the plainness of the contradiction for first you produce Snelfer urging that Iron will not calcine into a Pouder out of which Salt may be extracted and yet you say you calcined the precipitated Iron of the Spaw with a strong fire and it turned to a gross Pouder as hard as a Cinder out of which by solution and evaporation you can get a brownish floscule very sharp and biting which you confess to be a Salt first by saying p. 67. that the Water where the solution is made is brackish next to which you expresly call it a Salt saying The Liquor will have a strong taste from the Salt which opens Obstructions and is the Ingredient in our Water So that being incautious of what you lately urg'd out of this Author and being byas'd by colateral experiments you presently even unwarily fall foul upon the very Author you even now quoted by contradicting those very words you expos'd for the vindicating your own assertions And whereas you urge the same Authors words viz. Sed in Scorias Crocos convertuntur if you proceed you will find him to continue on with these words Qui Croci tamen nil nisi Scoriae sunt in minutissimas atomos conversae veluti in terram mortuam insipidam è quibus Sal aquâ affusâ elici nequeat For the scope of this Author in that place is to answer these three considerable Queries The first Whether any Metal may be truly calcined and brought into real Ashes from which a Salt map be extracted which in his Discourse he determines in the Negative Secondly Whether an extraction of the same Sugar or Salt of Lead and consequently of Vitriol c. be a true extraction or only a solution the latter of which he affirms demonstrably The third and last Whether this or any other Salt or solution may be edulcorated by solution filtration and evaporation which he denies evidently Now as to the first He denies that any Metal may by force of fire be reduced in Scorias Crocos vel Cineres from whence any Salt may be extracted and yet you say Hydroph p. 79. That the deopilative property of Iron lies in a Volatile Salt with which it abounds which you say you can extract and is the Ingredient in the Water so that it seems it 's the Volatile Salt of Iron and not the body of Iron is the Ingredient of the Spaw Surely Hydroph if there were a Salt in Iron yea and that Salt volatile too as your own words express why should not it have taken wing by force of fire at the melting Forge where the Iron is melted and separated from its drossie earth by which I conclude you were more taken with the nearness and novelty of the word Volatile Salt then with the truth of what should be intimated thereby but your Tyrociny in these abstruse studies plead your excuse yea the rawness or rather lightness of your experiment p. 80. doth upon that account call for some more grains of allowance where you say That if filings of Iron and Steel be cast into a flame of a Candle that they burn like Salt-Peter or Rosin which you suppose to happen from thevolatile Salt as if that gave the flamability whereas amongst the whole Classis of simple volatile Salts there are none found to be flamable simple I said because in the complication of these with other volatile Spirits somewhat sulphurous may arise as that of the Offa made with other volatile Spirits of Urine c. with Spirit of Wine for it is the essential property of sulphureous Spirits or Bodies to take flame and burn but not of volatile Salts and that it is so appears further in that we have sometime extracted out of Iron Aqua Fortis or Spirit of Vitriol a combustable Sulphur But to pass to your third Argument Why Vitriol as you say must be in the Spaw and that is by reason of the deep tincture that the Water takes from the Gall more then any other you have seen or read of which cannot you say come from the Alom To which I answer That if we can demonstrate by matter of fact that Alom will give this tincture and that whether calcin'd or crude then must this your great Argument fall but both my self and my ingenious Friend have demonstrated before you and the Gentlemen at the Spaw at several times that both will readily give a Purple tincture being dissolv'd in fresh Water with the addition of Gall yea and will both undergoe the same mutations of colour with that of the Spaw by the addition of the like Spirits and Liquors as I have in my Book already and I may afterwards take occasion further to illustrate Your last Argument is assumed from a vitrioline Salt which you say sweats out of the Cliff of a dark yellow colour very sharp to the taste even far beyond Nitre or Alom My answer is That you have no ground to suspect that dark yellow coloured Salt to be Vitriol seeing there are no vitrioline Marcasities to be found all along that Cliff where that Earth or Salt is found for I have with much diligence searched the Bank but could find no vitrioline Stones at all And seeing as you may further see in our Hydrol. Chym. that all Salts reside in their own proper and peculiar mineral Beds Urpote in toris suis mineralibus Therefore where Vitriol Stones are found Vitriol is made And where the Alom Glebe is found Alom is made Now where both Minerals are found there is both Vitriol and Alom as I have sometimes seen in a parcel of common Vitriol where the natural Alom hath also been intermixed being shot forth in white Chrystals amongst the green Cubick Chrystals of the Vitriol So that Vitriol is never made out of the Alom Stone nor Alom out of the Vitriol Marcasite but each are got distinctly out of their own Mineral Glebes otherwise the Vitriol and Alom workers would be grosly mistaken viz. if the Alom-worker should out
mixed therewith they reject which I cannot better parallel then with those unripe Mines which the Cole-miners often upon digging find and call Smitts as being an imperfect Cole whose Sulphur is not brought to maturity wherefore they reject it as an unprofitable and useless Fuel and yet these may no less be reputed Coles then the other unripe Alom Stone may be accounted Alom Minera so that to expect that these crude Stones or Earth which are akin to true Alom Stone should give a tincture with Galls in fresh Water as some not very cautiously have attempted is no less irrational then to expect from these Smitts all the essential qualifications belonging to the true ripe Cole though both are Cole Next I observe that when they have pitch'd upon the right Minera of Alom they calcine it thus first digging great quantities thereof then heaping it Stratum super Stratum viz. a layer of Coals and a layer of Stones piling them up a great height in a vast bulk like a little Mountain they fire it below and so let it burn day and night till the fire of its own accord ceaseth or rather till all that is combustible be spent when the Stone hath throughly taken fire the whole Mass burns much more intensely then at the first and that because of a plenteous Sulphur connate with the Stone which then becomes fired and is thrust forth to the superficies of the Alom Stone being a real combustible Sulphur which as a Crust cleaves to the Minera of which I have some by me sent by an ingenious Friend Thirdly We observe that this Calcination is therefore made of the Minera that it may the better and more plentifully yeeld its innate Salt partly by opening the body thereof by this previous Calcination and partly by preparing it for a Magnet for the nitrous Particles flowing from the Air to settle thereon with which by being the longer exposed to the Air it becomes the more saturated plentifully I said because the natural Stone unprepared or calcined will sometimes separate its connate Salt to the superficies thereof by the bare solitary heat of the Sun as I am by an Autopsie confirmed in that I have sometime seen an Alom Slate spontaneously sweat forth its own Salt which being dissolv'd in fresh Spring Water with the addition of Galls I found would immediately strike a deep purple and with Oil of Sulphur and Vitriol become clear and then opace again with the addition of Tartar c. Fourthly The Minera being thus opened by the Calcination they make a Lee thereof in Pirs made within the ground which run one into another by Pipes or Channels this Lee or Solution they pump into Troughs which conveigh it into leaden Cisterns which will with Galls strike a deep purple colour whereof they have whole Tuns which will give that tincture as any who pleaseth may try This Liquor consists both of a Sulphur Alom Salt and an Oaker which as it runs along the Troughs drills in some places through the crevices thereof and by the heat of the Sun is congealed into Salt of which I procured a quantity to make Experiments with This Salt will also being dissolved in fresh Spring Water and filtred give the purple colour with the addition of Galls Fifthly This Lee boyl'd up to such a height in leaden Cisterns is pump'd into other Cisterns and there it precipitates a great quantity of a yellow sulphureous earthy Sediment and so becomes purged of its dross then is it conveyed into other Cisterns where it meets with a decocted Lee of Kelp and Urine and thence if I mistake not is pump'd up into the first Cistern and boyl'd again then le ts fall another