numerous than other creatures not for any saltness which at the most can but * Aegyptii ideo à sale abstinuerunt teste Plutarcho quod salem venerem irritare persuasū haberent Levin Lemn de Nat. Miracul l. 2. p. 228. irritate to copulation but doth not render the seed ever the more prolifical For fresh water fish are as multiplicative of their species as the other in proportion There is not a fish that swimmeth in the deep that hath a greater quantity of spawn considering his bulk than a Carp yet it is a fresh water fish Nor can I believe there can any other reason be given why the Irish women have so many Children than because their Country and consequently themselves are so exceeding moist as appears by their stature their pale countenances their flaccid soft and phlegmatick habit of body And indeed I think that it were as reasonable to seek for taste in an egg Ex ovo omnia Harv And what taste is there in the white of an egg Job as for salt in the sperm of fish or any other creature for by virulent Gonorrhaea's it appears that a sharp and saline quality is a token rather of corruption than of any active and generative energy Et quod verissimum est dicimus Novimus jam nosco mulieres varias conjugatas sat juvenes quae ab erroribus dietae à Pica sive Malacia causatis praecipuè à salitorum vel potiùs ab incommisti salis esu non tandum sordidos pallidos faetidosque obtinuere colores cutes impolitas rugosas ventriculos nauseabundos verumetiam suffocatae omnino evaserunt steriles But although I attribute the effects above mentioned to water rather than salt yet I would not be conceived to imbibe Thales Milesius opinion that aqua is so named quasi à qua omnia as if all things were from it and yet do believe that it is causa sine qua non and a great nurse and fosterer of Generations if not a Parent of them And of Minerals too especially if we should embrace the opinion of the Peripateticks that all mixed bodies are immediately composed of the four Elements for then these being the most ponderous bodies must needs have in them the most weighty Elements in good quantity and those are Earth and Water 3. The Sea is the original of all Waters nor could any fountain else afford enough to supply the Earth to all uses That which by the Neotericks hath lately been found out of the Circulation of the Bloud and Humours in the Microcosm was long since discovered which might possibly hint that in the greater world Eccles. 1.7 All rivers run into the Sea yet the Sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again And what huge quantities of water must be necessary for the whole Earth may be hence inferred that the superficies of it needs so much that besides the innumerable Springs Fountains Chanels Rivers and Lakes with which it is irrigated were it not for frequent showres from above would soon be parched up and unable to produce sustenance for Man or Beast which help the bowels of the Earth are destitute of for the moisture of showres peirceth not above ten foot deep at the most And indeed this is the onely reason that can be given of the Seas saltness because it doth wash and so dissolve much salt from the rocks of Salt in subterraneal caverns where it doth pass and would long ere this have caused places where such rocks have been to sink in But that first there is a continual generation and accretion as well as a dissolution and secondly because that Salt is very hard insomuch that some stones of salt there are found in several waters undissolved as those of which Cambden informs us in the River Weere near Batterby in the Bishoprick of Durham Cambd. Brit. Brigant And as for that dreadful story of Lots wife turned into a pillar of salt Gen. 19.26 as we are to believe the thing so may it not be improbable that it was termed a pillar as well for the solidity durableness and difficulty of dissolution as well as for its shape and form God striking her in that manner as a more durable monument of his anger against Disobedience And our glass at this day is but salt after its highest fusion and yet it is very solid and durable and imports no quality to water Thirdly and lastly the sea-Sea-water having imbibed so much salt before is the less able to dissolve more 4. That though the Sea on the coast near the shore may communicate its waters by perlocation yet to places at great distance it cannot pass so as to afford a due supply but by Gulphs and subterraneal In-draughts In many places of the world they make the sea-sea-water potable and fresh by digging of pits in the sand into which the sea-sea-water streining it self leaves its saltness behind But this must be done at no great distance from the Sea and it must be in sand or clay or the like for if the shore be rocky it will not do as we see in many places where they dig a very great depth for fresh water near the Sea and cannot be supplied till they find a fresh