made a day of 36 houres Justin Martyr in Dialog cum Tryphon Some think the Sun danceth when it riseth on Easter-day and honours our Saviours Resurrection in Triumph If that be so it is necessary for it to dance a whole day because it riseth the whole day What ever this is it must be ascribed to the Ayre interposed betwixt which about the Sun rising abounds with Vapours and if at any time most in the Spring because the pores are open and it sends forth more Vapours Camer Cent. 2. Memorab p. 39. Artic. 4. Of the inequality of Dayes and Nights WHen the Sun comes to the Horizon the Day riseth with us Night comes when the Sun departs But because it moves obliquely and is girt within the bounds of both Tropicks it keeps equality under the Equinoctiall it varies which side soever it declines yet the greater it is the farther the Countries are distant from the aequator In Arabia a Province of the new World the Dayes and Nights are alwaies equall Geographers have written the same of Peru Ovetan in Summa In a Country of Africa called Gambra in the moneth of July the Night is no shorter than 11. hours The Sun riseth suddenly without dawning The Troglodites and men of Africa have but 13. hours to their longest day Strabo l. 1. They that live under the Pole of the Stars in the spring-Equinox see the Sun rising but in the Autumnall setting Mela. l. 3. c. 2. Hence it is that they have half a year day and then half a year night The Hollanders at the Straights Vaigats from the 4th day of November to the 24. day of January have found but one continual Night under the degree of 71. Boetius in the description of the Narrow Sea Vaigats In Laponia one Night lasts 3. moneths and there is in that time no more light than the Moon-shine or clear twilights afford Zigler in Laponia In the farthest part of Norway the Sun is not hid in the night In another Northern Climate the Nights are very bright at the Summer Solstice Saxo Grammaticus The Day and Night with us are equall when the Sun enters Aries and Libra they are longer when he is in the Tropick of Cancer shorter in Capricorn The moneth of June is said to contain the longest day the shortest is assigned to the 25. of December The more superstitious are perswaded that strange things are seen the night before The Olive Tree and the white Poplar and the leaves of Willowes are said to be driven about Macrob. l. 9. c. 7. The moisture in Trees ascends upwards from out of the root The Apple-tree brings forth blossoms and unripe fruit Some strings of Instruments are strook with the fingers and the other strings sound Suetonius l. 1. Ludicra Historia The small livers of Mice are increased The kernells that are shut up in Apples are turned the contrary way Cicero lib. 2. de Divinat Artic. 5. Of the Four Parts of the Year THe motion of the Sun through the Zodiack makes a Year Mathematicians make this to be twofold The one is the space in which the Sun goes from the Spring Equinox and returns to the same again and it consists of 365 dayes five hours 49 first minutes 10 seconds The other is from the time the Sun departs from the first Star in Aries and returns to the same again and it consists of 365 6 hours 9 first minutes seconds 23. Copernicus appointed this and he deserved great thanks for it Of the former there are four parts Spring Summer Autumn Winter Spring and Autumn make the Equinoxes this the Winter Equinox that the Summer They both happen when the Sun passeth the Line The most certain sign of the Springs approach is the Butterfly being a weak creature Pliny in histor Natural Cancer makes the Summer when the Sun-beams are verticall with us It is inflamed by the rising of the Dog-star saith Pliny l. 2. c. 40. yet it were more Philosophicall to say that when the Sun repeats his Journey he raiseth hot blasts and wind whence our bodies partake of great heat Truly sometimes it is extream if we credit Histories I read in Livy l. 4. Histor. That in the year of Rome 322. not onely rain from Heaven was wanting but the Earth also wanted its inbred moysture that the Rivers that run continually were almost dry that many Fountains and Rivers wanted water that the Cattel dyed for thirst In the year 1153 the Woods were fired with over-great heat the fat Earth took fire and could be extinguished with no rain Mergerius The German Records report That in 1228 the heat was so great that the Harvest was ended I will use their own words before the Feast of St. John Baptist. Lipsius cites it in his Epistles In the year 1573. the Wood of Bohemia burnt 18. Weeks The Danube was so dryed up that in many places one might foord it And what is wonderfull there was no losse in the Corn. But in 994. in the end of July the Lakes and Waters were so hard frozen that all the Fishes dyed and there was great scarsity of water Cardan thinks it is a mark of an over-hot Summer de varietat rer l. 15. c. 38. if old sheep are very much given to lust in the Spring Men write that there was so pleasant an Autumn in the year 1584. that the Roses and young branches flourished It is our Winter when the Sun enters Capricorn then all things quake are covered with Snow and bound up with Ice The Sun foreshews a most bitter Winter in the Northern parts when he hides himself in a red clowd as a pillar of fire and casts out his beams like fiery darts That descending it is turned into black Cardan l. 1. Or when things that use to be moist seem dryer or drops dripping from houses fall more slowly And sometimes the winter hath been excessive Chronicles say that in 1234. the winter was most fierce so that in the Adriatick Sea the Venetian Factors passed over the Ice with their charge of moneys Zonaras reports the like to have happened under Constantine Copronymus so in the Pontick Sea and the Straights adjoyning Marianus Scotus In the year 32. of Charles the Great there was a great and most bitter Frost so that the Pontick Sea was frozen 100 miles in the East where it was 50 cubits from top to bottom In the year 1525. the winter was so cruel that in Brabant an infinite company of Eâ—lâ—s by reason of the Ice went forth of the Lakes which is a wonderfull thing and hid themselves in Hay-ricks and perished there with extremity of cold Robertus de Monte. The Trees had hardly any leafs afterwards in May. Sometimes the winters are so calm too In the year 1225. in December the Peach Tree budded In 1186. in December and January Crowes and other birds hatched their Eggs with young But these divers parts of the year for length and duration comes from a divers position They
full of water But that ceased when the sacrifice ceased Joseph l. 7. c. 24. There is a certain River Bocatius speaks of every ten years it makes a mighty noyse by the stones striking together and this is suddenly in a moment and the stones ran downwards for 3. dayes and 3 or 4 times a day though it be fair weather and after three dayes all is quiet Strabo writes of the Rivers of Hircania l. 11. There are in the Sea high shores that are prominent and are cut forth of Rocks but when the Rivers run out of the Rocks into the Sea with great violence they passe over a great space as the fall betwixt the Sea and the Rocks that Armies may march under the fall of the waters as under Arches and receive no hurt Trochlotes in North Norway makes such a noyse when it runs that it is heard 20 miles Olaus l. 2. c. 28. Beca in Livonia runs forth of the Rocks with such a fall that it makes men deaf Ortel in Livon Tâ—nais by a very long passage from Scythia falling into the Lake Meotis it makes it so long and broad that those that are ignorant of it take it for a great Mountain Boccatius In Solomon's Temple there ran a Spring great in Summer small in Winter Euseb. praeparat Evangel l. 9. c. 4. If you ask the cause it is taken from the Time All things are wet in Winter then are the Channels full and for want of evaporation the waters are kept in But in Summer all things are dry and the Suns heat penetrates Hence it is that they are congregated in their Fountains and run out by the Ayr inforcing them Maeander is so full of windings and turnings that it is often thought to run back again c. He that seeks more concerning Nilus and other Waters let him read Geographerrs Artic. 5. Of the change of quantity and of qualities in Waters THis great variety in Waters that I have set down is a token of the wisdome and power of God and it is no lesse wonder that the same waters should be so diversly changed It is certain that they are changed A Fountain in the Island Tenedos alwayes from 3. at night till 6. after the Summer Solstice overflowes There is another in â—odon that hath its Name from Jupiter it fails always at Noon-day And the River Po in Summer as if it took its rest growes dry saith Pliny In Italy Tophanus a Fountain of Anagnania is dry when the Lake Fucinus is frozen at other times of the year it runs with great quantity of water Agricol l. cit passim The Waters of the Lake of Babylon are red in Summer Boristhenes at some times of the year seems to be died with Verdigrease The water of the Fountain of the Tungri is boyling hot with fire subterraneal and is red The Waters of the River Caria by Neptunâ—s Temple were sweet and are now salt But in Thrace when Georgius Despota ruled a sweet Fountain grew to be bitter intolerably and whole rivers were changed at Citheron in Beotia as Theophrastus writes Men report that of the Mineral Waters which run by the Pangaeus a Mountain of Thrace an Athenian cotyle weighs in Summer 64 grains and in Winter 96. In the Province of Cyrene the Fountain of the Sun is hot at midnight afterwards it cooles by degrees and at Sun-rising it is cold and the higher the the Sun riseth the colder it is so that it is frozen at mid day then again by degrees it growes warm it is hot at Sun-set and the more the Sun proceeds the hotter it becomes The same Fountain every day as it growes cold at mid-day so it is sweet as it growes hot at midnight so it growes bitter Artic. 6. Of some other things admirable in Waters THey were wonders that are passed but greater follow In those it is easy to assign a cause mixture or some such like if you rightly consider it but here it is difficult for though you may in some yet commonly we must fly to hidden qualities I will briefly rehearse them Some drops of a Fountain of the Goths powred upon the Earth cease to move and are thickned by the ayr The waters of Cepusia in Pitchers turn into a Stone those of Rhaetid make people foolish they pull out the teeth in two years and dissolve the ligaments of the sinews which Pliny writes to be in Germany by the Sea-side Those of Islandia change things that are hollow into stones Tybur covers Wood with stone covers Zamenfes in Africa makes clear voyces Soractes when the Sun riseth runs over as though it boyled birds that then drink of it die He growes temperate who drinks of the Lake Clitorius and he forgets who drinks of a well nere the River Orchomenus sacred to the God Trophonius Philarch. He proves dull of wit that drinks of a Fountain in the Island Cea Agricola de reb 〈…〉 terra effluent gives a cause for it as for the former by reason of the bitumen For saith he the seeds of wild Parsnips wrapt in a linnen clout and put into Wine as also the powder of the flowers of Hermodactylus which the Turks use being drunk with it are the cause that it will make a man sooner and more drunk so some kind of Bitumen mixt with water is wont to make men drunk The horses drinking Sebaris are troubled with sneesing whatsoever is sprinkled with it is couloured black Clitumnus of Umbria drank of makes white Oxen and Cesiphus of Beotia white sheep but a River in Cappadocia makes the hair whiter softer and longer In Pontus Astaces waters the fields in which Mares are fed that feed the whole Countrey with black milk The waters in Gadaris make men bald and deprive Cattle of hair hooffs and horns Cicero writes that in the Marshes of Reate the hoofs of beasts are hardned The hot baths at the Fort of New-house colour the Silver Rings of such as wash in them with a Golden colour and make Gold Rings more beautifull Aniger that runs out of Lapithum a Mountain of Arcadia will nourish no fish in it till it receive Acidan and those that go then out of it into Aniger are not edible but they in Acidan are Pausanias Agrigentinum a Lake of Sicily will beare those things that do not swim in the waters In Aethiopia there is one so thin that it will not carry up leaves that fall from the next Trees In the lake Asphaltiâ—es a man bound hand and foot cannot sink The cause is held to be the great quantity of Salt Hieronymus Florentinus saw a Bankrupt bound and cast headlong from the Tower into it and it bore him up all the night Posidonius observed that bricks in Spain made of Earth with which their Silver plate is rub'd did swim in the waters Cleon and Goon were two Fountains in Phrygia either of their waters made men cry There were two in the fortunate Island they that tasted of one laught till they died