Sediment and then is sent into low Cisterns within the ground where it in part shoots what doth not shoot is pumped up into a boyling Cistern and therein is brought to its due height then is it pumped into great Tun Caskes where it shoots into that form we find the factitious Alom of To the last decoction in the boyling Cisterns is alwayes added its Mother which is a Liquor which alwayes remains after shooting and contributes much towards the chrystallizing of fresh Alom Liquor But in their last decoction which is performed in their roaching Pan they boyl up that part which before was shot into grains in the lower Cisterns together with that which did not shoot and all after the mixture with the additional Salts into a due consistence and so they let it run into the foresaid Tun-Casks to shoot That this aluminous Salt is esurine and sharp as we have said in our Hydrol. Chym. as well as that of Vitriol is evident by the Experiment of putting a plate of Iron suppose of about a quarter of a pound weight into the last boyling Liquor which I caus'd to be tryed which in a few hours was totally corroded and dissolved which in longer time would scarcely be toucht when covered with a broad cloth shred or list and what is remarkable in this but common to other mineral menstruum fretting their proper bodies was that while the Iron was dissolving the Liquor did ferment boyl and rage more than ordinarily which when the Solution was over ceased although I must confess that it 's probable that the addition of the Salts of Kelp and Urine may promote the corrosiveness of this Liquor and may make it the more readily dissolve Iron and perhaps other Metals if they were tryed in it And were these Salts of Kelp totally alkalizate after the manner of the fixed Salts of common Vegetables made by the calcination of Plants by naked force of fire would certainly prove destructive to the Alom Work and that because the last are indued with a saltiness contrary and quite destructive to all acid Salts which after a sharp contest would terminate not in Alom but in a neutrum quid viz. Tartarum Aluminosum But the Lee made out of the burnt Sea-wrack or Kelp is over halanc'd with a Marine Salt which by a continual pressure or agitation of parts works it self into the texture of those Sea-faring Plants by unhinging some parts of their first composition whence the brackishness and sulphureous twang of the Lee of Kelp is produced The addition of those Salts viz. of Kelp and Urine perform two things viz. first cause a further separation of a Sediment by the precipitation of a kind of Oaker from the Alom Liquor and next to that they add weight and a third is not wanting viz. to help the chrystallizing or shooting of Alom the first of which is evident because the artificial Alom will not with Galls strike a purple colour but the natural Alom with its imbred Oaker will the last is as apparent because I have observed the natural to shoot in a different form from the Artificial as I can shew After the shooting of the Alom those yellow and green sordes which are rejected are used as a manure to some grounds and that because
the longer these Marcasites are exposed to the open Air the more they become fraught with a vitrioline body contracting a Crust which by solution filtration c. will easily resolve into a body of Vitriol Thirdly That these and their connatural and analogous Juyces do increase and suo more vegetate in the Earth as other Minerals do is apparent in that I have observed a piece of Wood invelloped with a vitrioline Crust found in the Earth where other Marcasites of the like nature have been digged which I keep by me Fourthly That these Marcasites the nearer they lie to the surface of the Earth and the more patent the Channels are by which currents of Spring Water glide by them the more readily they give their tincture or yeeld a solution of their substance whence some vitrioline Springs or Spaws become stronger both in taste and operation then others and this is evident because of the facile ingress the Air hath to these places Nor may this contradict what we elsewhere say viz. That an Esurine Acidity preying upon the Minera of Iron gets a sleight touch therefrom and so becomes as Vitriol of the Minera of Iron which gives essence to the Vitrioline or Sweet-Spaw at Knarsbrough for both may be true though in various respects from different Soyls in as much as there are even in these Marcasites a connatural acid Juyce reasolvable by the confluence of Air which seizeth on an embryonative Sulphur of Iron essential to those Concretes which are carried together in their mutual imbraces by a preterlabent Spring of Water unto the place where they break forth called a Spring-head which gives Original to all or most of the Spaws called Fontes acidi So that all Vitrioline Spaws are reducible to one of these two Causes viz. Either to a sulphureous acid Spirit dissolv'd in a Water-Spring passing through the Minera of Iron the acidity dissolving the looser parts thereof and coagulating it self thereon or to the foresaid Vitrioline Marcasites whose acidity being resolv'd by the Air in the bowels of Earth takes along with it the connate immature Sulphur or loose vitrioline Ocre and both in one gives essence to these Mineral Waters and from theâ— two causes singly and joyntly do the Spaws of Knarsbrough Rotheram Oulton Turnbridg Astrap c. take their Original amongst which those that have but sleighter touches of the Minerals and consequently do the more readily suffer a precipitation of their Earth or Ocre fetch their Mineral in a longer line from the place of their Eruption and that too perhaps from Marcasites more penurious and less opened then others which keep their Minerals unprecipitated and consequently their Vertues the longer These Marcasites calcin'd in a Crucible with a blast will melt and flow especially helped with Nitre which melted Mass being poured forth gives no Regulus or metalline body nor is so pondrous as it was before but hath some bright yellow or cuprous sparkles interspers'd This in two dayes time doth almost all fall to a black Pouder much like what I remember hapned to a Scoria of Iron in the making Regulus Martis which being laid open to the Air did in a few dayes fall into a black Pouder Wherefore these Stones are without doubt a Metalline Embryo consisting of a Salt and inflammable Sulphur which hath scarce begun the matrimonial embraces of its Mercury and therefore at the best is but a Mineral in the road to metallization and being plentifully impregnated with an acid sulphureous Salt whose other Ingredients hanging but loosly on makes it the more readily soluble in a preterlabent Spring of Water for I have for experiment sake onely suffered simple distilled Water to slide over one of them and have found thereby that the Water would by so sleight a gliding over strike a purple tincture with Galls which it will do again and again to fresh Water yeelding thereby an inexhaustible treasure to the transient Springs of Water Amongst these Marcasites I have one by me bright and sparkling cut into curious angular forms like so many Diamonds of several sizes set in a Ground as if Nature in this neat peice of work did vie with Art And yet in the very Interstices of these Diamond-like cuts betwixt each other is conspicuous the Mineral Salt which gives Essence and Operation to most of the Vitrioline Spaws Some Mineral Waters may I confess be such as are only acid being only impregnated with the Esurine Salt of the Earth and have no addition in them of Mineral Sulphurs neither of Iron nor Copper of which sort I have tasted one near Chesterfield in Derbyshire which hath a very strong sowrishness but yet with Galls gives no tincture although I found a reddish Ocre to lie along the sides of the Current The like I doubt not may be found in other places all which may notwithstanding prove very good Waters to open Obstructions in the body of man by their penetrative Vertues Lastly A solution of Salt of Iron in Water with Galls gives a deep purple tincture and passeth all other mutations of colours answerable to all natural Mineral Waters But the solution of Roman Vitriol with Galls added gives no purple colour but becomes a muddied Liquor which with Oyl of Tartar assused becomes greenish but with Oyl of Sulphur wholly green The same alterations doth Viride Aeris suffer with the same additions But Roman Vitriol infus'd in a weak Spirit of Urine gives a blew tincture which will not be altered by the addition of Alome The same doth Viride Aeris dissolved in Water Whence by the by I conclude Roman Vitriol to be factitious made up sometimes of Alom with a tincture of Copper taken in a weak Spirit of Wine or the Phlegm thereof and so caused to shoot into Chrystals A further Account of the Sulphur-Well At KNARSBROUGH As also concerning The Original of Hot Baths and Sulphureous Waters WHat I have said in my Hydrolog Chym. concerning the essential cause of this Mineral-Water viz. That it consists as a Spaw of a Sal-marine or fossile Salt which differ not either materially or formally impregnated with an embryonative faetid Sulphur or rather sulphureous odour is I say true and may be illustrated after a double manner And that first by the collateral Experiments I have there inserted concerning an embryonative Sulphur as faetid as this Spaw Water it self close locked up in the body of Sal-marine as at large is made evident by that Experiment which I shall not now insist upon But secondly and now more to the purpose the same will better be discovered by a fresh light let in by some new Experiments only before I proceed to produce what I have to urge herein I shall first taking things as they lie in my way make an inquiery what Ingredients are not though by some supposed to be in this Spring viz. That neither Vitriol Nitre nor Sulphur as to the body thereof are the constitutive Principles hereof First That Vitriol is not