spring a great many foot under the surface of the Sea So we see that when we filtrate liquors through shop-paper if it be thin and bibulous it passeth if thick and too close it will not pass Some illustrate the percolation of the sea-sea-water by this experiment Take a round ball of moist clay make it hollow in the inside fill it with salt water lay it to the fire and it will extill by the pores of the clay and become fresh and insipid Now that there are vast gulphs and chanels from the sea under the earth will easily appear when we consider that some great lakes and oceans there are that have no other way to vent themselves What way can the Caspian Sea exonerate it self by after it hath taken into it Volga Jaxares Ochus Oxus and other huge Rivers What other reason can be given why some lakes are full of sea fish and yet at great distance from the Sea In Bainoa a Province of Hispaniola is a lake of salt water which hath 24 Rivers running into it yet never increaseth and hath Sharks and other sea-sea-fish in it Again there are salt springs in all Countreys that ebbe and flow as the Sea and the Coasts do There are also salt rivers as Ochus and Oxus salt lakes as that before mentioned Besides this it is ordinary for chanels and rivers to run a great way on the earth and then to ingulp themselves Georg. Witnerus The waters of the Cirknickzerksey lake in Carniola gush with that violence and swiftnesse out of the ground that they will overtake a swift Horse-man and presently are swallowed in a deep gulph again In the Province of Cazcium in Hispaniola is a
great cave in an hollow rock under the root of a very high mountain in which divers Rivers after they have run fourscore and ten miles pass as into an indraught and are swallowed up In most Countreys we read of the like A mountain there is in Caermarthen-shire where Careg-castle sometimes stood in which are many spacious holes and wide caves with a Well that ebbs and flows as the Sea on the Coast doth twice in four and twenty hours The Current of one and the same Sea in several parts contrary ways demonstrates this as in the Atlantick Sea in some places from and in some places towards the North like Liquor in a funnel In some places there are whirlepools whose waters turn clean round insomuch that if a Ship at such times come over them they are in most extreme danger of sinking Such an one there is in the North Sea near the coast of Norway At other times the waters with that violence come out of the earth that a Cannon cast over-board will not sink This caused Taurellus and some others to think these the onely cause of the Tides Andreas Moralis Moral decad 7. c. 8. on the Coast of Hispaniola was sucked into whirlepools where with that violence the water was drawn into the earth that with extraordinary toil the Ship hardly escaped sinking Again the heterogeneous bodies that are found so deep are such usually that either are generated or most usually dwell in the Sea as shells bones of fish masts anchors parts of ships Simlerus Ortelius At Berna in Switzerland Anno 1460. fifty fathom deep in a Mine where they got metall-oar Fracastorius a Ship was digged up in which were forty eight carkases of Men with other merchandise Out of the Ocean into the Mediterranean Sea In Greenland a Mast was digged out of the top of an high Hill with a pully hanging to it there is a continual current by the streights of Gibraltar another Current into the same out of the Euxine Sea by the Thrasian Bosphorus besides very many and great Rivers And which way can it exonerate it self for those vast flouds do not increase it And Solomons Circulation of humours in the Macrocosm above mentioned is very considerable nor is the Analogy in this particular between that and the lesser World obscure For the Sea in that answereth to the Fountain of bloud in this The Subterraneal Rivers and those above ground may answer to the vessels containing the bloud And both these answer to the vasa attrahentia deferentia for the subterraneal chanels carry the water from the Sea the Rivers return it to the Sea Again as both sorts of vessels are greater near the fountain of bloud in the body so are the chanels biggest nearest the Sea their fountain and though it may sometimes happen otherwise yet if the banks of any are wider so that they look like lakes a great while before they discharge themselves into the Ocean I look on it but as casuall and bearing proportion with the divarications of vessels in mans body Again vessels in our bodies are from trunks like trees branched out in ramulos surculos and other minute distributions answering to the stalks of leaves or fruits which are again subdivided into capillary conveyances and thence the bloud and humours pass per poros for the nutriment of the solid parts so are the Rivers above and without doubt the chanels under ground in proportion to them from their