the other was the remedy for them Anauros of Thessaly and Boristhenes send out no vapour nor exhalation many refer the cause of it to its mixture others seek it other-where Agricola l. 2. de effl ex terr c. 17. saith In what part of the Rivers the Channels in the Fords have no veins and fibres by that they can breath forth no exhalations In the snows of Mount Caucasus hollow Clods freez and contain good water in a membrane there are Beasts there that drink this water which is very good and runs forth when the membranes are broken Strab. in Geograph Nilus makes women so fruitfull that they will have 4 and 6 at one venter Pliny in Histor. There is a Well of water that makes the inhabitants of the Alps to have swollen throats Lang. l. 5. Epist. 43. But in field Rupert neer to Argentina there is a water said to be that makes the drinkers of it troubled with Bronchocele they seem to be infected with quicksilver for this is an enemy to the brain and nervs for it not only sends back flegme to the glandulous parts of the head and neck but that which is heaped up in the head it throws down upon the parts under it Sebizius de acidul s. 1. dict 6. Corol. 1. thes 12. Diana a River of Sicily that runs to Camerina unlesse a chast woman draw its water it will not mingle with Wine Solinus C. 10. Styx in Arcadia drank of kills presently it penetrates and breaks all yet it may be contained in the horns of one kind of Asse Seneca l. 3. natur c. 25. Two Rivers runs into Niger a River in Africa one is reddish the other whitish Barrens Histor. dec 1. l. 3. c. 8. If any man drink of both he will be forced to Vomit both up but if any man drink but of one he shall Vomit leasurely but when they are both run into Niger and a man drink them mingled he shall have no desire to Vomit Narvia is a River of Lithuania so soon as Serpents tast of the water they give a hiss and get away Cromer descript Polon l. 1. A Fountain of Sardinia in the Mediterranean keeps the length and shortnesse of dayes and runs accordingly In the Island of Ferrum one of the Canaries there is no water the Ayr is fiery the ground dry and man and beast are sad for want of water But there is a Tree the kind is unknown the leaves are long narrow and allways green A Clowd allwaies surrounds it whereby the leaves are so moystned that most pure liquour runs continually from it which the inhabitants fetch setting vessells round the Tree to take it in Bertius in descript Canariar Sea-waters if they be lukewarm they portend tempests before two days be over and violent Winds Lemnius de occult l. 2. c. 49. In England nere New-Castle there is a lake called Myrtous part whereof is frozen in Summer Thuan. in Histor. But I have done with these Authours have more if any man desire it especially Claudius Vendilinus whom I name for honour sake if he seek for the wonders of Nilus Artic. 7. Of some Floods or Waters and of the Universall Deluge THe Floods were signs of Gods anger and so much the more as that was greater and mens sins more grievous The greatest was that we call the generall Deluge which began about the end of the year of the World 1656. All the bars of the Channels were broken and for 40 dayes a vaste quantity of water was poured down Also the Fountains of the great Deep were cut asunder so that the Waters increased continually for 150 dayes and passed above the highest Mountains 15 Cubits At length they abated by degrees for after 70 dayes the tops began to appear The Inhabitants of the New World say they had it from their Ancestours Those of Peru say that all those Lands lay under waters and that men were drowned except a few who got into woodden Vessels like Ships and having provision sufficient they continued there till the waters were gone Which they knew by their dogs which they sent forth of doors and when the dogs came in wet they knew they were put to swim but when they returned dry that the waters were gone August Carat But they of Mexico say that five Suns did then shine and that the first of them perished in the waters and men with it and whatsoever was in the earth These things they have described in Pictures and Characters from their Ancestors giving credit to Plato's Flood which was said to have hapned in the Island Atlantis Lupus Gomara But Lydiat ascribes the cause of that universal Deluge to a subterraneal fire in a hotter degree increasing the magnitude by rarefaction so long as it could not gâ—t out of its hollow places Genesis seems to demonstrate it For the Fountains of the great Deep are said to be broken open and that a wind was sent forth after 40 dayes and the waters were quieted We must understand a wind from a dry Exhalation which a subterraneous fire much increased had most abundantly raised out of the deep of the Sea which was then thrust forth of them and did increase the motion of the ayr that it laid hold of together with the revolution of the Heavens and the vehemency of the Firmament But there were other miraculous Deluges besides this CHAP. IV. Of the Originall of Fountains Sea by passages under the Earth The Sea alone is sufficient to supply all Springs and when we see that it no wayes increaseth by the Rivers that run into it it is apparent that they run to their Fountains by secret channels But the question is of the manner how they ascend Socrates ascribes it to the Tossing of them Pliny to the wind l. 21. c. 65. Bodin l. 2. Theatr. to the weight of the Earth driving forth the water Scaliger to the Bulk of the Sea others to vapours redoubled into themselves It is a hard matter to define all things nor is it our purpose But because Thom Lydiat an English Man hath written most acutely of this Subject we will set down his opinion here contracted into a few Propositions I. The Rolling of the Water is not the cause of its ascending to the superficies of the Earth For there is no cause for its tossing and wherefore then should it not at length stand levell II. To be driven with the wind is not the cause 1. For it seems not to be raised in the Sea by a fixed Law of Nature but by way of Tempest 2. The Channels are winding and should carry it rather to the sides than to the superficies 3. If a contrary wind cannot do so much in any water what then can the wind do here Also if there were any receptacles for the waters forced upwards Miners those that dig in mines would have found them out as Vallesius saith III. The weight of the Earth squeesing out the water is not the Cause For the Earth
doth not lye upon the waters but contrarily where the Conduits are not full the lower part is not empty but the upper part IV. Nor the Bulk of the Sea Scaliger thinks that the Waters being pressed in the channels by the Sea lying upon them do seek to get forth His Example is of a stone in a vessel But two things are here assumed 1. That the gravity is every where the same as in the weight of a stone 2. That a great part of the Sea water is out of its place V. Nor yet vapours redoubled into themselves and so drawing nor the spungy Nature of the Earth nor the veins of the Earth whereby the moysture of the water may be drawn forth For 1. attracting forces would be more fit for Champion ground than for Mountains 2. If they should attract it were for that purpose that they might have the fruition of it but from whence are there such Rivers 3 The veins of waters are no where found so full as that reason requireth whether it be for blood in living creatures or for squirts VI. The water is raised out of the Caves of the Earth to the Tops of Mountains as the Sea is raised above the middle Region of the Ayr. VII But this Elevation is made by the force of heat resolving the water into vapours Aristotle himself intimates that heat is required but that water may be made of a vapour there needs no cold but a more remisse heat VIII The heat of the Earth proceeds not from the heat of the Sun namely of the Earth in its Intralls For first it can penetrate but two yards deep and therefore the Troglodites make their Caves no deeper 2. In the hottest Summer a woodden post that is but one or two Inches thick is not penetrated 3. The entralls of the Earth about 8 or 10 yards deep are found colder in Summer then in Winter IX The Antiperistasis of the cold Ayr in the superficies of the Earth is nothing to the purpose 1. It is more weak than the cold of the firm Earth 2. What ever of the Suns heat is bred within passeth out by the pores and vanisheth 3. It perisheth being besieged by both colds to which it bears no proportion X. The heat that is in the bowells of the Earth is from a double cause For in the parts nearest the superficies it proceeds from the Sun beams but in the bowels of the Earth from other causes That passeth out by the pores of the Earth in Summer being opened by the Sun and therefore it vanisheth when as being removed from its original it is weaker but in winter it is bound in by the cold XI The heat in the bowels of the Earth is known by the heat of the Waters but these are neither hot by the Sun nor from brimstone or quicklime in the conduits but only from a subterraneal fire Not from the Sun For. 1. That cannot penetrate so far 2. If it were from thence it would be most in Summer Not from brimstone or quick lime for brimstone heats not unlesse it be actually heated and quick-lime only then when it is resolved by Water Also the vast quantity of it would be resolved in a short time and would make a change in the Channels But it may be understood some ways how it may be heated by a subterraneal fire 1. As it is actuall and so the Channels being solid stone cannot derive it 2. As it is more remote but sends forth Vapours by pipes as in Baths so also not for Vapours cannot have so great force as to make it boil 3. That the Water may run amongst the burning fire as in bituminous Channels But here the question may be why it doth not cast out the Bitumen as in Samosata a City of Comagenes Pliny saith l. 2. c. 104. and 107 that a certain lake cast forth flaming mud and fire came out at the Waters of Scantium 4. The fourth way is the truth Art doth some wayes imitate Nature but in Stills the water by the force of heat is resolved into Vapours and the Vapours fly upwards to the heads where they stick and being removed from the violent heat they return to Water again so also in the bowells of the Earth XII But Fountains that boyl seem not to be of those Waters that run but that stand still Namely Wells that have formerly been opened by the quakings of the Earth which it is no wonder that they are joyned to the Sea In a small Island against the River Timevuâ— Pliny l. 2. c. 103. writes that there is a hot spring that ebs and flows with the Sea In the Gades it is contrary Pliny l. 2. c. â—2 But if any of these hot springs do runâ— we must observe of them that their Channels are so scituated that when the Sea flowes it comes unto them or if it were come into them before it powreth forth the more And so the heat of the fire will be either proportionable and the exhalation greater or not and so lesse XIII But what Agricola writes of bituminous Waters and that yeeld a smell must be ascribed to their neernesse but it vanisheth at a farther distance The same is observed in artificiall distilled waters that in time the burntness of them will vanish away XIV But because this fire by the shaking of the Earth can do much in the superficies it can then do more in the place it is It can therefore stop up old Channels open new ones in divers caves of the Earth without sending forth of the matter combustible or propagation of fire or conflict of Vapours it can rayse new fires from whence new Rivers may be produced yet somtimes also it useeth to be extinguished or sunk so deep that it cannot send its force to the superficies This is the opinion of Lydiat which we have set down more amply that being better known it might be more exactly weighed CHAP. V. Of hot Baths THe heat of hot Baths is diversly spoken of by Authours Aristotle thought it proceeded from Thunder which is false for the force of Thunder is pestilentiall any man may know it that beholds Wine corrupt by Thunder It makes men mad or dead but these are healthfull as experience daily shews Also there are many places that were never touched with Thunder for that never descends above five foot Sennert Scient natural l. 4. c. 10. thinks it comes from two waters that are cold to be felt but grow hot in their meeting from repugnancy of the Spirits as we see in oyle of Tartar and Spirit of Vitrial and in Aquafortis and Tartar and of the butter of Antimony and Spirit of Nitre all which though they are cold to the touch yet if you mingle them they grow hot and so that if you suddenly powre oyle of Tartar into Aquafortis wherein Iron is dissolved it will not only boyle but the mixture will flame which also happeneth if you pour fast the spirit of Nitre into the
violently that in one night it buds all over with a noyse so that the whole Tree will be covered with flowers Pliny l. 16. c. 25. CHAP. XXX Of Napellus NApellus kills with every part but chiefly the root For held in the hand till it wax hot it will destroy you It is certain that some shepherds that used the stalk for a spit to rost birds dyed of it Mathiolus Com. in l. 4. Dioscor c. 73. confirms this venomous quality of it by many examples I shall adde one One dram of Napellus was given to a Thief that was 27 years old He drank it down and said it tasted like pepper Most grievous symptoms followed for he vomited often something green as Leeks He felt a thing like a ball about his Navell it came upwards and sent a cold vapour to his head then he became stupified as if he had a palsie that laid hold on his left arm and leg that he could scarce stir the top of his hand all motion being lost in the other parts By and by this force of the disease forsook his left side which became sound and seized on his right side and wrought the like effects there He said That all the veins of his body were grown cold He had giddinesse in his head and his brain was so often disturb'd that he said it seem'd to him like boyling water He had Convulsions in his Eyes and Mouth and a very sharp pain in his Mandibles wherefore he often held those parts with his hands fearing they would fall off His eyes appeared outwardly swoln his face wan lips black and his belly was seen to swell like a Tympany His Arteries beat strongly and his mind was diversly troubled as the symptoms increased For sometimes he thought he should die and presently he hoped to live sometimes he spake rationally and sometimes he doted sometimes he wept and sometimes he sang He affirmed that in all this time he was thrice blind and thrice in an agony of death but his tongue was firm never troubled with any symptome Thus far Mathiolus But all these symptomes by giving him Bezars stone vanished in seven hours CHAP. XXXI Of Nyctegretum Granum Nubiae Nutmegs and Olive Trees NYctegretum was admired by Democritus amongst a few things it is hot as fire and hath thorny leafs nor doth it rise from the ground It must be dug up after the vernal Equinoctial and dryed by the Moon-light for 30 dayes and then it will shine in the night Plin. l. 21. c. 11. It is also called Chenomychon because Geese are afraid at the sight of it In Nubia which is Aethiopia by Aegypt there is a grain that swallowed will kill living Creatures A tenth part of it will kill them in a quarter of an hour Scalig. Exerc. 