much more of those Minerals then else the Mine would yeeld as the learned Dr. Jorden in his Discourse of Natural Baths and the ingenious Dr. Power in his Micros obs Confirmes yea and that Brass lumps which are a sort of Marcafite being laid in heaps and exposed to the moist Air or sprinkled with Water will smoke and grow exceeding hot and sometimes take fire and burn all that is about it as the foresaid Dr. Power proves So the Mines of Tin-Glass exposed after the same manner to the moist Air will become very hot and Quick-Lime will do the same The like Dr. Jorden observes in those Stone Coals called Metal Coals which are mixed with a Marcasite containing some Mineral Juyce which receiving moisture doth dilate it self and grow so hot as oftentimes great heaps of those Coals are kindled thereby and burnt before their time as hath been seen at Puddle-Wharf in London and at Newcastle although these last I account do not much differ from the aforesaid Coperas Marcasite Now seeing that all combustible Concretes may contract a heat yea may actually take flame and burn from some of the foresaid causes witness the heating and firing of a Coach-Wheel by too rapid a motion the burning of Houses Trees Men c. by Lightning and Thunder the taking flame of one combustible matter by another and lastly the self-inkindling of a Ryck of Hay or Corn which hath been laid up too moist and the taking fire of several Marcasites by being exposed to the moist Air as aforesaid Therefore I see no reason why a Meteor or Comet which suppose brought to that body of sulphurous Exhalations and taking flame from its own motion or from Lightning or from what other cause should less be reputed an Elementary Fire sub Concavo Lunae then those subterraneal fires kindled according to all probability occasionally not to say accidentally quoad nos from some of the foresaid causes should be accounted native to the Earth or naturally implanted therein for the production of all Mineral and Metalline bodies so that as the one is irrational and is exploded by our modern Philosophers so consequently the other may seem as irrational if we do but further consider First How impossible it is for actual fire to become the cause of generation of Minerals or Metals as some suppose who imagine the Fire as a Native born in the Earth seeing fire I mean flaming or glowing fire is by the gravest of Philosophers so far rejected from amongst the causes of Generation as it is rather justly to be reputed mors rerum artificiosa the death or destroyer of all things committing actual rapine upon all the Seminary Principles of bodies which fall under its tyranny dispersing and dissipating those Concretions suddenly which Nature helped by a generative heat working upon imbred Seminals had taken a long time to compile together making havock of the neat Structures of Bodies Secondly How unlikely it is for Water to be so disposed in the Earth in what Vessels can it be imagined to lodg Yea how these fancied Hydrophylacia can be so well placed as they may best be capable to receive the fires from the as much fancied Pyrophylacia without danger of the Waters falling upon the fires and quenching them so as to make the heated Hydrophylacia the cause of Hot Baths for cannot Water as easily descend or slip down those small Chinks and Cranies and smother that Demigorgon as the fire could ascend to heat these Cisterns of Water unless we imagine the Water included in some vast Kettles and so was heated by the playing of the flames about and then we must be forced to think of a Vulcan to be before his Fires who must first hammer out these large Caldrons preparing empty Vessels for us to fill with our watery conceits Thirdly If we should grant the possibility of these actual Subterraneal Fires as connatural to the Earth why should we not find Minerals and Metals melted instead of being generated and why we should not where these fires meet with Vitriol and Nitre or Vitriol and Salt find store of Aqua Fortis and meeting with Sulphur should not give us plenty of Oil of Sulphur tanquam per campanam being the winding Crevices of the Earth would do the like as Glass Bells for condenâ—ing the Vapours of fired Sulphur into a Liquor and meeting with Vitriol or Alom-stone should not calcine them to our hand so as instead of Vitriol we should find Colcothar and instead of Antimony we should find either stibium or regulus or the sublim'd flowers and so I could hold on to number up many more absurdities that would necessarily follow Fourthly If we consider how easily combustible Concrets in the bowels of the Earth where plenty of bituminous and sulphurous matter is found may and probably hath been kindled either by Lightning or by catching flame from some burning body or lastly by some of their Marcasites expos'd to the moist Air or to whom a moist Air hath had access for being once fired vires acquirit eundo it burns on as long as it finds Fuel and where store of combustible matter is as without doubt there is in all the Vulcano's there cannot but be plenty of Heterogeneous mixtures as of Stone Gravel Earth c. which together with the combustible matter is thrown up at the mouths of those subterraneous Furnaces which if they as by continuance of time may by constant burning so undermine the ground as at some times a vast quantity of Earth and other Rubbish fall upon it then being forc't to seek another passage forth and cannot suddenly or at least not so much as the force of the fire requires it being obstructed in its passage causeth Earthquakes but at last finding vent makes new Eruptions thrown forth in such abundance of Stones and Earth as sometimes is sufficient if it happen under the Sea to make a new Island witness what Kircher reports hapned Kirch Mund. Subter pag. 77. Anno. 1638. ad insulam Sti. Michaelis in Mari Athlantico Stimulantibus ignibus subterraneis tantum lapidum in medio Maris egestum fuit ut inde insula lapidibus in montes custervatis nata sese ad quinque milliarium latitudinem extenderit As also in Agro Puteolano Novus mons ex Mari unius noctis saevientis naturae subterraneae violentia protuberans also Vulcanus Liparitanus he further adds Tantum cinerum saxorum que ante annos circiter sexaginta speaking from the time his Book was writ ejecisse fertur ut juxta sese in medio Mari quem ideò vulcanellum veluti filium a patre genitum vocant produxerit which he confirms by his own Observation And to confirm further what we say concerning the occasional or accidental inkindling of combustible matter in the intrals of the Earth I shall call in a Testimonial Instance out of Mr. Burton's History of Leicestershire who saith That at Coal-Eaton in that County in the beginning of the
Reign of King Henry the Eighth the Coal-Mines there did burn for many years together and could not be quenched until the sulphurous and brimstony matter whereupon it wrought was utterly exhausted and consumed The like fire in Coal-Mines was in the year 1622. burning near Willingsworth and Weddesbury in the County of Stafford not unlike which was a sudden eruption of fire in the Coal-Mines at Sunderland in the County of Durham as I was informed by my learned Friend Mr. J. H. who had it confirmed by a Gentleman of that County who had been Page to King James where by a sudden eruption of fire to the number of about five persons working in the bottom of the Pit were consumed and destroyed several of their Members as Arms Legs c. were found torn from their bodies The last instance might be a sulphureous Damp or arsenical malignant Steam arising from the commixture of heterogeneal mineral Juyces or Spirits which by the flame of a Candle which the Miners frequently have to work by day and night might very probably take fire and so by its unimaginable force might easily act that Tragical Scene The other Instances evidence the possibility of Subterraneal Fires from occasional and accidental Causes which may not unlikely be transferred I mean from the like causes to those Ignivomous Mountains Aetna Vesuvius Strongilo c. So that as a Subterraneal Fire was inkindled in Coal-Mines which continued for many years during which time it was as real subterraneal Fire and as probable from the same causes as those fired Mountains aforesaid Only the main Objection I meet with is the perpetuation of those bituminous and sulphurous Fires