main trunks divided into Brooks those Brooks into Rivulets these into lesser conveyances as it were capillary vessels and every where dispersed and disseminated according to the exigence of nature and thence passe through the pores of the Earth that no part may be destitute of a due supply for the Generation and increase of all bodies Again the aestus maris bears some proportion to the pulse of the bloud in the Microcosm the ebbing and contraction of the water is the systole the turgescency floating and dilatation of the water is the diastole the space between both the perisystole Again as in the heart and in some vessels only that carry the bloud that motion is to be found so is the aestus discovered in some vessels only that conveigh the humour of the greater World Not that I look on this as any kind of proof but as an illustration the better to guide our conceptions in Natures Water-works by what is seen that we may the better understand that which is not seen or at least not so plainly However enough to our purpose it is that such Subterraneal chanels there are from the Sea under the Earth As for the common scruple of the improbability of the waters rising so high out of the Sea to the superfice of the Earth it is the least hindrance of an hundred for if there be a continuity of the air waters will rise as high as the surface of the waters from whence they came as appears in Siphunculis and therefore may rise to the tops of the highest hills For the highest places of the Sea answer to the tops of the loftiest mountains or else the earth could not be spherical Were it not for bounds God hath set the waters are high enough to turn again and cover the earth v. 9. He hath Chambers or Receptacles by which to water the hills v. 13 To this the Psalmist is consonant Psalme 104. The waters go up by the Mountains they go down by the Valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them With what violence do the waters gush out of Saint Winifreds Well in Wales on the top of a great hill Again compression of those vast quantities of water forcing them into Earth may make them mount the higher as Hoggsheads full and newly broached run the faster I 'le illustrate this by the following experiment Take two round Boards equally sized fasten strong Leather to those Boards above below and on the sides so close that they may hold water from the lower board let an hollow pipe go up on the out-side higher than the upper board fill this instrument with water then put a weight on the upper board and proportionable to the weight so will the waters mount to a greater or lesser height as in this Figure A. The upper board B. The lower board ccc The Leather on every side D. The Pipe through which the water will leap upwards E. The weight of compression But it may be objected that this is an adventitious and external compression and not that of the water onely But I answer that such a compression there is in the Sea from agitation of the waters by wind and other causes and yet that waters by their own natural compression will mount higher than the brims of the vessel containing may be evident from this that if we take one of a considerable capacity with a pipe on the outside something higher than its brims and rub the brims with Rosin or such like Gum and then fill it full till no more water can be poured in stopping the orifice of the pipe in the mean time with ones finger then removing the finger it will presently burst out at the pipe It may be demanded then Why are not all Rivers salt To this I answer That most of them have their waters stopped and percolated and so leave their saltnesse behind But as for those that have no hinderance they are not onely salt but do constantly ebbe and flow as hath been exemplified already Those that have a stoppage by a bank of earth to such an heighth onely issue fresh water at their ebbe and at their flote salt as that fountain in the Isle of Gades doth See Ortel map epitomixed in the description of Gades Those that are salt and have no tides are such as after percolation wash some rocks of salt before their eruption 5. Where mighty flouds come with violence as these must of necessity do by reason of the vast quantity the mighty compression and the unspeakable weight of the waters of the Ocean they will easily carry with them light and with no great difficulty ponderous bodies This needs not and therefore shall not have any proof 6. Heterogeneous bodies by the weight and strength of waters forced into a narrow place cannot easily by the return of those beyond them if they return at all the same way be brought forth again Because there is little or no compression and therefore the return of the water is leasurely and by degrees This is obvious to Sense and therefore needs no illustration 7. And as much evident to sense it is that any heterogeneous bodies so remaining unremoved soon