153. s. 11. In Banda an Island of the Molucco's the Nutmeg growes and it is covered with a cup for a shell when 't is ripe it is all covered over Under the first covering the shell is not presently that covers the kernel but a thick skin which the Arabians call Macin The Olive-Tree if it be cropped at the first budding by a Goat growes so barren that it will never bear by any means but if there be any other cause the certain cure is to lay open their roots to the Winter cold Plin. l. 7. c. 14. The Olive and the Oak so disagree that one planted by the other will shortly die The Lees of oyl mingled with Lime if walls be plaistered with it and the roofs they not onely drop down all adventitious humours that they contract but neither Moth nor Spiders will endure them Mathiol in Dioscor It flowereth in July the flowers coming forth by clusters From whence grow first green berries and they are pale as they grow ripe then they become a full purple colour and lastly black They are pulled in November and December then are they laid in pavements till they become wrinkled then are they put in under a milstone and are pressed out with presses pouring scalding water on and so they yield their oyl The wood of the Tree burns as well green as dry At Megoris a wild Olive Tree stood long in the Market-place to which they had fastned the Arms of a valiant man but the bark grew over it and hid them for many years That Tree was fatall to the Cities ruine as the Oracle foretold when a Tree should bear arms for it so fell out when the Tree was cut down spurs and helmets being found within it Plin. l. 16. c. 29. The Olive Tree lasts 200 years Plin. l. 16. c. 44. CHAP. XXXII Of the Palm-Tree THey say that the female Palm-Trees will bring forth nothing without the Males which is confirmed when a wood growes up of its own accord so about the Males many females will grow enclining toward them and wagging their boughes But the male with branches standing up as it were hairy doth marry them by the blowing on them and by standing near them on the same ground Plin. l. 13. c. 4. When the Male is cut up the females are in widowhood and are barren Hence in Egypt they so plant them that the wind may carry the dust from the Male to the Female but if they be far off they bind them together with a cord Pontanus reports that two Palm-Trees one set at Brundusium the other at Hydruntum were barren till they were grown up to look one upon the other and though it were so great a distance yet they both did bear fruit Dalechamp ad lib. cit Poets write thus of them A Tree there grew in large Brundusium Land A Tree in Idumaea much desir'd And in Hydruntum Woods one rare did stand Like Male and Female 't is to be admir'd On the same ground they did not grow but wide Asunder and they both unfruitful stood They many leaves did bear nothing beside At last they grew so high above the wood That of each other they enjoy'd the light Then they grew fruitful like to Man and Wife Each in the other seem'd to take delight And to be partners each of th' others life Cardanus reports that in Data a City of Numidia there was a Palm-Tree the fruit whereof unlesse the boughes of the flourishing male were mingled with the boughes of the female the fruit was never ripe but were lean with a great stone in them and by no help could they be kept from consuming but if any leaf or rind of the male were present then they would grow ripe Philo. l. 1. de vita Mosis saith that the vital force of it is not in the roots but in the top of the stock as in the heart and in the middle of the boughes that it is guarded about with all as with Halberdiers There is a kind of Palm-Tree growes in India out of the stock whereof the boughes being for that purpose cut in the moneth of August a liquor like wine runs forth that the Inhabitants receive in vessels
unlesse it be boyled it growes sowr after 3. daies Mathiol ad l. 1. c. 126. Boyled it is converted into most sweet honey which afterwards is resolved in water in 20 daies it is strained forth artificially and so clarified it will last But the Palm-Trees which Dioscorides calls Thebaicae in time grow so dry in the Sun that they are ground to make bread of them Thevet speaks of a Palm-Tree that yields wine in the promontory of Aethiopia which is the fairest sort of Palm-Trees for height and for being alwaies green They cut it 2. foot above the ground to draw forth the juice They let it run into Earthen vessels for their daily drink and to make it keep they cast in a little salt It is like white Wine of Campania in colour and substance Linschottus l. 4. America novae c. 26. reports That in a place of the West-Indies called St. John de portu divite there growes a Palm-Tree that every moneth brings new leaves and is loaded with Cocker-nuts Pierius in Hieroglyph saith it is an Emblem of the year because this Tree alone at every new Moon sends forth several branches CHAP. XXXIII Of the Plane-Tree Apple-Trees and the Tree called Pater-Noster OF old they gave so much honour to the Plane-Tree at Rome that they infused the roots in Wine a long time to preserve them In the Island of Candie there is one that never loseth its leafs Plin. l. 1. c. 1. But there is a noted one in Lycia by the way side that is hollow like a house the hollow cave in it is 81 foot wide it hath a wooddy top and vast boughes like great Trees it overshadowes the fields with its far casting shadow and that nothing may be wanting to the likenesse of a Cave there is a stony circumference within that is full of mossy Pumex stones the miracle is so great that L. Matianus that was thrice Consul thought fit to divulge it to posterity that he and 18. more feasted in it If Apples in winter be kept amongst Grapes they so corrupt the Grapes that they presently wither and corrupt It is reported that if a woman with Child eat Quinces she shall be delivered of an industrious and witty child Citron Apples keep garments from Moths and Worms how good they are against poyson you may know by examples out of Athenaeus A Citron Apple hath cured some that were stung by Vipers They keep longer uncorrupted if they be put into a heap of Barley or Millet They cure Scabs if they be cut in the middle and powder of Brimstone be finely strewed upon them and they be rosted in hot Embers and so the Patient be rubb'd therewith Apples of Sodome are fair to sight but touched they fall to ashes Solin c. 36. In Hispaniola there is a Tree called Pater noster the fruit is as great as a Hasel nut put this in boyling water and dip a linnen or woollen Cloth in it it will be died gallantly with diversity of spots but it corrodes with its over-great force Ovetan l. 9. c. 1. CHAP. XXXIV Of Pepper Plantain Pimpernel wild Tansie herb Paris and Paper ROund black Pepper growes upon some weak branches like tendrels that creep up to the tops of Trees by them clinging about them It growes like the fruit of the wild Vine in clusters flourishing close together of a green colour till it become dry which when it doth as it doth in October it is gathered and laid upon Palm-Tree coverlids in the open Sun to torrifie and so it becomes black and shrivelled Mathiol l. 2. Diosc. c. 153. The root of the greater Plantain put in a little bag and bound with a thread near the Region of the heart preserveth a man from the Plague Scholtius relates it for a certain remedy out of Monavius Epist. 268. Pimpernel was found out by Prince Chaba for with this alone were cured 5000 wounded Hungarians after the battel Clus. in Nomen Pannon steeped in hot water it is approved for to cure a continual Feaver It hath so great force against the disease called Hydrophobia that whosoever shall use it betimes in the morning for some dayes in Sallets or otherwise after he hath been bitten shall find no harm Fernelius Wild Tansey applyed to the palms of the hands and soles of the feet abates the heat of any Feavert Mathiol in l. 5. c. 37. In the berries of Herb Paris there is found seed that hath great vertue against Witchcraft Some grow sottish by Chronicle diseases others by Witchcraft If these drink the seed one dram for 20. days they are cured Paper reed growes in the Lakes of Aegypt or where the waters of Nilus have run over and stand still and are not above two Cubits high the crooked root is as thick as ones arme it hath triangular sides it is not above ten Cubits in length it runs up spire wise like a Javelin Plin. l. 13. c. 12. The Aegyptians made matter to joyne their Ships together with the inside of this bulrush cutting off the tops of the reed also they made Sailes and shoes of it Herodot l. 2. Onely the Priests wore those shoos as Arist. writes They were wont to sell and to eat the lower part of about a Cubit in length and they were exceeding sweet when they were torrified in an Oven This was the chief meat of the Aegyptians hence was the original of Paper Dalechamp ad l. 13. Plin. c. 11. CHAP. XXXV Of the Oake Rhubarb Rape-root and Rosa-solis IN Maritania Oaks beare a long Acorn that tasts sweeter and more delicate than Chestnuts Scaliger Exerc. 181. s. 26. The land of the shore of Sinus Pucicus is Rocky and the Clods of Earth are bituminous there grow upon them pale shrubs scarce a foot high They have a kind of Okes and Box-Trees but they have no root Scaliger saw one that was without knots and straight 75 foot long There were 30 Crowns offered for it Scalig. Exerc. 166. A little above the Cauchi Pliny lib. 16. c. 1. writes that there were mighty ones by the banks of two Lakes which being either undermined by the waters or blown down with the wind pull'd up great Islands with them that they grew upon with their roots and so standing equally ballanced they sailed being furnished with huge boughs They oft terrified the Roman Navy when as they were driven by the Waves as it were of purpose and seen by those that kept watch on the decks There was one in the Country of Thurirum that never cast its leaves yet never budded till midsummer Rheubarb grows only in China and is brought by Usebech into Turkie and so to Venice The vertues of it are said to be notable and they bring an example of an hydropick person who having been in exceeding great danger by the use of Rhubarb he was cured and lived to be a very old man Adolph Occo in Scholtii Epist. The same man received a mortall wound by his Servant after his disease and the
feed on it and there follows either a scowring or death Theophrastus l. 9. c. 22. It grew famous by Nero For he when he had his face bruised by his revellings in the night he annoynted it with Thapsia wax and Frankinsence and beyond expectation it was whole the next day For it wonderfully takes away bruised marks Plin. l. 13. c. 22. Thauzangent is a root in the Western Mauritania of so good smel that a smal quantity hanged about the roof of the house will make a gallant perfume Scalig. Exerc. 142. s. 6. CHAP. XLIV Of the Vine VInes are somtimes infinite great For in Campania those that grow neere the tall Poplar Trees run up by the boughs of them with their joynts till they come to the top so that he that is bound to gather their grapes is in danger of his life Plin. l. 4. c. 1. Pliny saith they will not easily corrupt For the Image of Jupiter in the City Populonia remain'd there many yeares uncorrupted and the Temple of Diana of Ephesus had staires to go up to the top made of one Vine of Cyprus Some of them do yeeld fruit thrice a yeare Dalechampius saw it in many places at Lyons especially in the Garden of Guilet Caulius They are called mad Vines Dalechamp ad c. 27. s. 16. Plin. At the end of the Spring they send forth smal flowers like Starrs set about with round scrapings like Silver of a subspiceous colour These being fallen off like to a little Starre presently appear the clusters of Grapes Lemnius in herb bibl c. 2 The smell of them drives away Venemous Beasts the water that runs from the Vine when it is pruned heals Scabs Some catch it in a glasse bottle and set it in the Sun a whole yeare in the open ayre free from rayn At last a honey substance congeles which is of as great vertue as balsome For it cleanseth fills with flesh conglutinates takes away spots Water distilled from the tender leaves of the Vine in May is good for women that long They suffer no harm though they want it Sennert l. 4. p. 2. c. 2. From Grapes Wine is pressed that we drink The vertues of it are divers as the Wines are Lemn de occult l. 1. c. 16. The Wines of Poictou make men peevish and froward for the Vapours of it prick the braine but your Rhenish Wines are more gentle In the Country of Goritium the Wine is highly commended and next to that is the Wine of Pucinum and Vipacum Mathiolus when he had a long time paines of the Stomach by experience found the force of it Livia Augusta owed her 82 yeares of her life to the Wine at Pucinum Plin. l. 14. c. 6. The Country people that inhabite Japidia because they drink Wines neere Pucinum are seldom sick Galen de Theriaca saith that the best never grows sowr and Pliny writes that some have lasted 200 yeares when it is corrupted it becomes Vinegar the natural heat being resolved It is of an excellent vertue For it hinders tempests and the ruine of Sailers and dissipates the â—aulâ—y ayre suffering no humours to corrupt Plin. l. 2. c. 48. Pearls are tuâ—â—'d into Powder by it as we have an example from Cleopatra who objected to Antony that she alone would spend at one supper a hundred thousand Sestertii and she took a Pearle out of her eare the like was not found in the East Indies and put it into a sawâ—â—r of Vinegar and when it was dissolved she drank it up Plin. l. 9. c. 35. Aqua vitae is also made of it which is otherwise called Elixir the Golden water the Heaven of the Philosophers the quintessence the Soul of Wine the Divine water and the Philosophers Key Canonher de admirand vini l. 1. c. 5. Physitians write wonders of it which are impossible for ignorant people It is thin and the best part of it will flye into the ayre that you would wonder at it For the heat of it kept inwardly by help of the motion of the Ayre resolves the thin substance into a Vapour Cardan de Aethere Things steeped in it in 24 hours lose their vertues Heurn l. 1. prax Medic. It is an Antidote for all things Mathiol in Dioscor l. 6. and not only drank but spurted out of ones mouth into anothers face it recalls Epileptick and hystericall persons restoring lost speech Antonius della Scarparia when he was 80 yeares old said O Aquavitae for 22 years I owe my life to thee Savanarola of the art of making Aquavitae simple and compound Francis the first Duke of Mantua was much delighted with it for having a cold Stomach he was troubled with wind His words are these That he had tried all remedies and found none so good as Aquavitae Canonher loc cit Quercetan shews an unusuall way of trying Wine in Diaetetica in these words All the Gascony Wines that must be transported by Sea are brought to Burdeaux there they are laid in Wine-Cellers for publick use that are wonderfull long and broad so that they may be truly called the Wine-Market without the City a little way and there they are set in close order only a place is left between the ranks to draw Wine at The Merchants that come to buy Wines and are cunning care not so much to taste the Wines that are good but they will go over all the Wine-Vessels and so they can tell by treading on them which are the most spiritful Wines and lightest and those they seal For they go lighter and nimbler on the best Wines than on the grosser and more earthly Wines for they make their passage more heavy There be wonders of it in Pliny l. 14. c. 18. In Arcadia it makes women barren and men mad Theophrast l. 6. c. 19. In Achaia it causeth abortion if Bitches eat Grapes they cast their whelps Victor l. 7. c. 23. They that drink Traezenium lose their generative faculty In Thasias one kind causeth sleep another makes men wake In Aegypt the Grape is sweet and purgeth the belly in Lycia it binds it CHAP. XLV Of Xaqua and Zuccarum or Sugar XAqua is a Tree in Hispaniola The fruit is like to Poppie and a clear white water runs forth of it and whatsoever is sprinkled with it grows like black so that no washing will make it clean In 20 dayes it parts from the rind of it self Ovetan Summ. c. 77. There are two kinds of Zuccarum one from Canes another from an hearb There is another kind from an Indian Tree called Haeoscer Scalig. Exerc. 164. But this is scarce Sugar but the thinner part of milk compacted by heat which falling forth of the buds and roots of the leaves thickneth into a gum They say the fruit is like to Camels Testicles Out of any part of the Tree cut Milk runs forth so hot that it is held for the best meanes to take off haire The Inhabitants make their skins smooth with this There are two kinds of the true