of the flaming Furnaces of Aetna Vesuvius c. which those other fires in coal-mines do not therefore as some suppose are sed by a large-Central or Abyssal Fire witness Kircher Abyssorum omnium pyrophylacticarum maximam sancti patres in centro terrae non incongrue statuerint eternum improbis ad penam destinatum carcerem which as he supposeth is no less then Hell Fire and the Confines thereof to be his other Pyrophylacia which heat the Hydrophylacia and gives Original to all Hot Baths which being a figment from the Center to the Circumference from the beginning to the end I shall not take so much liberty now as to insist upon it The Reason I would say why the Vulcano's are kept burning with a perpetual Fire is the vast quantities of bituminous and sulphureous matter lodg'd in those great Hills which having once taken fire burn on and then comes about in a great round and as it hath consumed the combustible matter on one side it goes further on to consume the other which whilst it 's doing that vacant part retaining yet especially in the Earth thereabouts the Seeds of those sulphurous mineral Concretes produceth the like de novo wch becomes fresh Fuel when the Fire wheels about again still the Mineral Seeds being at work produceth fresh Minerals in the deserted spaces where the Earth yet retains the seminal Juyces of those combustible Bodies and thus may the Circle of those Subterraneal Fires be perpetuated and not fed from any Central or Hell Fire implanted in the Earth which may well be confirmed in as much as it is observed that Minerals and Metals are generated anew in the same places out of which they have been formerly digged witness the profit Falopius saith the Duke of Florence hath by it and what Sandiv saith That there have been Metals found in Mountains where formerly there have been none left Thus not onely Nitre is afresh to be got out of the same Earth it was formerly extracted from but the like is observed in the Minerals of Vitriol and Alom yea the Generation of Metals are not terminated with one production it ceaseth not there but the Mineral Seed gathereth strength by inlarging it self continually proceeds to subjugate more matter under its Government so as where once a Generation is begun it continues many Ages and seldom gives over Thus Dr. Jordan hath observed from the Tinners in Cornwall That they have after thirty years found Tin generated de novo where it hath been formerly all digged up and filled with Earth The like hath been observed of Iron in the Mines of Ilva an Island in the Adriatick Sea under the Venetians where the Iron breeds continually as fast as they can work it which is confirmed by Agricola and Baccius The like at Saga in Ligiis where they as the same Dr. Jordan observeth dig again their Iron-Mines every tenth year Mothesius gives examples of almost all sorts of Minerals and Metals which he hath observed to grow and regenerate Erastus as Dr. J. notes affirms that he saw in S. Joachims Dale Silver grown upon a Beam of Wood which was placed in the Pit to support the works The like of reproductions of Metals is also observed in the Lead-Mines at Mendip and the Peak which do not only stretch further in extent of ground then hath been observed heretofore but also are renewed in the same ground which hath been formerly wrought But to return Now as these Subterraneal Fires are not for reasons aforesaid native to the Earth nor are Elementary in Centro Terrae more then sub Concavo Lunae so consequently neither are they causes in general of our Hot Baths or sulphureous Springs for as there are no Subterraneal Fires found either near our Hot Baths or our Sulphur Waters witness the digging to the Source of a hot Water by the charge and industry of M. de Rochas which in our Hydrol. Chym. we further insist upon where the Earth was digged beyond the original of the Waters heating and yet not the least specimen of any actual or Elementary Fire being only produced from a vivid nitrous or hermetick Salt as he calls it frequently ingendred de novo touching upon a Mineral Bed of Sulphur Vive from whose mutual contact that Hot Bath proceeded Nay besides this suppose we should for indulgence sake admit of a Central or Elementary Subterraneal Fire keept burning by a sulphureous Matter yet would it not even hence follow that our hot Baths or sulphureous Matters should frequently have their original thence and that first because suppose Sulphur burning actually and that whether set on fire by any of the aforesaid causes or by Central Fire or as you will yet shall this Sulphur heat no further then the inkindled flames reach no more then Sulphur burning under a Glass Campane for the making its Oyl doth heat further then the Glass it toucheth so that the actual flame heats but so doth not the fume thereof for suppose that the actual flames of Sulphur should touch upon and heat the Water why might we not as easily imagine the Water to quench the Fire as the Fire to heat the Water Nay further Suppose we should grant that the flame should not heat Water immediately but mediately by heating other bodies as Stones c. over which
the Water in cuniculis propriis passeth according to Falopius yet not a few absurdities would hence follow as how these flames should burn under a Quarry of Stones when thereby intercepted from Air the life of Fire without which it exists not Next how these hot Baths should then become impregnated with the medicinal vertues of Sulphur seeing by this Supposition the Water would want both the flame and fume of Sulphur My second Reason why upon admission that though a flagrable sulphurous matter should be burning in the bowels of the Earth yet should it not be the cause of hot Baths is because then generally all hot Waters would have a strong Brimstone-like smell like the odor of Wine or Ale matched or fumed with Brimstone in Bottles or like the fumes of Sulphur which arise in the distillation of its Oil per campanam of which smell amongst all hot Baths I read of none which yeeld it My third Argument is grounded upon matter of fact in this following Experiment viz. Take a mineral Sulphur whether Vive or in a Marcasite as of Vitriol c. put it in pieces in an Earthen Retort and give degrees of fire under it in a Furnace where because the fire comes not actually to it it flames not urge this so as all the Fumes which are dry ones called Flowers shall pass through the Neck into a Receiver fill'd most-what with Water so placed as that these fumes all fall and condense upon the surface of the Water which they will do in an unctuous substance like Oil of Wax or Amber congealing by degrees and becoming harder they fall down to the bottom in bright flakes of Brimstone by which way I have got a Sulphur out of the Marcasites of Vitriol found in the Bog near the Sulphur-Well Now the Fire as I said drives forth the dry fumes or flowers these coming in a vapor condense upon the surface of the Water in the Receiver and yet which is what I aim at this Water hath neither taste nor smell like that of our Sulphur Well at Knarsbrough So that neither an actual or immediate firing of Sulphur as is done in the making its Oil nor a distilling or subliming of it by a Fire ab extra whereby Sulphur becomes separated from a Vitrioline Marcasite will give to Water either the like taste or odour with the Sulphur-Well and therefore we must conclude that it s faetid odour is not caused from any Vapors of burning Bitumen or Sulphur whether imagined to be done in open passages or close Caverns of the Earth Having thus far refuted and that I hope demonstratively the Opinions of Hot Baths and Sulphur Waters taking their Original from imbred subterraneal Fires I shall now propound my own Observation in the fabrick of the like Waters artificially performed in imitation of the natural I tryed therefore whether Sal Armoniack mixed with a Mineral Sulphur and so dissolv'd together in a distilled Water would at all open the body of Sulphur into which when filtred I poured some Solution of Alom-stone but it caused no precipitation nor made any discovery of any dissolv'd Sulphur also into a little of the clear Solution I poured some Oil of Tartar per deliquium and thereby found it raised a volatile Spirit out of the Armoniack which would smite the Nose but perceived not the least odor of Sulphur So that I observed that neither Sal marine alone or joyned with Nitre nor Sal Armoniack compounded of a Sal marine and Volatile Salts would any of them be sufficient to open the body of Sulphur in its Mineral Marcasites At length after various Experiments I hit upon that which answered my expectation and satisfied my curiosity and for the further improvement of ingenuity and as a Spur to the greater advancement of Mechanical Experiments shall communicate that to the World which all the Writers of those Sulphurous Waters which I have yet met with have been deficient in I took therefore a pint of Spring-water in which I dissolv'd betwixt one and two dragms of Sal marine in frigido for about that quantity the Sulphur Water contains of common Salt into which Solution of Salt in Water I added of Calx Vive and the Marcasites