gather slime and sand about them and in a small space of time are lodged as it were in firm ground This is no more wonderful than to have any vessel in the Microcosm obstructed by crude and heterogeneous bodies caeteris paribus Nor need we seek for rare Water-works for every ordinary gutter and sink will demonstrate this And thus Doctor you have my Opinion of the way by which those Cockle Muscle and Oyster-shells you mentioned were brought and lodged in that place If they were truly shells they were conveyed either above or under ground but not so usually above therefore under If under ground then by natural or voluntary agents If by natural and necessary then either by Vapours Exhalations or Waters but this is done usually and commonly by none of the former therefore by the last which is the more likely to effect it 1. Because there are numerous generations in the Earth 2. Where many generations are much water is necessary 3. No fountain can supply the earth to these purposes but the Sea which is the original of all waters 4. Though the Sea communicate his waters to places near it by percolation it must and doth supply that afar off by whole flouds gulphs and indraughts 5. Where mighty flouds come with violence they will carry very weighty bodies with them 6. Heterogeneous bodies are not easily brought back again when they are forced into a narrow place 7. But in a little time gather slime and earth about them and so are lodged in firm ground Psal 139.14 Marvellous are thy works O Lord and that my soul knows right well FINIS
Augustine saw such an one at Utica But these even in the Scripture the most exact history in the World are recorded as rare so that I do not believe that they have been common in any Country much less that any Country hath been inhabited by only such An old Poet cited by our Antiquary speaking that Cornwall was the seat of some saith they were but few Titanibus illa Sed paucis famulosa domus Vid. Hackwell in Apolog. de hoc subjecto Gyantick races in several Countries because this like bones of men hath been found of a vast bigness What shall we think of those bones of Fish and such Subterraneal Muscle and Oyster-shels found at Darmstadt in the Palatinate and at other places near Heidelberg and in Silesia and those you mentioned to me At New-house a seat of one Mr. Eyres in White-Parish in the County of Wilts as they were digging of a Well about thirty foot deep as it was related to me between two veins of sand were found infinite numbers of Oyster-shels in a bed both shels closed together and nothing discernable between them but a little dust But farther yet what can we say of those Tables of stone in which are seen the Pictures of divers Planets of Frogs Serpents Salamanders nay Principum illustrium virorum imagines as Sennertus saith are found in Islebia Epitom Phys lib. 5. cap. 4. I my self have seen an Agate with a natural foil like a Black-moores head and another like an Oaken leaf that some have went to brush away and yet it was within the stone and so exact too that it deceived the very sight Erasmus describeth one hat he saw in England in a Temple at the feet of the image the Virgin Mary in which there was the form of a Toad I will set it down in his own words Erasm Coll. Pegrin relig Ergo. Og. Ad pedes virginis est gemma cui nondum apud Latinos aut Graecos nomen inditum est Galli à Bufone nomē dederunt eo quod bufonis effigiem sic exprimat ut nulla ars idem possit efficere Quodque majus est miraculum pusillus est lapillus non prominet bufonis imago fed ipsa gemma velut inclusa pellucet This Menedemus that discourseth with him imputes rather to the fancy of the beholder as Children think they see heads and faces and bulls and swords in the Clouds But he answereth Imò nè sis nesciens nullus bufo vivus evidentiùs exprimit seipsum quam illic erat expressus And from his companions incredulity taketh occasions largely to discourse the strange forms of stones Now although it be impossible to find out the certain causes of these most noble and recluse works of Nature these being such things wherein we have very great reason to admire the providence of God and his most perfect work-man-ship that hath given to each creature as Scroder calls it rationem seminalem or as Severinus the knowledge or science of its own proper form And indeed some of them are in this as certain as the most voluntary agents And even those which casually obtain these shapes may be guessed at for besides the lusus naturae which most flie to the creatures they represent may be petrefied a spiritu lapidescente or may be inclosed as in a Coffin in the purer unconcrete matter of stones which being speedily hardened and those in some measure assimilated to that stony substance their lineaments shine through as Flies cased in Amber are seen almost as clearly as if they were out of it And particularly for such