upon the others back then the first brings up the rear when he is weary and would refresh himself By nature they conquer Serpents For by strong sucking in their breath they will draw them out of their holes and then devoure them After this Banquet they bathe themselves and eat Crevish Then they weep and their tears are turned to Bezar stones They die if they drink before they have done this Gesner CHAP. XI Of the Dog THere are many wonderfull things in a Dogg his manner of birth quick sent biting docile nature fidelity and the like The puppies are borne blind the more they suck the slower they are to see but commonly in 7 days if they see quickly but 20 days is the longest time Some say if one Whelp be littered he will see in 9 days if two in ten and so it is if there be more each addeth a day of blindnesse to the time Lastly one bred of the first litter of a Bitch will see soonest The best of the puppies is that which sees last or which is first puppyed Albertus writes that he saw a Mastiff that first littered 19 then 18 then 13 at one time He hath a sent so quick that he will never eate Doggs-flesh be it never so well seasoned to deceive him In Scotland there is a kind of them that will persue a theif and if he passe over a River they will swim over after him and when they come on the other side they will hunt about to find his foot-steps and still follow him Gesner A mad Doggs biting is wonderfull Venemous and deadly He runs mad about the Dogg days with the Tooth-ach he is cured if he eate Hellebour with Barley flower and Vomit it up again the pisse of a mad Dogg trod upon hurts extreamly those rhat have an Ulcer and it is observed that their wounds will increase by treading on it that were ever bitten by any Dogg They will cause Hens eggs to grow addle and Cattel to miscarry A man had a wound in his Arme that after 12 yeares that he was bitten became sore again and he died in two days Albert. Fear of water first troubles such as are bitten and which is the greater wonder after 7 years it may shew it self One thought that he was cured being washed with Sea water yet after some months by touching of the Dogg-Tree-Wood he fell into a relapse Gesner Also in their Urine Doggs heads are said to appeare As for their docilenesse and fidelity there are many examples The Dog of Francis Marquis of Mantua would call his servants They will draw Coaches carry burdens in Ibissibur a Countrey of Tartary Lipsius Cent. 1. had a Dogg at Lovain that would carry letters so far as Brussels ad Belg. Epist. 44. and he would bring letters back from thence A Dogge at Brussels would carry money to the Shambles and fetch â—ome meat â—e fought with other Doggs upon the way and when he was beaten he laid hold of a peice The Dogs at Rhodâ—s knew Christians from Barbarians Gabelâ—n Histor. A certain Mountebank in the time of Justinian the Emperour had a Dogg that would take up many Rings cast down and restore every man his own he would tell you by pulling them by the cloaths which was a Wife a Widow or a Maid Lastly in Plutarch there was one that would represent a Man that was poysoned We read of the wonderfull fidelity of Dogg in Scaliger his Exercitations I will set it down in his own words and upon his own reputation A Courtier envying the credit of a certain friend of his or carried away with some other malice came suddenly upon him and killed him and after buried him in a place besides the way The party slain had at the same time a Hound with him who lay a long while upon his Masters grave Hunger for that time overcoming love he returns home and being seen without his Master by some other friends who thought the dog had been strayed from him they bade that some meat should be given him Having let down a few morsels he returns to the grave Which course he continued so often that the friends of the dead began to suspect and at last believed that the Dog sought for his Master They follow him and coming to the place where the earth was cast up dig into it find the body take it away and cause it to be buried in another place The solemnities ended the dog keeps with them whom he had led to this discovery A good while after the Murtherer comes again to the Court the Dog knows him and begins to run at him with great cryes and so earnestly pursueth his point upon him that suspition begins to enter into the minds of a great many that there was some evill in the man The dog continuing still to vex him the King was at last advertised of the case who commanded that the man should be straitly examined touching the fact He affirmeth himself innocent The dog when the Murtherer denyed that he knew what was become of the Dogs Master never left barking and bawling insomuch as all that were present took the same as a disproof that the dog made against him Well the matter proceeded so far that the King ordered it should be decided by a Combat between the man and the dog To make short the dog had the day and the Combat is painted and finely set forth in the Hall of a certain Castle in France and the work wearing out with age hath sometimes been renewed by Commandement from the King It deserveth saith the Lord de la Scale to be set forth in pictures of brasse that it may never perish But to close up this Discourse we will adde hereunto that which James Micyllus a learned Poet hath written in praise of a Dog in good Latin Verses expressed thus in our Tongue Of any Beast none is more faithfull found Nor yields more pastime in house plain or woods Nor keeps his Masters person or his goods With greater care than doth the Dog or Hound Command he thee obeyes most readily Strike him he whines and falls down at thy feet Call him he leaves his game and comes to thee With wagging tail offring his service meek In Summers heat he followes by thy pace In Winters cold he never leaveth thee In Mountains wild he by thee close doth trace In all thy fears and dangers true iâ— he Thy friends he loves and in thy presence lives By day by night he watcheth faithfully That thou in peace mayst sleep he never gives Good entertainment to thine enemy Course hunt in hills in valleys or in plains He joyes to run and stretch out every lim To please but thee he spareth for no pains His hurt for thee is greatest good to him Sometimes he doth present thee with a Hare Sometimes he hunts the Stag the Fox the Boar Another time he baits the Bull and Bear And all to make thee sport and for no more If so
Wild Goat call'd Oryx and the Panther or Leopard PLiny reckons Oryx amongst wild Goats When the Moon comes to the East it looks upon it and cryes and men say that for hate thereof it will digge up the ground with its forefeet and will set the very balls of the eyes to the ground and cast it up Some think it doth the same when the Sun riseth what place soever in the desart it finds water in it will trouble it by drinking at it and stirs the mud and throwes dust into it that it may not be fit to drink The Panther smells so sweet that it will allure all the wild beasts but the frowning countenance it hath frights them wherefore he hides his head and so they come and are caught In the right shoulder they have a mark like to the Moon and as that increaseth this increaseth and decreaseth Albert. It breeds but once in the life-time if we credit the Author of the Book of naturall things When the young ones are grown in the Mothers belly they will not tarry but tear out their passage she with pain is delivered of them and so can never after conceive again the parts being corrupted where the seed should stay Demetrius Physicus writes of it that one of them lay in the way waiting for a man and suddenly appeared to him he was frighted and began to run away but the wild beast came and tumbled before him that was frighted and was grieved at it Which also may be understood of a Panther For she had littâ—red and her Whelps were fallen into a pit First therefore he had cause to pity her and not to be afraid and next to take care and he was secure as he understood the cause of her grief and followed her she gently laying her claws and drawing him by the garments and he had his life for a reward for taking out her whelps and she having got her young ones again went along with him and guarded him out of the desart and she was jocant and merry that it might easily appear how gratefull she was and not to wrong him for his good deeds which is a rare thing in a Man They love wine and when they are drunk they are catcht The Holy Ghost likeneth Alexander the Great who founded the Graecian Monarchy to the Leopard You shall see the application in Cl Domino Conrado Grasero our Master in his Isagogue of Universal History a Work never can be enough commended CHAP. XXXI Of the Frog FRogs couple in the Spring and lay their spawn in the spring of the year following in the middle of it the frog lieth hid the Frogs being come forth shew their great heads Albertus At Lutavia they catch Bees when they come to drink at the water it is observed that they will eat a dead mole Albert. In August their mouth is so shut that they can neither eat nor drink nor cry and you can hardly open it with your hand or with a stick lib. de nat rer Their young ones are destroyed by the leaves of Mullens or Nut-leaves cast into the water Aelian If a candle lighted be set on the bank they will leave croking African in Geopont Their spawn is first found in March wash your hands in it and it will cure the Itch. Gesner saith it will cure the worms whereof a fellon is a kind if you lay it on your fingers The Egyptian Frogs when they light upon a water-Snake will take a reed in their mouthes and so they cannot be devoured Gillius A Toad burned will breed again of his own ashes But in Dariene a Province of the New World they breed presently from the drops that fall from their slaves hands whilest they water the pavements Martyr changeth them in Summer into Fleas he ascribeth it to the filthy muddy Ayr. If you beat him with a wand he will first cast forth his venom by his legs and then he sweats some drops like milk Frederick Duke of Saxony gave one of them to hold till it grew hot it was first thrust through with a woodden spit dryed in the shade and wrapt in Sarsnet and this was his remedy to stâ—nch blood Gesner makes the reason to be Cold. Borax is a kind of Toad especially of a brown colour and in hot Countries is of a cubital magnitude and sometimes carries its young on its back In the forehead of this Toad is the stone found sometimes it is white sometimes brown which is best if it have a yellow spot in the middle Some say it is onely a bone some say it is bred of that bird-limy froth which Toads meeting together in Spring-time do breathe into the forehead of one of the chief of them Gesner l. 2. de Oviparis he cannot believe that it is a stone He that would hear more of Frogs shall â—ind it in the books of Libavius his Battrachiorum if he reads them CHAP. XXXII Of Rangifer and Rhinoceros RAngifer breeds in the North specially in Norway and Swethland it is like a Hart but bigger in body and exceeding strong He â—ath three ranks of horns on his head so that in each there are two and his head seems to be set about with twigs Of these two are greater than the rest when they come to perfection they are five cubitâ— and have 25 branches in them Albertus They are milked and will go 30 miles a day Olaus Rhinoceros is a Beast as big as an Elephant he hath one horn in his nose and from thence he hath his name It is moderately bent and so sharp that is will pierce stones and Iron Aelian His skin is very thick with skaly crusts in colour and figure like a Tortoisse shell It is so fast that a Dart can hardly enter it He is an Elephants enemy when he fights with him he whets his horn on a stone then putting his horn under the Elephants belly where it is softest he rends him He that will see examples let him read Camerarius in subcisivis horis CHAP. XXXIII Of divers Serpents IN the Province of Caraia under the King of Tartaria some Serpents are ten yards long and ten hands broad some want fore-feet but have clawes in the room of them Their eyes are as great as two small loaves They are wonderfull good in Physick For one bit by a mad dog if he drink but a penny weight presently he will be suddenly cured and a woman in labour if she taste never so little thereof will be delivered immediately Paul Venetus Americus Vespatius saw some in the Indies that men did eat They were as big as Kids and a yard and half long their feet were long armed with strong claws their skin was of divers colours and nose like a Serpent From the ears to the end of the tail a certain bristle went quite through the back that you would think they were Serpents indeed Calecut breeds the like so great as Boars and sometimes with greater heads four feet no venom yet they