of Vitriol found near the Sulphur-Well grosly pulverised about two or three ounces which presently contracted a considerable heat I poured off some of the Water into which filtred I poured a little Solution of the simple Alom-Salt and it immediately caused a precipitation of a Sulphur and sent forth the very smell yea had the exact taste of the Sulphur-Well This Experiment thus succeeding gratified me for my pains in others less successful for that which I long'd to know was What that Menstruum should be which might so open the body of Sulphur in the Marcasites as might render it capable of a precipitation or coagulation by another second Menstruum or Acid Liquor seeing we could imagine no lixivial Salts could be found in the bowels of the Earth which commonly is used for the opening the body of Sulphur Therefore I thought it might possibly be from some natural Calx Vive seeing there are plenty of Lime-stones upon that Forrest which at Knarsbrough are burnt in Pits and so it proved for the salt-Salt-Water passing through some natural Stone or soft Marcasite of Calx Vive becomes acuated thereby and then running over the Vitrioline Marcasites or passing through a Sulphureous Earth congeneal to those Marcasites opens the body of their Embryonative Sulphur which it carries along with it till it come on further to an Alom-Bed which I observed to be within ten yards of the breaking forth of that Spaw where the acid Juyce precipitates the Sulphur and sends forth the odour which being percolated through a streiner of Sand comes forth pretty clear That this Artificial Water is an exact resemblance and imitation of the natural is evident because it answers the natural in every circumstance for it hath the very smell and taste undergoes the very same precipitations by lixivial Liquors yea and lastly tingeth Silver yellow as readily as the Sulphur-Well and therefore without doubt the Operation of the Artificial would be found upon tryal equivalent to the Natural in other properties also The main Objection that offers it self against the identity or similarness of this Artificial with the Natural Sulphur Water is by querying how Calx Vive which is an artificial product of the Fire actually calcining those Lime-stones should be imagined to be naturally in the Earth or how Nature should find such a Stone calcined to its hand in the Entrals of the Earth as may be sufficient to open the body of these sulphurous Marcasites To which I Answer That it 's more then probable there is a natural soft Stone of Calx Vive where this Marcasite is in succo primitivo retaining the same Seminals and essential Properties in a remiss degree with that Stone brought on to maturity by Air and Fire for the Air first
hardens that Stone and makes it unfit to give any Solution in Water and then the actual Fire loosneth it and makes it yeeld it self more readily to a Solution by moisture To illustrate which we can as easily apprehend that the Air doth harden these natural Lime-stones which while succulent are soft and in the form of a white Earth or Marl by its continual access in a long tract of time as we can imagine the same Air to harden a blew Clay found upon the Banks in Lincolnshire which being exposed to the Air doth in continuance of time harden into a sort of Stone like a blew Marble For Workmen generally observe that all manner of Stone yea even Marble it self which they dig out of the Ground becomes more and more hard by being long exposed to the Air which to me seems to give no small grounds of reason for the possibility of the Liquor Alkahest or Universal Solvent for seeing all bodies are but concretions and as I may say hardnings of their primitive Juyces under various disguises generally performed by the efficiency of Air Therefore to prepare a Menstruum by Art which may work wonders in this kind is no more as I apprehend then to make such a one as may soften these Concretions made by Air and by taking away their hardness may reduce bodies into their first jucy Liquors for what is the shell of an Egg but a soft film or membrane hardned and petrified by the influence of the Air and as easily reduceable into its first membranous softness by being boyled a while in Vinegar What are the Bones of Animals but Spermatick Juyces hardned and consolidated And were it not for the perpetual circulation of the Juyces of the body constantly transpiring through the pores thereof we should either become petrified and walk about like so many movable but sensless Statues or we should be incircled with a Bark and appear like so many Plant-Animals or sensitive Plants What are all Vegetables from the Hysop or Rosemary of the Wall to the tallest Cedar but seminal Juyces congealed into those bulky substances which are presented to our eye Lastly What are all Mineral and Mecalline Marcasites Stones c. but the primitive liquid succulencies concreted into more solid bodies by a hardning ferment or what other name we may call it by aequipollent to the Air And amongst all these what are the Marcasites of Lime-stone but a hardned concretion of its first imbred Juyce or soft marly Earth whose Minera whilst thus in solutis principiis is one of the chiefest Juyces in the Fabrick both of hot Baths and sulphureous Waters That this is the chief cause of hot Baths is confirmed by that Experiment made by that Noble Person the Lord Fairfax of a piece of a white Marcasite found about the place of those hot Springs in Sommersetshire which put into Water gives a heat not but that there may be other causes of hot Waters as from the coincidence of two Springs impregnated with different Mineral Salts and Juyces which before union are probably both actually cold and yet by a fermentation caused by their mutual contact may cause a considerable heat which can no better be resembled then by supposing a current of Water indued with a lix vial or volatile Salt to meet another saturated with an esurine acid Spirit or Salt though these before union are both actually cold yet forthwith upon their mutual contact they make a strong ebullition and fermentation which produceth a heat sufficient to warm those Liquors which are or pass through where the contest is made not to say that an other cause of some hot Baths may be from some Marcasites contracting a heat by moisture let into their Minera by some crevices of the Earth which may give heat to some Springs that pass over them nor to insist upon any other cause viz. of some Salts which in the Minera of Sulphur may cause such a fermentation as may cause hot Springs witness Dr. Rech his Experiment Yea that this natural Lime-stone may be reckoned amongst the chief causes of hot Baths is further confirmed by a lixivial Salt though small in quantity which I have by evaporation of Buxton hot Water found left behind that it is an alkalizate or lixivial Salt appears both by its salty taste its easie solution per deliquium and lastly The Ebullition it makes with an acid Spirit all which are demonstrative Arguments of its alkalizate nature for Buxton Bath consists of Water which by distillation ariseth insipid over the Helm and therefore contains no volatile Minerals and of an inconsiderable quantity of a solution of the Alkali of the natural Lime-stone where plenty of the Lime-stone hardned by the Air is found in the Countrey thereabouts And that this Minera of Calx Vive is the chief if not the sole apperient that opens the body of Sulphur in its Minera for the making sulphurous Waters is evident from our lately proposed Experiment for all sulphureous Waters as I hinted before are either such as have a sulphureous or bituminous matter swimming upon them witness the instance aforesaid or they are such whose bodies being opened by proper Solvents do then easily give forth their volatile odors and sapors to Water which may be made evident by the addition of acid Salt or Liquor And now that we have found out what the first Menstruum is which opens the body of Sulphur in the Marcasites found near the Sulphur Well Let us now consider what these Marcasites are I find them to be a spongy or porous Stone hard and wrought with a kind of Net-work which in it self contains both Vitriol and Sulphur besides a body of Colcothar and that it doth so appears by exposing some of these Marcasites to the Air till they be covered with a hoary sweet vitrioline Floscule which then being washed gives a vitrioline Solution that being filtred and evaporated to a cuticle shoots into a green Vitriol These Marcasites thus washed we set before the fire to dry so long till they began to send forth a sulphurous fume then being pounded grosly we distilled or rather sublimed them in an Earthen Retort what would arise by degrees of fire we so placed a Receiver with Water in it as that the fumes were thrown upon the surface thereof which first swam like Oil upon the Water then by degrees hardening fell down to the bottom which when the sublimation was over we washed dryed and then melted it and in small lead Pipes cast it into Magdaleons in colour and inflammabity exactly resembling the common Sulphur of which at one distillation I got near half a pound That they contain a Colcothar or Metalline Crocus is evident by burning the Sulphur of one of these Stones in the fire and when cold it will be red just like the Colcothar of the Vitriol of Iron The Caput Mortuum left after the sublimation of the Sulphur from the Marcasites is very like those Cinders or Scoria