shels we are now to discourse of there may be some conjecture had of some of their forms and this brings me to distinguish between Muscle and Cockle-shels really and such in shape and appearance only for I have seen many stones in the shape of these which I imagine were thus made The Oyster Muscle or Cockle-shels lying in such places where they have been cast out by men have casually received the succus lapidescens or unconcrete matter of stones and have become a bed or matrix to it and so hath that stone been shapen according to this mould as gourds while they are young put in glasses grow not according to their usual natural form but according to the shape and proportion of the glasses 2. If they were really Muscle and Cockle-shells that could not be the place of their generation but they must be by some violence and impetuosity hurried thither and for their loco-motion we can find no other Media than the earth or air And first for the air Those that have sailed to the Indies can inform you with what force Hircanoes or Turbines which some distinguish but I think that there is no other difference between them than that the Hircano is a circumagitation of the air or whirlewind tending downwards and the Turbo the whirlewind tending upwards the meeting together of contrary furious winds have taken up whole Seas of water and what should hinder them that when they fall foul near a shore they should not rake the Seas and carry other bodies besides the water Hackluyt Disc to 3. p. 100. Some Mariners in the North-west discovery were eye witnesses of such a whirlwind that for the space of three hours together took up vast quantities of water furiously mounting them up in the air And altogether as strange hath the force of it been on dry ground of which Bellarmine gives us a relation that it is so incredible Bell. de Ascensment in Deum Grad 2. cap. 4. that he premiseth this Quod nisi vidissem non crederem He thus describeth it Vidi ego à vehementissimo vento effossam ingentem terrae molem eámque delatam super pagum quendam ut fovea altissima conspiceretur unde eruta fuerat pagus totus coopertus quasi sepultus manserit ad quem terra illa devenerat It is ordinary in most histories to read of bloud falling in showres Anno ab urbe condita cccclxxx lac de coelo manare visum est Oros lib. 4. cap. 5. In the fourth year of Ivor the son of Alan in Wales it rained bloud in England and Ireland Welch chron Gabiis lacte pluit T. Graccho Tit. Manlio Coss In Graecostasi C.C. L. Cai. Sext. Coss Praeneste L. Cecil L. Aurel. Cos◠In Agro Perusino P. Sor. G. Atil Coss sanguino per biduum pluit in Area Vulcani Concordiae M. C. Quint. Fab. Coss Lapid Pluviae In Aventino Tuscis lapidibus pluit Vid. Jul. Obs de prodig ad fin Plinii or at least of what is analogous to bloud of wood wool worms Munster * Munster Cosmog lib. 4. cap. 22. tells us of Frogs Mice and Rats that fell with some feculent showres in Norway There is one at this time living that walking through a low marish ground in England in a foggie morning had his Hat almost covered with little Frogs that fell on it as he walked and
the same strength under ground as appears by Earthquakes with which there are usually heard a * Terra mugi u tremuit M. Cat. Quint. Mart. Coss Fremitus infernus ad Coelum ferri visus M. Anton. A. Posth Coss Fremitus terrae etiam Faesulis auditus M. Perpenn Cai. Claud. Coss The City Ferrara in the year 1570. was surprized with a fearful noise as if it had been battered with great Ordnance afterwards with a most violent trembling murmur and sound When Sempronius Gracchus was setting on the Picaeni and they were just joyning battel * Oros lib. 4. cap. 4. tam horrendo fragore terra tremuit ut stupore miraculi utrumque pavefactum agmen hebesceret These make the Earth tremble the Mountains rowl the Rocks quake and especially if the exhalation that causeth them be impregnate with Nitro-sulphureous spirits which have sometimes thrust out hills where there were plains Islands in the midst of Seas made huge Rivers where there were none turned the current of some stopped others left vast caverns and holes depressed Mountains swallowed Cities and Armies subverted Temples and Palaces Cizicus a City of Misia minor with the famous Temple of Jupiter there were both swallowed in an Earthquake and so was Philadelphia another City of the same Misia and one of the Churches St. John writ to Apoc. 3.7 In an Earthquake in Vinianfu in China the Nitrosulphureous spirits burst out of the Earth in such an actuall flame that it consumed the whole City and innumerable people At Hien in the same Country the fall of the houses by the same Earthquake slew eight thousand At Enchinoen an hundred thousand perished Immediately on the bitter persecution of Dioclesian a fearful Earthquake happened in Syria Oros lib. 7. c. 17. by which Tyre and Sydon were almost destroyed and many