every thing had a sufficient perfection given to it and is content with it thence we see his goodnesse They are all from God and they tend unto God thence is glory Article 2. Of the Parts of the World and the disposing of them WEe need not be over-curious for the matter of it It contains the Heaven with the Stars the Elements Meteors in the Ayr Fishes in the Waters Minerals in the secrets of the Earth Plants Animals and Man are in the upper surface They are all materiall and corporeal things which wise men include in it and they are all realities Heaven is thought to be uncompounded the Elements serve for composition Meteors are imperfectly mixt Minerals perfectly but without life Plants with life but without sense Beasts with life and sense but without reason Man with life sense and reason is the compendium of all a little world in the great world The perfection is as great as the matter could bear the Workmaster could give more but the Matter was not capable of it Scalig. Exerc. 243. s. 3. The goodnesse is confirmed by the decree of God Gen. 1. vers ult He saw and behold all things were good The manner of ordering them in this great Engine Zeno in Laertius amongst the Philosophers hath declared That God at first whilest he was alone changed all essence by Ayr into Water and as in the birth the seed is contain'd so God who is the seminal cause of the World left such a seed in the moysture that should afford an easie and fit matter for this work for the generation of things afterwards Then he first produced the four Elements Fire Water Ayr Earth c. Trismegistus in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaks true There was saith he infinite darknesse in the deep and the water and an intelligible spirit were by Divine vertue existing in the Chaos wherefore the holy light was taken away and the Elements were congealed and fastned beneath of a moyst substance and all these embraced and were in love with a seminall nature And when all things were undivided and not set in order they were parted and things that were leight chose the uppermost place heavy the lowest moyst the dry Land all of them being divided by the Fire and hanging in the Ayr and carried by it And the Heaven appeared in 7. circles and the gods appearing in the Aspects of the Stars with all their signs and the whole circumference was distinguished and with the gods that are in it was circumscribed with the circumambient Ayr and carried by a moving Divine spirit And every God by his own vertue produced what he was commanded and there were brought forth four-footed beasts creeping things Fishes Birds and every seminall plant and grasse and flowers and every herb contain'd in themselves seeds of regeneration and the Generations of men were for the knowledge of Divine things c. But Moses sets it down most truly Gen. Chap. 1. Heaven and Earth and Light the first day are The Firmament dividing Waters second were The third the waters parted Plants the Earth The fourth to Sun and Moon and Stars gives birth The fifth gives Fishes and all kind of Birds The sixth brought Cattell all made by Gods Words Then Man was made the seventh rest affords Danaeus in Phys. Christiana Artic. 3. Of Unity Figure and Soul of the World DEmocritus and Empedocles supposed that other worlds were made successively of some indivisible small seeds Hence Alexander complain'd that he had not yet conquered one Origines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said they were infinite successively that the Elementary world was made every 7 thousand years and the heavenly once in 4900 years For the Sabbath for the earth and the yeare of Jubilee was wont to return every 7th year and every 49 yeares Leo Hebraeus toucheth upon this opinion Dialog de Amore where he saith The inferior world by the opinion of the old divines is generated corrupted and renewd once in 7000 years But because we see nothing moved in it confusedly nor any thing set without it whither shall we go out of it Our desire is answered For in the end of our cogitations the same question alwaies returns Wherefore we say that there is but one world and the figure of it is plain like to a skin stretched forth very large saith Basilius But Plato held that it was like a Circumvex pointed with many Angles Sanchumates Berytius the most ancient writer of the affaires of Phoenicia said it was like to an Egge wherefore at the feasts of Bacchus they religiously adored an egg as the emblem of the world Some compare it to the greek letter Ω in which the outward lineament represents the Ocean Dalecham P. ad l. 2. Plin. hist. c. 3. But that it is made like a Globe not only the name and consent amongst men that call it so but every mans eyes can tell him for it is convex and one half look upon it which way we will Plato Of which living creatures he would have all other living creatures contain'd he framed that of such a forme that in that one all the rest might be contain'd The Stoâ—cks would have it to be a living creature endued with sense and reason Hence grew that description by its parts The Starr saith Plutarch of the face of the Moon are shining eyes in the face of the world they run their race the Sun is in place of the Heart as this affords blood and spirit so that sends forth heat and light the world useth the Earth and the Sea as a living creature doth its belly and bladder The Moon between the Sun and the Earth is as the Liver between the heart and belly or some soft bowel and attenuating its respirations by some concoction and purgation scatters them about Elegantly but not true For the world hath no known soul if we ascribe any thing to it all will be but a diffused force common to all and in proportion we may call it a soul. For what the soul is in bodies the same is force diffused in the universe Combach in Phys. cap. de Mundo Artic. 4. Of the Duration of the World past and to come THe duration of the World both past and to come is sought out by many but no certainty is proved The Aegyptians formerly boasted of 48000 years past in their History the Chaldaeans 470000 The East-Indies 700000. The Aegyptians are disproved by their disagreement one of them reported 20000 to Solon that asked him another 1300 to Herodotus The Chaldaeans alleage that in 48863 there have been only 832 luminaries But the doctrine of Astronomy shewes these to be trifles If this were not it might be yet Diodorus in Augustus his time searched for the greatest antiquity of the Aegyptians and found scarce 4000. Calisthenes Nephew to Aristotle by his sister found the Chaldaeans not to be 2000 Simplicius reports it Amongst our Chronologers the Christian Epoche is uncertain nor is there any beam so
the means to these ends are exquisitely disposed and being disposed are most wisely directed This Providence was so often and forcibly maintain'd by the Stoicks that they became a sport and a jest to their adversaries who call'd this The fatall old Wife of the Stoicks that foretold future things Epictetus in Arrianus speaks admirably What concerns the gods some deny there is any God Some say there is but an idle carelesse Deity that provides for nothing There is a third sort that maintain there is a God and that his Providence governs yet onely in great and heavenly matters but in no earthly thing A fourth sort say That he takes care for heavenly and earthly things but in generall onely not for particulars and for every one severally But there are a fifth sort wherein Ulysses and Socrates who affirm That I cannot O God be hid or deceive thee in the smallest motion There is here no place for fortune nor for casual and needless violence That Eternal Light spreads his beams every way and at the same instant he pierceth into all the windings and depths of the Heavens Earth and Seas nor is his Divine Nature onely President over all these things but is in them all CHAP. II. Of Heaven THe Wisemen ascribed the first place amongst bodies to the Heavens both because it is simple and also is set in the highest place as principall Some write that it is of the same nature with sublunary things and not amisse for the Scripture writes Psal. 102. that it shall wax old like a garment Also the generation of new Stars seems to intimate as much All the space in these that reacheth to the fixt Stars is filled with ayr and it is so much the more pure light and hot as it comes nearer unto them c. If you consider the magnitude the Heavens are the greatest body the Earth is but a point in comparison to it The number is but one yet Astronomers have distinguished it into divers orbs Eudoxus into 23. Calippus into 30. Aristotle 47. Ptolomy 31 Regiomontanus 33. The common opinion is that there be Ten to which if you adde the Heaven of heavens Aquiba call'd it the marble Table of the World Maimon l. 1. perplex they will be eleven The consideration of the Tenth amongst them is wonderfull For they say it is ten times greater than the eighth sphere and than the earth 1960 and they say that in 24 hours it goes 469562845 miles Bodin l. 5. Theatr. The Miracles of the 9th are not small The Antients say it proceeded one degree in one hundred years the Neotericks have observed 44 minutes The period of its motion is 49000 years if we credit Alphonsus but Copernicus saith 25816. This period is call'd the great and Platonick year It is a wonderfull Engine and all the great works of men compared with it are lesse than nothing Plato l. 10. de Repub. imagined a certain spindle as bright as a Diamond contain'd in 8 wheels and he makes the Heaven to hang by that lest it should fall But alas poor man why so There is a God that supports it who gave it a power to stand fast at first when he made it yet this shall go into smoke and shews us that nothing is stable contain'd in this World CHAP. III. Of the Stars Artic. 1. Of the Force of the Stars and Nutriment of them MAhomet said That the Stars hang in the Ayr by golden chains That the Workmaster set them in the Heavens bright round we religiously acknowledge that they were made for signs and seasons All men know that they shine and communicate their vertue to sublunary things which is done by sending forth their beams the will of man and works of Artificers are out of this account There is in these no mixture of new qualities but onely an accidentall species is induced to a body ready made The mind is free from the Elements if it suffer any thing it is by the mediation of the Instruments of the body the temperament whereof Mens manners easily follow Hence you may see an errour That the characters were formed by a certain position of the Heavens and are moved by a stronger power from the Heavens Plato saith false That the Souls before they come into the bodies were made subject to some Star These are toyes That Stars are appointed for every one of us bright Stars for rich men little ones for poor men dark ones for defects and some for every mans condition Pliny l. 2. Histor. Natur. c. 8. There is not so great Society between Heaven and us that for our destiny the brightnesse of the Stars should be mortal Our chance is in Gods hand It is false That Jacob read his sons destinies in the Tables of the Heavens More writes elegantly of one White in an Epigram White in the Stars did oft his Wife behold That she was chaste and good he all men told He look't to find her in the Stars once more And then he did proclaim her for a Whore But that thy Wife was common though thou see Through all the Stars not one declares to thee Cleomedes in lib. de 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaks something of the nutriment of the Stars as Dalechampius cites it and the Stoicks observed the same Laertius in Lipsius in Manuduct ad Physiol Stoicam saith That these fiery Stars are fed and nourished the Sun and Moon and the rest the Sun by the great Sea as being the great Torch and a kind of burning endued with understanding But the Moon by fresh waters and such as may be drunk because it is mingled with the Ayr and is near to the Earth Wherefore Macrobius in Somnium Scipionis ascribes it to providence that the Ocean was placed under the torrid Zone That all that space which the Sun and the rest of the Planets and the Moon wander up and down in on this side and that side of the Eccliptick may have moysture for their nourishment The opinion seems absurd at first yet Ambrosius l. 2. Hex c. 3. thought so nor doth Libavius l. 5. de origin rerum seem to deny it Lucianus saith there shall be a common bone-fire for the world Whence shall this burning be but that moysture must fail and that cannot fail but for nutriment Yet see that you make not a combustion amongst the Stars by assuming an aetherial spirit into the nature of the Stars Artic. 2. Of the light of the fixt Starrs with their magnitude and motion THe 8th sphere contains the fixt Starrs and those in number numberlesse Alongtime men observed 1022 which the Phoenicians reduced to constellations Braheus added 74 Houtmannus 14 about the Antartick pole Bartholin de Coelo c. 3. Also they are of divers magnitudes yet all greater than the Earth except the sixt magnitude The magnitude will give you the vast distance we see them like sparks of fire yet Astronomers reckon 14000 diameters of the earth They have their own natural
that fresh ayr may come if Snow and water be set about the bed if the walls be compassed about with Willow leaves or with linnen cloaths dipt in vinegar and Rose-water if the floor be sprinkled and fountains made to run in the chamber if beds saith Avicenna be made over a pit of water If beds be made of Camels hair or of linnen laying the skin under them If the Bed be strewed with herbs and lastly if fragrant fruits be placed near the bed Heurn lib 2. Medic. c. 18. CHAP. III. Of the Water Artic. 1. Of the quantity and colour of Waters SO much for Ayr Now followes the Element of Water And first we shall consider the quantity and the colour of it In the Country of the great Cham near the City Simqui there is the River Quian which is 10 miles broad and waters 200 Cities and it is so long that it cannot be sailed in 100 dayes Polus writes That he told in the Haven of it 50000 Ships Also in Moscovia the Duina is so great by the melting of the Snow that it cannot be passed over in a whole day with a well sayling Ship it is at least 50 miles broad Jovius a Lake of Genebar the Portingalâ—s call it January Thuan. histor l. 16. is so large under Capricorn that men write who have sailed thither That all the Ships in the World may well harbour there As for Colours they are different in many waters Danubius is white as milk and water which divides Noricum and Windelicia from Germany Agricol de Natur. effluent The Waters of the Mayn especially where it hath passed the Francks and is fallen into the Rheyn are yellowish The Fountain Telephus is muddy near Patâ—ra and mingled with blood In Ethiopia there are red Waters that make one mad that drinks them At Neusola in the Mountain Carpathâ—s waters runing out of an old passage under ground are green At Ilza that which comes forth of the Mountains of Bohemia and runs into Danubius is black Artic. 2. Of the Taste of Water THere is no lesse variety of Waters in their tastes Some are sweet some taste like wine you shall find every where salt Allom tasted sharp bitter waters every where The Waters of Eleus Chocops Rivers are sweet The Kings of Persia drank of them and transported them to far Countries The water of Cardia in a field called Albus is sweeter then warm milk Pausanias So is Vinosa near Paphlagonia whence so many strangers come thither to drink of it In the bosome of the Adriatick Sea where it turns to Aquileia there are 7. Fountains and all of them except one are salt Polyb. in Hist. At Malta there is one that the waters running above are very sweet but the lower waters are brackish Aristobul Cassand The small River Exampeus is so bitter that it taints the great River Hypanis in Pontus In the Lake Ascanium and some Fountains about Chalcis the upper waters are sweet and the lower taste of nitre Plin. in Hist. The Fountains are sowr about Culma and because the water though it be cold boyls they seem to be mad Agricol lib. cit In the same place there is a Mineral water which they call Furious because it boyls and roars like thunder In Cepusium at Smolâ—icium it not onely eats iron but turns it into brasse But the water about Tempe in Thessaly of the River Styx can be contained in no vessel of silver brasse iron but it eats through them nothing but a hoof can hold it Artic. 