of Spirits that are either inflammable or uninflammable To the second I answer in the Assirmative as to the first part thereof to confirm which and to illustrate the rest of the Queries with the light of truth I shall propound two or three considerable Experiments First Therefore I advised my ingenious Friend to set by a certain quantity of Scarbrough-Spaw-Water in an open Vessel and found thereby that it did precipitate its Earth or Sediment in about forty eight hours so that it would not give a tincture with Galls Secondly Another quantity of spaw-Spaw-Water being set by at the same time with the former but in a Glass Bottle so close stopt that neitheir Air could come in nor ought evaporate and being opened when the other ceased to give a tincture this did yet strike a tincture but within less then twelve hours after it also would give none Thirdly A Glass Bottle and an Egg-Glass being filled with the Spaw-Water the first exactly stopt the other hermetically sealed being both exactly weighed and set by with an other Glass filled and weighed but unstopt at the end of six weeks the stopt Bottle could not be discerned to be heavier or lighter being weighed again after the foresaid time nor could it be perceived that any Sediment was fallen because it gave as perfect a tincture with Galls as Water fresh from the Spaw By which it appears that the second Query is thus far true viz. That these Mineral Waters when most closely stopt and so let stand do not let fall a Sediment but if they do let fall their Ocre to the bottom as in open Glasses we find they do then is this Sediment most-what of a yellow colour and the Waters become effaete as to their solutive Operations The third is answered in the Negative for being let stand and not moved by carriage they do not supposing they be stopt sooner precipitate an Ocre to the bottom nor sooner become castrated thereby witness the third Experiment where in a stopt Glass after six weeks time no Sediment was fallen The fourth Query is found true in the Affirmative by the common Observations of those who view varieties of Spaws for they precipitate their Ocre both at the Spring-head as also in their Current for some distance sub dio but chiefly at the Spring-head for whilst they are kept from the open Air though their Channels under-ground should be stretched out much longer yet would they not let fall their Sediment by which it appears how great an influence the open Air hath upon the texture of Mineral-Waters as well as upon other Bodies The fifth Query is solv'd by our Experiments thus viz. That two Bottles of the said Water whereof the one being industriously stopped the other left unstopt and both equally permitted to stand still do not equally lose their vertues medical in the same space of time nor have the same precipitated Sediment and consequently are not of the same taste colour nor alike diminisht in quantity The sixth Query is involv'd in the fifth only presupposing that the stopt Vessel be of such a figuration or texture of parts as may exclude the ambient Air and then all succeeds as in the fifth The seventh is solv'd thus viz. That these Waters being closed up either in Glasses exactly stopt or hermetically sealed and kept from motion do prevent all precipitation of a Sediment in the Water and this is confirmed by the third Experiment where the Water was kept hermetically sealed for six weeks without any precipitation yea the same is confirmed not onely in these Mineral Medicinal Waters but even in more ordinary Spring-Waters whose Sediments or what else they have imbibed of Mineral Earth will easily precipitate by being exposed in open Vessels to the Air or by being distilled will leave behind their Sediments whereas I found the very same taken fresh from the Fountain which I have kept hermetically sealed for above three months not to give any the least precipitation or alteration of colour which for ought I know may not only keep so unaltered for months but also for years which very experiment is not inconsiderable towards a further improvement of Philosophy and amongst other Phaenomena which I shall not now take time to insist upon that of blood extravasated by Phlebotomy and a while exposed in open Vessels to the Air doth receive no smal alteration therefrom making it separate into such heterogenious parts as are not pre-existent in it whilst running in the Vessels and therefore doth not a little deceive those Physitians who judge of the temperature of the Blood and of the predominancy of this or the other Humour from a prospect of the extravasated Blood separated by an exotick ferment of the Air into Water Phlegm or white Gelly or black congealed Blood when perhaps that Blood whilst in the Body and as I may say hermetically sealed up in the natural Vessels was similar in its parts which if enlivened with due fermentations and separations in the Organical Parts would throw off all Scorbutick Venereal or other Miasms and Impurities and circulate in the form of a pure homogenial rubicund Juyce to confirm which I would propound one or two Queries the resolution of which will infallibly put the matter beyond dispute viz. Whether suppose some few ounces of blood should be taken from a found or if you will from an unhealthful Person and by a Silver Syphon be conveyed part into a clean Glass first warmed and whilst warm be sealed up hermetically and so set in a continued gentle heat whilst presently an other part of the same is conveyed in like manner into a cold Glass and so presently sealed up as aforesaid but set by in a cold place whether I say hereby it will be found that the blood in one or both or neither will keep its pristine form it had whilst circulating in the Vessels or whilst transmitted from one Vessel to the other and whether hereby it may not be preserved in its entire form not onely for one or two but for many months yea perhaps year and whether it will keep its form better in that Glass exposed to the cold or set in a gentle as it were an animal warmth and lastly whether that set in heat may not by continuance of time be graduated to so high an elixerated Liquor as that hereby it may be made capable not onely of preserving it self alterwards from the injury of a separating ferment in the Air but also may become as a fermental Balsam able if given inwardly or at least outwardly applyed to preserve the similar Blood it meets with from all inseâ—tious Diseases yea it would be worth inquiry 〈◊〉 â—ether it may not make the blood by his imbred exalted ferment reject all those impurities contracted by the Scorbute Lues Venerea Feavers and other Diseases even to the performing those cures in the Blood as may probably tender it worthy if any be of the name of a Panacea which Experiments
I think to prosecute e're long and shall then Deo juvante give a further account thereof The eighth Query I thus solve viz. That in my Tryals and Observations of Mineral Waters I always found that no sooner was the Ocre or Sediment precipitated but they both lose their tinging property with Galls as also their purging faculty and that though the Salts which had dissolv'd these ramenta ferrea were left yet dissolv'd in the Water after the separation of the Ocre by motion heat or air notwithstanding which the Waters are found to have no force in their purging Operation and by how much the more this is precipitated even till it be all fallen by so much the Waters are weaker and weaker in their Operation To the ninth or last Query I thus answer viz. That by what is premised it must necessarily follow that the Phenomenon of loss of Vertues in such Waters may by an Hypothesis of an intestine precipitation of their parts wherein those vertues consisted be much better and more truly explicated then by the Hypothesis of an avolation of spirituous parts through all Vessels and Closures whatsoever By this time these things duly weighed in the opinion of all judicious Persons who ground Science upon the infallible Criterion of Luciferous Experiments I may well suppose the Spirits in the Scarbrough and Kuar â—ugh Spaw-Waters have no existence and that notwithstanding what ever Falopius Dr. Heer 's Dr. French or my Antagonist have said to the contrary And hence it is evident why Dr. French came to be mistaken who supposing Volatile Mineral Spirits to be in the Knarsbrough Spaw-Water and indeavouring by distiliation in a Glass-Still whose Joynts were luted and closed up carefully to get their Spirits failed not onely in his expectation of catching them but also found that the first two spoonfuls which were distilled yea and the rest undistilled that remained utterly lost both the taste and odour which they had before neither would they become any otherwise tinged with Galls then common Spring-Water who not easily conscious of his Error imputes the loss of those Spirits to