thousands were kil'd Lucan lib. 1. Quatiente ruina Nutantes pendere domos Or as the same Author elsewhere describeth an earthquake Cardine tellus Subsedit veterémque jugis nutantibus Alpes Discussere nivem We read of one in Judeah Jos Antiq l. 9. c. 11. at Uzzah's usurpation of the Priests office which rent the Temple and a Hill in the East was removed four furlongs towards the West of another in Herods Reign that slew ten thousand Jews l. 15. c. 7. Marcley hill with us in Hereford-shire Anno 1571. with a great noise removed it self from its place and went continually for three dayes together overthrowing Kinnaston Chapel bearing the earth 400. yards before it And therefore Exhalations may be granted to remove stones and sands and with them such heterogeneous bodies as lie on them from one place to another from the sea to the hills from a coast far into a countrey But Earthquakes are not frequent in any places unless near Vulcanoes and are less usual in these parts and yet in most places all over Europe such heterogeneous bodies have been found under the Earth at great distance from the Sea Again the force of Exhalations is most evident in mountainous rocky countreys because when they are pent into such places they cannot have vent whereas these bodies are often found in mosses bogs and marish grounds as frequently as in other earth 5. So that they are most likely to be hurried thither by the force of waters passing from the Sea through the caverns of the Earth The reasonableness of which opinion will the better appear if we consider that 1. As the Earth is of a vast compass and no less than 7000 miles in Diameter of which the Water doth not make above one third part of the Globe and that on the surface of Earth too and so far as was ever yet discovered of the Earth no part of it is destitute of some mineral substance continually generating in it unless where either the Sun exhales the force of it or Nature is otherwise imployed in producing Vegetables So that if the Earth be kept from the sight of the Sun and the production of plants nor is apt to other generations yet it fails not to produce Saltpeter or Nitre in good quantity And this is the reason that Saltpeter-men dig in Stables Cellars and other houses So that in the whole bowels of the Earth what vast heaps what mountains of metalls are there Some in fieri some in facto esse perfect and imperfect mean metalls Stones Fluors of all sorts Salts and concrete Juices besides the several sorts of Earths Chalks Boles Bitumina and the mixtures of all or any of these of which it were much too large and more besides my purpose particularly to discourse 2. Where there are so vast and numerous generations 't is impossible that they should succeed without vast quantities of water Nay to speak more home the first matter that hath been yet discovered of all Minerals is no other than a certain Juice or water impregnate with the seminal vertue of this or that Mineral stone or Metall which from water vvhen it hath found a convenient matrix becomes a gelly and from a gelly this or that stone or metall This is obvious from several springs whose water impregnate with the seeds of stone having found a place of rest convert into perfect stone Of which sort we read of some in * Warner de Aq. Hungar. Hungary of others in Peru by * Warner de Aq. Hungar. * Acost l. 3. c. 17. Acosta In Guancavilica there is a Fountain that turns into a Rock with which an whole village is built At Newnham Regis in Warwick-shire our Geographers tell us of a Well that after the same manner turneth wood into stone of another in the the North that dropping from above into a Cave becomes clear and very hard stone beneath Bert. Geog. p. 127. Rivus est apud Scotos Ratra dictus in cujus ripa est spelunca in qua guttatìm ex fornice distillans nnda lapidescit in metas quae nisi tollantur humana industria spatium totum opplerent Some Minerals are no other than certain kind of Juices accreted as Allum Vitriol c. And Mine-masters have sometimes found Metalls liquid and unconcrete when they have peirced a Mine too soon Mathesius mentions liquid Silver found by some And for this without doubt among other causes is water by the Ancients called Panspermia for that the seeds of things in the Earth have very little vertue without this Moses insinuates Gen. 2.5 where he gives this reason why no Plants yet grew viz. because they lay in arido for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the earth I am very confident that the Poets did not only call Venus the Goddesse of generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spume-born Goddesse from the saltness of the spume though some of later date have therefore called her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but from the waters that bare it Nor is there any question to be made but that the Inhabitants of the waters are therefore more