3. Of the Smell of Water and of the first and second qualities THe hot Baths that are distant from Rhegium the Town of Lepidus Aemilius 26 miles smell of so gallant Bitumen that they seem to be mingled with Camphir There was a Pit in Peloponnesus near the Temple of Diana whose water mingled with Bitumen smelt as pleasant as the unguent Cyzicenum In Hildesham there are two Fountains the one flowes out of Marble that smells like stinck of rotten Eggs and taste sweet but if any man drinks of it fasting he will belch and smell like the Marble pownded The other is from Brimstone and smells like Gun-Powder The water of this brook covers with mud the stones that lie in the channel of it scrape it off and dry it and it is Brimstone Agric. lib. cit Arethusa a Fountain of Sicily is said to smoke at a certain time At Visebad there is a Spring in the Road-way the water whereof is so hot that you may not onely boyl Eggs in it but scall'd chicken and hoggs for it will fetch off feathers or hair if you dip them in or pour it upon them Ptolomy Comment lib. 7. affirms That at Corinth there is a Fountain of water which is colder than Snow Near the Sea-Banks at Cuba there is a River so continual that you may sayl in it yet it is so hot that you cannot touch it with your hands Martyr Sum. Ind. Near the Province Tapala it runneth so hot that one cannot passe over it Ramus tom 3. At Segesta in Sicily Halbesus suddenly growes hot in the middle of the River Pontus is a River that lyes between the Country of the Medes and the Scythians wherein hot burning stones are rolled yet the water it self is cold These if you move them up and down will presently cool and being sprinkled with water they shine the more bright Lastly near the City Ethama there is a River that is hot but it is good to cleanse the Lepers and such as are ulcerated Leonius Also some waters swim above others Arsanias swims above Tigris that is near unto it so often as they both swell and overflow their banks Peneres receiveth the River Eurôta yet it admits it not but carrieth it a top of it like oyl for a short space and then forsakes it Plin. hist. Natural Artic. 4. Of the Diverse running of the Water IT is said of Pyramus a River of Cappadocia which ariseth from Fountains that break forth in the very plain ground that it presently hides it self in a deep Cave and runs many miles under ground and afterwards riseth a Navigable River with so great violence that if any man put a sphear into the hole of the Earth where it breaks forth again the force of it will cast out the sphear Strabo l. 12. Not far from Pompeiopolis in the Town Coricos in the bottom of a Den of wonderfull depth a mighty River riseth with incredible force and when it hath ran with a great violence a short way it sinks into the Earth again Mela. l. 1. c. 6. The Water Marsia after it hath run along tract from the utmost Mountains of the Peligni passing through Marsius and the Lake Fucinus it disemboggs into a Cave then it opens it self again in Tiburtina and is brought 9 miles with Arches built up into Rome Plin. l. 31. c 3. The Sabbaticall River was wont to be empty every seventh day and was dry but all the six dayes it was
butter of Antimony Some impute it to the native heat of the earth or to a certain hot spirit so that these natural spirits of exhalations heating not violently but naturally in some places the secret channels of the Earth grow hot that this heat is communicated to the Walls of those concavities by reason whereof a sufficient and continuall heat may be communicated to the Baths even as in an Oven heated when all the flame is gone the bread is sufficiently baked Horstius de natur Thermar Others ascribe it to subterraneall fire but whether it be so may be known by what proceeded Bartholin de aquis Farther it may be shewed by an Example Mingle salt-water with Clay make of this clay or mud a ball and hollow it within then stop the orifice with the clay and put in a narrow pipe into it and put this ball to the fire the pipe being from the fire when the ball waxeth hot out of the ball by the pipe hot water will run Sennert l. 4. scient natural c. 10. Baths have a taste by the mixture of Earths and so have things in the Earth Hippocrates l. de natur human saith That there is in the Earth sweet sowr and bitter and in the bowels of it there are divers faculties and many humours l. 4. de Morbis Every thing drawes its nourishment from the Earth in which it is Hence in Ionia and Peloponnesus though the heat of the Sun be very sufficient yet Silphium growes not though it be sowed namely for want of such a humour as might nourish it Yet there are in that earth juices not onely for the vaporous but also for the moyst and solid substance Juices condensed are dissolved by waters the moyst are mingled Earths are dissolved and scrapings of mettals are found The goodnesse of them differs sometimes because those that in Summer are beray'd with the Suns heat and attenuated are the best In Autumn they are lesse beat upon by its beams because he is nearer to them so in the spring For the Earth is opened the waters are purified the healthfull light of the Sun approaches but in the Winter they are worst for they are heavier thicker and more defiled with earthly exhalations That they suffer changes we may learn by divers examples Fallop de Therm c. 11. Savanarola saith That the Bath waters in the Country of Pisa cause great diseases in those that drink them and the Inhabitants are warn'd of it For in March April and May when they see the waters look yellow and to be troubled they foresee they are dangerous Alcardus of Veroneus a Physitian who writ of the Calâ—erian Baths saith That the water of Apponus is sometimes deadly by the example of one Galeatius a Noble man who with his Son in Law drank of it and dyed The sharp waters of Alsatia are sometimes so sharp that they cause the dysentery and sometimes they are feeble and are deprived of their wonted vigour Sebizius de acidulis diss 50. s. 1. The causes are divers amongst the ordinary a rainy cloudy dark Southern constitution of the Ayr too violent flowing of the Sea inundations Earthquakes It is wonderfull that is written concerning some hot Baths in Germany that they grew dry when there was a tax set upon them Camerar horis subcis cent 2. c. 69. Something like this fell out in shell-fish at the Sluce for when a kind of tribute was laid upon the collecting of them they were no more found there they returned when the Tax was taken off Jacob Mayer in Annal. Flandriae CHAP. VI. Of the Sea Artic. 1. 〈…〉 Artic. 2. 〈…〉 and Hercules Pillars about Spain and France in his dayes But the North Sea for the greatest part was passed over by the happy successe of the famous Augustus We find in Velleius that Germany was surrounded by sailing so far as the Promontory of the Cimbri and from thence the vast Ocean was discovered or known by relation as far as Scythia and the parts that were frozen by the command of Tiberius The same Pliny tells us that Alexander the Great extended his Victories over the greatest part of the East and Southern Seas unto the Arabian shores whereby afterwards when C. Caesar the Son of Augustus managed the businesse the ensigns of ships were known to belong to the Spaniards that had suffered shipwrack there But when Carthage flourished 〈…〉 from the Gades to the furthermost parts of Arabia and 〈…〉 writing that Voyage and Hamilco at the same time was sent to discover the outward parts of Europe Moreover Cornelius Nepos is the Author of it in Pliny that one Eudoxus in his time when he fled from Lathyrus King of Aegypt came from the Arabian Coasts as far as Gades and Caelius Antipater long before him affirms the same that he saw him who sailed out of Spain into Aethiopia 〈…〉 Merchandize The same Author writes that the King of Sweden gave freely to Quint. Metellus Celer Pro Consul of France those Indians who sailed out of India for Traffiquâ— and were by Tempests carried into Germany That Voyage hath been attempted of late but with extream danger of life men being hindred continually by Ice and extream darknesse If these things be so then was all our World sailed about It is further questioned whether there be any passage through the North Sea to the Kingdom of Sina and to the Moluccos Jovius reportâ— that he heard it of Demetrius Moschus that Duidna with many Rivers entring into it ran into the North a wonderfull way and that the Sea was there open so that stearing the course toward the right hand shore unlesse the land be betwixt men might saile to Cathay Those of Cathay belong to the furthest parts of the East and the parallel of Thracia and are known to the Portingalls in India when they to buy spices sayled to the Golden Chersonesus through the Countries of Sina and Molucco and brought with them garments of Sabell skins Petruâ— Bertius a man that deserved well for his learning but ill for divinity reports in descrip noâ— Zembliae that he saw a Table described 〈…〉 the Russes wherein the shores of the Russes Samogetans and Tingâ—â—eri with the North Sea nere unto them and some Islands were â—â—â—ely set forth In that the Duina River was farthest West but others Rivers followed towards the East and in the first place Peisa Petchoâ—a Obiâ— Jeneseia and Peisida Therefore the passage must be open from the River Obii to Peisida The Histories of â—â—e Russes reportâ— that when the Moscovites and the Tingesi were curious to search out Countries farther toward the East they sent out discoveries over Land who passed beyond the River Obii and Jeneseia so far as Peisida ouâ— foot and there they fell amongst people that in their habit manners and speech were farr different from them There they heard the found of Bells from the East the noyse of Men the neighing of Hortes they saw say is foure square such as
hardly extinguish flames and it is easily 〈…〉 that are washed in it are quickly dryed 3. 〈…〉 as Britanny and France hotter V. The Sea is not onely salt but bitter therefore it is 〈…〉 called Mare than Sâ—â—um VI. The salt and bitternesse of the Sea iâ— from a subterraneal 〈…〉 fire 1. Bitumen is perceived so bitter in taste that it may be known to be the first subject of it 2. Bitumen hath great force to cause iâ— salt and bitter taste The bituminous Lake of Palestina is so salt and bitter that no Fish is bred in it it scours cloaths if one wet them and shake it well out 3. Pliny reports that a bituminous water thaâ— is also salt at Babylon is cast out of their Wells into salt Piâ—â— and is thickned partly into Bitumen partly into Salt VII A salt Exhalation proceeding froâ—â—hose Deâ—pâ— iâ— easily divided by the body of the Sea For as fine flower or 〈…〉 thing else casâ— into 〈…〉 boyling liquor is cast from the place that boyls unto other parts 〈…〉 on one side to the other if in the middle to the circumference 〈…〉 bituminous Exhalation from thence where it boyleth most and the Sea is most hot is cast and dispell'd into the whole body of it So 〈…〉 Artic. 5. Of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea ANother great miracle of Nature is the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea When the Philosopher sought for the cause of it hâ— grew desperate Possidonius in Strabo l. 3. Geograph makes 3. Circuits of the Sea's motion The diurnall monethly and yearly The first is when the Moon is risen above the Horizon but one sign of the Zodiack or is gone down under the Horizon then the Sea swells untill the Moon comes to the midst of the Heaven 〈…〉 it above or beneath the Earth When it declines from thence the Sea begins to retire untill the Moon is but one sign distant from the East or West and then it stops Pliny assents thus far to him that the flowing of the Sea begins about two equinoctiall hours after the rising or setting of the Moon and ends just so long before its setting or rising He determines the other to be monethly in the conjunction when he saith That the greatest and quickest returnings of the Sea do happen about the new and full Moon the mean about the Quarters of the Moon And Marriners approve this when they call it the Living Sea by reason of the great ebbings and flowings in the new and full Moons but the dead Sea in the half Moons because of the lesser and slower motions of it Possidonius addes more That one Sâ—leucus observed a Sea that was derived from the red Sea and was different from it that kept the monethly course of returning namely according to the Lunar moneth which men call periodicall For he had observed in the Moon being in the Equinoctiall signs that the Tides were equall but in the solstices they were unequall both for quantity and swiftnesse and the same inequality held in the rest so far as any of them happened â—ear to the foresaid places Lastly Possidonius saith That he learned the yearly motions from the Mariners of Gades For they say that about the summer Solstice the ebbing and flowing of the Sea increaseth much and that he conjectured the same did diminish as far as the Equinoctial and again to increase untill Winterâ— from 〈…〉 to decrease untill the spring Equinox â— and so increase again untill the Summer solstice Pliny determines the contraâ—◠〈…〉 reason of the Equinox But Patricius witnesseth That iâ— Libâ—â—â—ia in January great part of the strandâ— are naked and continue dry for some dayes The same Pliny l. â— c. 97. observes That in every eight years in the Moons 100 circumvolution the Tides are called back to their first motions and like increasings that is to say the Sun and Moon then returning to a conjunction in the same sign and degree wherein they were in conjunction eight years before But for the daily Tides there is a differeâ—â—e amongst Writers In the Sicilian Sea 〈…〉 and flowings are twice a day and twice in the night 〈…〉 in the Sinâ—s of Aegeum repeats its motion 7. times a day and sometimes is seen thrown down from the highest Mountains and so steep down that no ships can be safe there Basil iâ— Hexaemex In England at Bristoll the Ebb is daily twice and so great that the ships that were in the Sea stand dry and are twice on dry Land twice in the Sea Pitheas Massiliensis as Pliny testifies l. 2. c. 67. writes that it swâ—lls fourscore cubits higher than Britanny In the Southern part of the New World the Sea rising flowes two Leagues Ovetan summ c. 9. But in a certain Northern Sea there iâ— no flowing or ebbing observed by the waves of it Petrus Hispan p. 5. c. 1. Not far from Cuba Promontory and by the shores of Margaret Island and Paria the Sea flowes naturally nor can ships by any means though they have a prosperous gale sayl against the floods nor make a mile in a whole day Petrus Martyâ—â—â—n sum Indiae In the Adriatick Sea formerly there was wont to be a very great flowing forth early in the morning the Sea being so advanced into the Continent that it went as far up as a strong man could run in a day Procop. l. 1. Belli Gothici â—ut singular was that Tide and a wonder of the World which in particular which proceed from whirlepools by which the waters are suckt up and spued out again by turns It is very probable this happens in Charybdis the Syrtes and Chalcydis about Eubaea This represents a true flowing and comes from winds breaking forth of the Caves of the Earth and forcing forward the waters or to the Waves running back again and sinking down But the fourth is 〈…〉 true ebbing and flowing which runs neither Eastward nor Westward but begins from the Navel of the Sea and that boyls up and as the waters rise thus they are powred forth toward the Banks more or lesse as the cause is more or lesse violent unlesse something hinder the cause whereof we shall seek last of all And true it is that Marriners in the straights of Magellan where the South Sea is seperated from the North by a notable difference marking diligently the Tydes of both Seas have observed what they could not do in the vast Ocean namely that both Seas do not begin to flow at the same time And that it is not moved by any outward cause not from the Heavens nor is it brought in from the East or West but comes from the bottom of it and boyles out from thence the superfluity running toward the Land variously as the swelling is great or small the shores high or low and the cause that moves it from the bottom upwards weaker or stronger This is confirmed by the nature of the water which casts up from the bottom whatsoever it sucks in if it be not