their subtilty imagining them so volatile as to penetrate even the Glass it self or the Lute neither of which he judgeth could hold them not recollecting that no sooner doth heat work upon Mineral Waters but presently it causeth such an alteration in the texture of their parts as that forthwith the Mineral Ocre precipitates to the bottom leaving both what is distilled and what is undistilled void of tincture and most-what effaete in vertues and that not from the avolation of Spirits but from an intestine precipitation of parts as is evinced beyond dispute by our former Experiments Lastly These Waters do not only being hermetically sealed keep their vertues and tinging qualities but also are not impaired in their quantity and weight being found after six weeks inclosure under the hermetick Seal neither heavier nor lighter and now I give room for the World to judge Whether the authority of my Antagonist be Authentick and whether or no he hath done well to impose both upon himself and others in the delivery of these words viz. That the Searbrough Waters lose all their vertue yea their quantity and bulk also though in Glasses and under the hermetick Seal if removed from the Fountain-head and then they become suddenly putrid c. doubtless through the loss of Volatile Spirits he speaks this so confidently as if he had had it from the Oracle of Experience whereas he never took the pains to make any satisfactory Essayes therein From what is premised may naturally arise these following short Corolaries First That Mineral Waters operate and give their usual Phaenomena by a due contemperature of their Mineral Ingredients Secondly That amongst these if especially the Mineral Ocre becomes once precipitated the Waters lose their purging Vertues and tinging Properties Thirdly So long as these can either by Nature or Art be kept from precipitation so long these Waters retain their proper Vertues Fourthly That to facilitate or indeed cause that these Waters should precipitate their Mineral Ocre is required one of these three viz. Motion Heat or Air by Motion I mean that ab extra for otherwise what Heat and Air perform is by the medium of Motion for Heat or an exposing to the open Air or a quassation of parts by motion doth make such an alteration in the texture of these Mineral Waters as they presently thereby let fall their contained Mineral Earth Fifthly These three being secluded from having any power over them they viz. the Waters may continue their Vertues Weight tinging Qualities Colours and other consequent Phaenomena for some months yea probably for years unalterd Sixthly That to have recourse to a sort of Spirits which are not inrerum naturâ for solving those Phaenomena better and perhaps onely solvable by an intestine alteration and precipitation of Mineral Ingredients will argue no less then an imposing upon our imaginations by a kind of customary fascination But here I am to advertise my Reader That since I committed these Papers to the Press I opportunely had some discourse with the aforesaid Dr. Foot concerning his Queries afore-mentioned Whereupon we mutually agreed That my Return to the Queries together with the Experiments confirming as well as elucidating the same do chiefly relate to the Mineral Medical Waters which are of that Class or sort which do purge by Stool mostly and also by Urine such are the Scarbrough-Spaw Barnet and Epsham-Waters and divers others the like which are Aluminous and work by Siedge But that the Tunbridge-Waters concerning which he principally proposed his Queries and also perhaps the Astrap and Stallbridge-Waters together with all such as work most-what by Urine ought to have a somewhat different consideration especially in the point of losing their Medical Vertues though they be vessell'd up with all due and needful circumstances and closed and sealed up with all imaginable Art care and industry yea although they are not in the least afterwards moved heated or exposed to the Air and consequently that these close Circumstances in vesselling up and stopping in the Tunbridg-Waters and such like will not prevent this depauperation or amission of their Medical Vertues as otherwise may be done with the Scarbrough and all such like Spaws but as to all the other matters almost both in the Queries and this Answer to them they seem to be applicable indifferently enough to both the sorts of the fore-cited Medicinal Waters Finally Reader The Doctor did thank me for my Return to his Queries though he frankly acknowledged to me he supposed my Answer to be inapposite only to that point afore-noted by reason of my being at the writing my Return a perfect stranger to the Tunbridge or any other Waters of the like properties but further added That he hoped my Example would be a motive to others whose abilities and opportunities amply capacitate them thereunto both from Reason and Experiment conjoyntly to
acquaint the World with the knowledge and usefulness of all sorts of Medical Waters which Nature hath prepared by her Chymistry or rather the God of Nature hath bountifully bestowed on Mankind for its relief and comfort THE Epilogue or Conclusion BEING Some Reflections upon the most material Passages and considerable Experiments in a late Treatise writ by Dr. Tunstal concerning the Scarbrough-Spaw being an Extract thereof with a return thereto where a way is propounded for preventing all inconveniencies which may happen to those who drink of the Scarbrough-Spaw BY that time I had finished the fore-going Sheets of this second Piece I met with a Book written upon the same Subject by an other Chymical Physitian which coming so opportunely to my hand before the conclusion of the whole I could not let slip some reflections upon the most remarkable passages thereof and that first because I find him in his Chymical Analysis of this Water to joyn issue with me in the main by finding out and asserting the same true essential constitutive Principles thereof next because I perceive him impeaching this Spaw-Water of the grand crime of Petrifaction and thereby of being guilty of causing the Stone Gout and Jaundice to persons inclinable thereto and for want of due ordering at the Spaw in danger thereof As to the first he saith it consists of three Ingredients viz. the Nitroaluminous Salt secondly the Raments of Stone and lastly the Glebe of Alom all which coincide with what we assert as the Principles thereof as may be further seen both in our Hydrol. Chym. and in this its Vindication save that what he calls the Glebe or blew Clay of Alom I have described as the Particles of the Minera of Iron Which difficulty will be easily taken away by solving this Query viz. Whether indeed those Particles inclosed in that Alom Glebe be not Iron in succo soluto or in minimis particulis Atomes or at least somewhat equivalent thereto bearing an analogical proportion of texture of parts to each other which will not be a little facilitated if we consider that as in the Vegetable Family not only Galls will strike a purple tincture with the Alom Salt got before the addition Kelp and Urine dissolv'd in distilled or fresh Spring-Water but also the same may be done by other bodies whose texture of parts are congeneal as for example the inner Bark of the Oak the Roots of Tormentile Avens Bistort Clove-gilly flowers and the Flowers called Balaustia all which like Galls will strike a purple with Water wherein the Alom Salt is dissolved yea and will also become clear again by the instilling a few drops of Oil of Vitriol and with the Oil of Tartar will become turbid and muddied c. So in like manner in the Mineral Family are found several Stones even in that heap which is fallen off the Scarbrough Bank which would with Water acidulated with Oil of Sulphur as upon â—â—al I found strike a tincture with Galls and yet all those stony Concretions which gave the Phâ—â—â—menon could not precisely be determined to be either Alom Glebe or Iron Stone though both would do it but were such as consisted of similar parts with both The tincture from the Galls in Scarbrough Water he saith is from unburnt Alom-stone which suppose we grant yet I see no reason why my ingenious Friend should conclude that what is precipitated without the addition of Galls should not be any thing of Chalybs or the Minera of Iron notwithstanding his two Reasons the first of which is because the Vitrioline Spirit and Iron are too great Friends being once met together to be so easily separated any that hath saith he prepared the Vitriolum Martis hath learned Why what difficulty is there in their separation seeing the Ocre as well in Acid as Nitro-aluminous Spaws doth so easily precipitate either by being exposed to the Air witness the yellow Sediment at the Fountain-head of all such Spaws or by heat as for instance any of these Mineral Waters being heated boyled or distilled will precipirate their hidden Ocre yea the Solution of a Vitriol of Iron or of any common Vitriol will in heat as I have found by tryal do the same or lastly by motion ab extra whereby also a precipition of the same mineral body happens His second reason is When the Vitrioline Water by passing