that time tilled their grounds â—ith their own hands as it is fit to beleive The Earth enjoying a plow Crownd with Laurel and a Victorious plowman whether it were that they managed their Corn with the same care they did their wars and disposed of their fields with the same diligence they did their Camps or because by honest labour all things prosper better because they are don more carefully CHAP. VIII Of the Islands Artic. 1. Of the Originall and destruction of Islands ISlands are parts of the Earth compassed about with the Sea They have many causes of their beginnings Some came forth of the Sea some were broke off from the continent some were made by matters heaped together One was made in the Aegaean Sea whilst Seneca beheld it Seneca quaest l. 6. c. 21. He adds that another came forth of the Sea in his Forefathers dayes The Sea saith he foâ—â—ed continually and a smoke ascended from the deep for at last it did disclose a fire not continual but shinning by times as lightâ—ings do as oft as the heat of that was under had vanquished the weight that lay a top At length stones were rolled together and Rocks partly untouched which the vapour had driven forth before they were transformed and partly corroded and turned to be as light as a pumex-stone last of all appeared the top of a burnt Mountain c. Strabo l. 6.1 Geograph writes that between Thera and Therasia flames first brake forth of the Sea for four days together as if the Sea burnt then by little and little came forth an Island that was twelve furlongs wide and it was all made of fire-stones Atalanta a City of Locris that was fast and contiguous to it was out off by a sudden violence of the Sea and was made an Island by it self Oâ—osius l. 2. c. 18 â—nder Leo the Emperour an old Historian Evagriuâ— l. 2. c. 14 hath said that at Constantinople and Bithynia there was such abundance of Rain that in the Lake Beana which is not far from Nicomedia by the frequent filthy matter cast into it Islands were made thus begaâ— the Island Tyberina For Lucretia being violated by Tarâ—uin when Brutus had given counsel to plunder the Kings goods and to cast them into Tyber an Island was made So Livy l. 2. Historâ—â— By 〈…〉 some standing Corn was then of Wheat or Barley that was readâ— for the harvest which fruit of the field because it was unlawfull to destroy they cut the Corn down with the straw by the help of many men coming together and powred iâ— out of baskets into Tybur when it raâ— but slowly as it is 〈…〉 to do in the hot weather and so the heaps of Corn remained in the foards wrapâ— over with mud whence by degrees and by other things cast in by accident an Island was made Also some Islands have ceased to be as Pliny saith lib. 2. c. 89. Antissa first an Island was joyned to Lesbos Zephyrâ—â— to Halicarnassus Aethusa to Myndus Narthecusa to Parthenius Promontory Hybanda was once an Island of Ionia now it is 200 furlongs from the Sea Ephesus hath Syrien in the Mediterranean Artic. 2. Of the Miracles of some Islands AS Nature hath given Islands so she hath bestowed on some singular prerogatives There is an Island in a certain Lake about the entring of Nilus that hath Groves Woods and great buildings upon it yet they flote and it is driven every way with the wind Mela l. 1. c. 5. In the Lake Vadimonis and Cutilia there is a dark Wood that is never seen a night and a day in the same place Plin. l. 2. c. 95. Of the latter Macrobius speaks l. 1. Satur. c. 7. The Pelagi found an Island in the Lake Curilia for there are large feilds for grasse whether it were a continent or the mud of the Lake it is handsomly trimmed up and fitly joyned with twigs and Trees like a vaste Wood and floats every way with the Sea floods that from hence we may credit the relation of Delus which hath high Mountaines and large Champion ground yet floats on the Sea The Calaminae so called in Lydia are not only driven by the winds but by long poles whither one please and many Citizens escaped by that means in Mithridates Warr Plin l. 2. c. 95. In the great Lake Tarquiniense in Italy there are two that carry woods sometimes they are of a three square figure sometimes round in compasse when the winds drive them but they are never four square In Garumna a River in Spain the Island Aâ—ros is pendulous and lifted up with the waters increasing Mela l. 3. c. 1. Also in Nymphaeum there are small ones called Saltuares because in singing of a consort they move at the strokes of the musicall paces Besides these in the Fortunatae Fennel gigant growes as big as a Tree Solin c. 58. In Madera grapes hang down upon four branches the skins fill'd with juice want a kernel they are ready to gather in March Cadamustâ—s when Columbus found out the Island Hispaniola he mowed Wheat on the 30 of March that was sowen in the beginning of February In this short time the ears grew so great that they were as long and a big as a mans Arm Each of them contain'd 2000 grains Peter Martyr in Sum. Indiae There are fresh Melons every quarter of the year Ovetan Sum. c. 81. Historiar l. 11. c. 1. so great that one man can hardly carry one upon his shoulders Grasse mowed will in five dayes grow a cubit high again Tyles two Islands in the Persian Gulph the Land of them exceeds all other places for this rarity that no Tree that growes there ever wants leaves Solin c. 53. In the Island Ormutium no living creature is found nor any Fountain-water Manna falls down with the night dew Polus l. 3. c. 4. Dogs will not come into Sigaron an Island of Arabia Foelix put them there and they die running mad Plin. l. 6. c. 28. In Ithaca Hares brought thither from other places cannot live Aristot. histor Animal l. 8. c. 28. Ebusus one of the Baleares hath no Serpents at all Plin. l. 10. c. 29. In Creta there lives no Owl bring one thither it will die and in the same Island there is no mischievous living Creature besides the Spider Philangium Cyprus in former times was so impatient of graves that it would cast forth the next night bodies buried in the day Ericus the first Danish King was brought dead to Jerusalem by the winds who was intended for the same place Saxo Gram. l. 12. In the Island Cephalonia there is a River that hath on one side an infinite multitude of Grashoppers but none on the other side Aristot. histor Animal l. 8. c. 28. In Cumana an Island of the New World the Cobwebs of Spiders are knit so fast that they cannot be broken Hispan p. 5. c. 15. Iron that is dug up in Ilva cannot be melted there Bertius in descript Ilvae To
conclude this in the Arm of the Sea by Fortha there is the Island Magotia In this Birds build like Wild-Geese in such great multitudes that the 100 Garrison Souldiers that defend the Fort Bassus feed on no other meat than fresh fish brought in hourly by these birds nor do they use any other wood but the sticks to make fires which the birds bring to build their Nests Bellovadius and from him Thuan. in histor CHAP. IX Of Mountains Artic. 1. Of the Qualities and Quantities of Mountains WEe must suppose the Mountains to have been created at the beginning in part and part of them have been made since Onely one Modern Authour in Italy may confirm this There are many in the World of wonderfull height and admirable qualities Olympus and Athos are so high that Ashes left on the top of them a whole year are neither blown away with winds nor washt off with rain And such as stand on the Top of Vesavius have observed the Clowds that are near to be of equall height with the Mountain and some Clowds to appear under them Kepler l. 1. Astrom p. 3. What Zabarel writes of the Region of the Ayr c. 8. doth make this good I went saith he up to the top of Venus hill in Paravium and there for the whole day I had a most clear Ayr but about the middle of the Mountain I saw Clowds which were between my sight and the Valleys that I could not see them but in the Evening when I was come down from that Mountain I found that it had rained a great shower that day at the lower parâ— of that Mountain yet it rained not at all on the top of it Piccolomin de Meteor c. 11. saith the same thing happened to him travelling over the Alps and Apenninus In Seleucia there is a Mountain next to Antioch from whose top at the fourth Watch of the night the Suns body might be seen and but turning the body about the beams dissipating darknesse there was day here night to be seen Solin c. 37. The Walk about to the top is 19 miles and 4. miles upright In the Country of the New World some Mountains are above 50 miles high some are so high that you cannot see the valleys in three days coming down Martyr in Sum. and Polus l. 2. c. 43. In Tenerif which is like a Pyramid it is 60 Italian miles high Cadamustus If you regard the qualities some abound with great Lakes some vomit out fire others have other rarities worthy admiration In Mount Noha of Arabia Felix there is a wonderfull Cistern seen for collecting of rain waters which will serve for 100000 men At Dossrinium in Sweden they are covered with such a masse of Snow even in Summer also that the balls falling from tops of houses grow so much in the foot of them that they overthrow the Towns Olaus l. 3. c. 23. In new Spain there is a smoke that alwayes riseth out of the top of a certain Mountain and keeps round like a Globe as it ascends no winds disperse it and it moves as swift as an arrow Cortes relat 2. In Helvetia near to Lucerna there is a Mountain and in that is Pilat's Lake if you cast a stone into it you raise tempests and Pilat is seen there every year if you will believe it in the Habit of a Judge Joachimus Vadianus in Mela. In the Alps of Spain there are Mountains of Salt onely Cato Major saith the more you take from them so much more will grow to them Gellius l. 2. c. 22. In the Province of Cyrene there is a Rock and Fountain of the Suns when you touch it with a mans hand a Fountain riseth and it riseth as fiercely as the Sea in its fury Mela l. 1. c. 4. Lastly there are two Mountains about the River Indus the nature of the one is to hold all Iron the other to refuse it therefore if there be nails in your shooes the one Rock holds your feet immoveable the other drives them off Pliny l. 2. c. 96. Artic. 2. Of Aetna and Hecla Mountains AETna is a Mountain in Sicilie hanging over the City Catana and all the shore there Pliny Mela Ptolomey Strabo Solinus mention it The Inhabitants call it now vulgarly Monte Gibello It hath two Caves whereof the one is narrow and straight like a pit putting out stones every way like two bed sides the stones are burnt and of many colours and a stony plain holds it in a narrow circumference The other is in circumference 24 furlongs it goes not to the bottom of the same largenesse but the belly of it is something narrower inwardly so long till in the middle of it it is hollowed with a sit mouth to cast out what the Mountain affords Smoke comes alwaies forth of those two holes when the Sky is clear it is most white like a cloud the fires are not seen unlesse some burning flame rise up Bembus in dialogo Clâ—verius Sicil. Antiq. l. 1. c. 8. found stones cast out from thence 60 miles from it on both sides of the City Catana by the way men go from Leontini to Taurominium but especially to Catana it self at the foot of the banks by Aetnae which is the way to Taurominium where they represent a sad and formidable Spectacle to Travellers of great and sharp Rocks That noyse hath been sometimes so great that they could hear it as far as to the Hills Gemelli the sparks were so great that they slew burning so far as Catana and wasted the Town with fire somewhiles there was such plenty of Ashes driven with the winds that they fill'd all places 100 miles the smoke was so thick that it so hindred the light that no man could see in two dayes At sundry times the burning of this Mountain hath been after a diverse manner Anno 1329 on the Iâ—es of July about Sun set from the bottom of the Mountain suddenly a great Mouth and a little after two more were opened in the same ground with that force that out of four Caves not far asunder one from the other an infinite quantity of great stones were cast forth at once and lifted up the low Valleys and Forrests and Woods to the height of Mountaines For a mighty River ran out of these four Gulphs like mettals melting in the Furnace burning not only the Land it lighted upon Trees stones but also consuming them the ground it self that men before went upon was on fire and was sent and dispersed far and wide as foam of the Sea that beats against Rocks But after that this Torrent of fire had passed through many passages of the Mountain it divided it self at last into three Channells two of them ran Eastward for many days the third ran toward Catana which before it entred the borders of it the vail of St. Agatha â— Sacerdotibus being cast before it by the walls of the City did extinguish it while these things were done in the lower part of the