in the open Air doth settle its Colcothar at the bottom without any mixture of Galls it is alwayes of a yellow colour which is also answered in my Return to the first Reason for the Sediment of all Spaws whether Vitrioline from Sowes or aluminous are alwayes yellow witness both that at Scarbrough and that in Bransdals Knarsbrough and the Spring that runs through an Alom-Work near the Sulphur-Well at Knarsbrough c. His last Argument against any thing of the Minora of Iron in the Spaw is That whereas in the taking all Chalybeat Medicines the Excrements are tinged black but by drinking this Water he saith they become blew to which I answer That blew or purple is black in a remiss degree towards which difference the crudity of the Minera may probably not a little contribute But had I now the opportunity of prosecuting one Experiment I question not but to put the matter beyond dispute I will now onely propound it and as I have leasure shall afterwards try it and that is this viz. To take a good quantity of the succulent Alom-stone c. dissolve as much thereof as will in a competent quantity of fresh Spring Water when for tryal sake it will tinge with Galls readily pour it off clear or filter it let it stand in open Glasses or glased earthen Basons when it hath precipitated what it will of a Sediment which will be done in two or three dayes time then pour off the Water gently and dry it up slowly by the heat of the Sun and compare that and the yellow Ocre precipitated from Vitrioline Waters together and that either with a Microscope or melt them down severally with a blast to try if the result of both will not be the same His proportions of the Ingredients are thus viz. Stone-pouder one ounce three dragms of Nitroaluminous Salt one ounce six dragms of the blew Clay which is as he supposeth the Glebe of Alom three dragms the active Principles and the Caput Mortuum are equal He Queries hence from what cause it is that after you have drunk a month of the Water then if not before it takes a resty fit will neither go forward or backward upon which my Antagonist adviseth p. 211. that if the Appetite or Concoction decay and the Water pass not so well as formerly but cause distention either in the Belly or Veins and so bring on a difficulty of breathing or pain in the Head or the like it is then time he adviseth to desist and proceed no further Is there not therefore saith Dr. T. a sting in the tail of Scarbrough Water
Chamber and about two hours after the last Glass of Water let them drink a Glass or two of the best White Wine well refined from its Tartar and about one hour after that take some warm Broth then to eat of a few Dishes of Meat and those to be as well ordered as may be nor is it a little respect that is to be had to the Drink at Meats viz. that it neither be new thick or unwrought nor that it be hard or tart So that four things are to be regarded in the drinking of the Waters First Moderate exercise after drinking the Water Secondly To drink a Glass or two of Wine two hours after the Water to help the passage thereof Thirdly Not to eat too soon after the Waters for either by too immoderat exercise that which should pass away by Urine by the short way is preposterously carried into the habit of the body or by eating too suddenly before the Waters have passed the like disorder may happen viz. That the Latax wherein the sabulous matter is dissolved is thereby in danger to be carried by the Thoracical Vessels into the fourth digestion of the heart and thence into the habit of the body where it may lay a foundation for the Gout Stone Scurvy Feavers c. Fourthly A moderation in Dyet having good Meat well ordered and to keep a restraint upon the Stomach not overcharging it with too much nor with too great variety of food for sometimes what the Water builds in order to health the irregularity of dyet in some persons pulls down Fifthly Good wholsome Drink is to be chosen at Meats which should neither be very small nor hard or tart nor lastly new thick or unwrought but should be soft clear and healing Ale or a middle sort of Beer fresh and lively all botled Ale especially that which flies is to be avoided in short it should be kindly Ale such as may well dilute our other solid Food and be a sutable Vehicle of our nutritive Juyce for from a due contemperature of our Drink and Meat by the efficiency of the ferments ariseth the wholsomness of our nourishment When the Patient hath drank for two or three dayes of the Spaw Water after the former directions then is he to take a Dose of Solutive Pills viz. one over-night and two the next morning observing much what the former instructions and to omit taking any Water for that day These Pills ought to be so contrived by the Physitian as to contain in them such Ingredients as may chiefly respect the Scurvy and that because the Scurvy is most-what the ground to other Diseases and next that they may be such as may give the Patient four or five stools without griping as his strength and the indications of his Disease may require not neglecting in the interim other specificks seasonably to be exhibited as the Physitian shall think meet from the indications of the Disease Then if the Physitian think fit is the Patient to rest a day or two from taking the Spaw-Water and that to prevent a sudden precipitation of the stony matter upon the Tunicles of the Intestines after their abstersion or cleansing by the former Solutive and after that to begin again observing the former instructions and so on in a round with such diversifications as the Physitian from a critical observation of the Symptoms and Indications shall judge requisite until the Patient be cured at least in so hopeful a way towards it as that Nature may without much stress tug through the rest And by this means will all the inconveniencies which happen as afore-said to incautious Spaw-Drinkers be prevented hereby Patients will not miss of their aim viz. their desired health c. This course being taken I see no cause of suspition of any harm from the Waters for supposing at the worst a precipitation should happen which cannot be much the next Dose of Antiscorbutick Pills together with a good Diuretick and a glass or two of Wine will absterge it off and carry it câ—â— verly away Nor need we be altogether so fearful of harm from the stony Concretions in the Water if we confider That Physicians often prescribe Coral Crabs-eyes Pearl Crabs-claws Hyacinth Smaragde Saphire Bezoar c. which are the Ingredients of several compound Species as of Pulv. è chel cancrorum species Cordiales c. frequently ordered by them for the cure of Diseases which sometimes dulcifie the Blood and other essential Juyces of the body by coagulating their acidities which otherwise cause obstructions in the bowels and give beginning to Apostemations c. being frequently carried off by Siedge Yea I know a Gentlewoman who being troubled with a spurious and therefore superfluous acidity upon her Stomach amongst the hundred of Remedies she hath used finds nothing comparable to the eating plenty of Chalk which is a stony Concretion This more powerfully then any other thing she has yet met with dints the overflowing acidity sweetens it which otherwise with an acid flatus afflicts her Intestines causing unufual tormina or griping of the Guts Of this she has eaten as I remember she told me some pecks in some late years and yet is no more afflicted with the Stone or Gout then she was before the taking thereof So that all those who are not originally inclined to the Stone or Gout may very safely drink of the Waters and that with very good success for the cure of most other inflrmities by the due management of the Spaw according to our prescribed Method where we are not so magisterial in our advices but do leave the judicious Physitian to vary as he seeth cause I giving only hints and opening a Casement for more light for the better discovery of the improvement of this Noble Spaw in order to the cure of many Diseases for Art is not only to imitate Nature but also help and supply its deficiencies separating what is superfluous and adding what is necessary But if any who are inclined originally to the Stone or Gout shall upon the consideration that the Scarbrough-Water is so esurine or acid by its imbibed Nitro-aluminous or duplicate Salt as to dissolve and carry along in its bowels the several Raiments of Stone shall I say thereupon become jealous of drinking the Water To those I shall first advise the drinking the Water according to our prescribed Method which if it do not answer their expectation upon tryal at least doth not satisfie then would I thus farther add viz. That doubtless when these stony Concretions are separated by Art or Nature the foresaid Salt being dissolved in fresh Water which upon evaporation yeelds no sabulous Sediment must needs I say become very powerful against all those Diseases whose seminaries consist in a sabulous petrifying property as the Stone Gout Jaundice c. especially if dissolved with the addition of Salt of Steel and drunk with great plenty of Spring-Water so acuated And therefore lastly would I propound to all those who