Mountain the rage was no lesse on the top of it whence there rose such a shour of Ashes in the Country of Catana that Fields and Mountaines were hid by it And the North wind then blowing plenty of them with a brimstony smell were brought as far as the Island of Malta which is a 160 miles distant from the Hole Amongst the greatest Torrents that is reckoned which hapned a little before our days they are the words of Bembus in his dialogue of Aetna that ran as far as Catana and wasted great part of the City by fire and that Haven of which Virgil writes And that great Harbour where no wind could blow Near thundring Aetna lyes some thing below The torrents of Aetna have so filled up the Haven now that you would say VIRGIL committed an errour to speak of a great Harbour where is none to be seen almost Anno 1537. on the Calends of May all Sicily for 12 dayes together began to thunder like Canon shott off frequently The noise was heard not only at Catana and neighbouring places but at Palermo Lylibeum Sacca Agrigentum and allmost in the whole Island whereby a little Earthquak arose that shook the houses When these hideous sounds increased on the third of the Ides of May unusuall Caves were opened in Aetna out of which so great a quantity of fiery matter was cast forth that in four dayes it went 15 miles and burnt down all things it met with and run as farr as the Monastery of St. Nicolas de Arenis where leaving the Monastery untouched it invaded Nivolasum and Monpelavium two Towns and allmost destroy'd them The upper hole of the Mountain shortly after for three dayes cast out so much black ashes that as far as Consentia in Calabria the Towns were filled with ashes and they were so scattered by the winds upon the Seas that for 300 miles distant from Sicily the ships were fowled by the ashes afterwards Aetna began to rore mightily and as it did rore the upper top of it was broken off and swallowed in the Cave Though the fire of Aetna be so terrible yet the land there is so fruitfull that what Pliny speaks of Campania l. 3. c. 6. we may say the same of the neighbouring parts From this border begin the hilâ—s that beare grapes the juyce whereof is famous in all lands and the great contest between Bacchus noble for drunkennesse as the Antients said and Ceres In that wooddy Countrey there are spacious places saith Fazellus rer sic dec 1 l. 2. c. 4. that are very fruitfull for Corn and there is so good pasture for Cattle that unlesse you let them often blood in their ears they are in danger by plethory moreover the fluent matter that is cast forth of Aetna by this fire growes so hard that for a good depth it changeth the surface of the ground into a stone and when they would come at the ground they must cut the stones For the stone being melted in the Holes or Caves and cast forth the humour that swims on the top is black mire running down from the Mountain and when it growes together it becomes as hard as a Milstone holding the same colour it had when it ran and ashes are made of the burnt stones as of burnt Wood now as Rue is nourished with Wood-ashes so it is credible that the Vines flourish by the ashes of Aetna And thus far for Aetna Hecla is a Mountain in Islandia not farr from the Sea somtimes it casts forth flame somtimes fiery water after that black ashes and Pumex stones in such abundance that it darkneth the Sun yet somtimes the Mountain is wonderfull quiet especially when the West wind blows· An. 1553. the 19 of November about midnight a flame appeared in the Sea by Hecla that lightned the whole Island An hour after the Island shaked then there followed a terrible noise that if all the Guns for Warr were shot off they were nothing to this terrible noise Dithnarus Bleskenius writes thus We had thought the frame of the World would now be dissolved and that the last day was come Camer Horar subcis cent 3. c. 17. It was found afterwards that the Sea was gone back from that place two miles it was all left dry An. 1580 it vomited out fire with such a noise that for 80 miles men thought the great Guns were discharged The common people think the souls of the damned are there tormented Georgius Bruno in theatro Mundi The End of the Second Classis OF Naturall VVonders The Third Classis Wherein are the Wonders of the Meteors WHat then Is it better think you to perish by discontent of Mind or by Thunder Therefore rise stronger against the threatenings of Heaven and when the World is all on fire think that thou hast nothing to lose in so great a Masse Seneca quaest natur l. 2. c. 59. CHAP. I. Of Subterraneous Exhalations MEteors are made of Exhalations the Sun and the rest of the Stars draw them forth and the subterraneall fire is the worker of very many of them We shall speak nothing of them These are some hurtfull some safe as may be proved by many Examples At the foot of the Mountain Tritulum Halveatum there are waters you must ascend by 43 degrees to a place of sweating It is in length three miles the more you are lifted up above them the hotter you are the more you descend into them the cooler Those draw flegme from the parts and cure distillations from the head There is a hot Bath near the hot waters that run forth of the Lake Agnanum The ditches are covered with Turves of grasse and stones being removed a hot vapour is sent out that makes them sweat that receive it Out of Avernus a Lake of Campania before Agrippa had cut down the Woods that covered it and laid it open the Exhalations were so thick that came forth that the birds were killed that flew over it At the Lake of Agnanum in Italy there is a Mountain in which there is a narrow Cave it declines moderately downwards being 8 foot long if you touch the earth of it with your foot or hand it feels hotter than the rest it choaks any living creature that is cast in by the venomous blast deprives them of sense and motion though you pull it out presently but cast the same presently into the next Lake it is a wonder how it restores their life again Camer Cent. 7. Mirab mem 50. In the Island Ebusus Exhalations do so infect the ground that if they fall upon places where Serpents are the pestilent Creatures cannot endure them In the great places of refreshment at Baianum there is a ditch the water whereof sends forth such hot vapours that wax Candles will melt be put onâ— by them and they are so pernicious that men fall down dead therewith In Babylon there is a Cave also out of which riseth such a pestilent vapour that it kills all that draw it
ship but by great force of winds being a most grosse Exhalation and burn also whence it signifies imminent danger CHAP. IV. Of Ignis Lambens IGnis Lambens riseth from a thin and fat Exhalation and cleaves to the hairs and clothes of living Creatures and if it be of a hotter temperament it kindles by their sweat Virgil writes some such thing of Ascanius 2. Aeneid Behold a shining Crest was from Jülus head Seen to give light and so the harmlesse flame Did feel full soft and on his Temples fed Cardanus l. de varietat 10. c. 49. relates to a friend of his when he came at one a clock at night laying down his cloak as he was wont to do sparks flew forth behind his Hat but 15 dayes after he being accused of Witchcraft at his friends perswasion went into voluntary banishment Also when Servius Tullius was a little boy and was asleep a flame shined about his head as they saw it in the house Which wonder Tanaquil Wife to Tarquinius Priscus admired at and bred up Servius born of a servant Maid as if he had been her son and he was elevated to be King by her Valer. Max. l. 1. c. 6. Livy l. 35. Also one appeared on the head of L. Martius Commander of two Armies as he made an Oration the ruine of them weakned P. and Cn Scipio in Spain A Boy of Jena pulling off his shirr over the hinder part of his head he wiped many sparks off with it Liban l. 1. de origin rerum The Countesse of Caumantia whilest her hair was kemb'd in the dark it seemed to vomit forth fire We had saith Scaliger Exerc 174. a white War-Horse out of Calabria he in the dark when he was curried seemed to sparkle They give the cause to be refraction of Light in a polished subject as in the dewy Ayrs the drops are as so many Looking-Glasses so in a hairy head fat and clammy and scaly are hairs and scales Also in Insects some fiery matter is said to appear In the Island Solebe all the flyes every night seem to shine so gallantly that they represent so many Torches Libavius l. c. A Worm is found like a Star that shines like a Star in the night May be it is the Sea-Star the Chymists promise to extract light from the liquor of it From the joynts of some Worms in Hispaniola Island a great light shines forth and glitters like hoar frost There are others that will give light 100 paces and that not from their whole body but only from their joynts In Spain of the New World â—here is said to be a Fly like a Beetle for magnitude with it wings in a sheath called Cocujus whose Eyes enlighten the night that it serves for a wax Candle to give light to those that walk abroad and for a Lamp in their Chambers to read and write by and that not onely whilest they live but after they are dead Some make themselves little ropes of those Candles and tie them to their necks to give them light as they travel The cause is not in Ignis Lambens but it lyes in the humours of these Creatures and is done by way of repurcussion some are thought to have some light shining within them Truly Gloworms shut up in your fist give light if you look through a chink in the darkest night Reischius saith That Fish in their scales comprehend some fiery parts and by that they shine The Dolphin seems to confirm this for it seems gilded in the night yet is it blew on the back green on the sides white on the belly Reischius in Margarit Philoso CHAP. V. Of Lightning Thunder and Thunder-bolts HEe that would neerly understand the breeding of Thunder must consult with Chymists for so oft as a part of Salt-Peter and brimstone 〈…〉 there is made a great noise and we shall say that thundring Gold is carried with a greater force Also it is well known that if a mixture be made of Niter Brimstone Quicklime and Bitumen that it will kindle by powring on any moisture and so it is here for when the brimstony and nitrous Vapours in Summer-time are carried upwards by heat of the Sun especially the Southern wind being quiet they are united and condensed by the opposite winds and are kindled by a peculiar antiperistasis hence comes the sound and lightning Histories write that it hath been heard in a cleare Sky Senec. natural l. 2. cap. 30. Aetna somtimes hath abounded with great fire and hath cast out a wonderfull quantity of burning Sand the day was hid in dust and sudden night frighted the people They say that at that time there were great thunder claps and noises in the Sky which were made by the concourse of dry things and not of the Clouds for it is likely in so clear weather that there were none The Thunder-bolt oft times is carried into the Earth because it is cast forth of the Cloud with great violence and is made of a fast and well compacted matter yet Pliny l. 2. c. 55. saith that it never strikes above five foot deep into the Earth The effects of it are wonderful vessells of water are drank up the cover being untouched and no other token being left Gold Brasse Silver have been melted within and the bags no ways burnd nor so much as the Seal of Wax defaced Pliny l. 2. c. 51. Lucius Scipio proved that by Gold he had in a Chest of Osiers Marcia a Queen of the Romans was Thunder-stricken when she was great with Child she had no hurt at all only the Child was killed The cause is put in rarity and thicknesse that penetrates more easy this because it penetrates with more difficulty doth more harm Aristotle 3. Meteorolog c. 1. The wine somtimes stands stil the vessel being broken the cause is because the heat of the thunder thickneth the outward parts of the Wine that the wine seems to stand as shut up in a skin Sennert l. 4. Epitom c. 2. but this hardnesse will not last 3. dayes Seneca quaest natural l. 2. c. 5. That is most admirable which Meâ—rerus in Comment Meteorolog reports that a certain Minister was so suddenly taken away out of the sight of Men in the way that men passe from Lipsia to Torga that he was never seen again Those that shall be presently striken are so stupefied that they neither heare the Thunder nor the greatest claps of it That in the German Warrs hapned to Severus Master of the Horse Julian being Emperour First he was stiffe and then lither death being at hand Pliny writes that it will not touch the Bay-Tree the Sea Calf the Eagle Rhodiginus adds the fig-Tree and saith it is by reason of its bitternesse Rhodig Antig lect l. 3. c. 29. Therefore Tiberius Caesar as Suetonius saith in his life fearing thunder when the Skyes were troubled wore a Crown of Bays upon his head and for this reason saith Columella when a Hen sits they put Bay boughs under
her Therefore they were wont to make the Emperours Tents of Sea Calfs Skins And Suetonius writes that Augustus was so fearfull of Thunder and Lightning that he allwaies carried the same with him Severus the Emperour had a litter made of the same matter for the same purpose yet Vicomercatus ad 3. Meteoror c. 10. relates that the Bay Tree is somtimes stricken from Heaven and Conimbricense thinks this freedome it hath to be but imaginary but only by an instinct of nature they foreshew Thunder I need not speak much of the Thunder-bolt kept in houses of hearb and Candles at the mâ—re solemn feasts purged with holy water and of the ringing of Bells who sees not but that these things are superstitious Some of them say Remig. l. 1. daemonol c. 26 that ringing of Bells is uneffectuall and uselesse if any one of them when it is purged beare the name of the Priests Concubine For if that sound do rarify the Ayre which yet spoken absolutely is false for it neither dissipates the Clouds that are neerer to us nor doth it fly right upwards but in many places it comes forth obliquely by the Windows nor doth it come to the Cloud it were better that only the great Guns should be shot off and only the greatest Bells Rung Constant observation shews that Dogs Cats and Goats are most obnoxious to be Thunder struck Hence it is that if a Dog be by a man in an open field he will be frighted and lye between his feet Cl. Bortholinus casts the cause of it upon the Vapours breathing forth of these Creatures bodys which as a known matter and nutriment the Vapours for thunder follow especially if these Creatures be abroad that they may be freely carried into the open Ayre Hence it is that Cats are often stricken in the entry and who knows not that the Dogs and Goats smell strong And Cats send out such Plenty of Vapours by their pores that some men have fainted at their being present and the more noble Horses if they be hid in the Coach will sweat extreamly as experience teacheth Thunder seldom hapneth in the Winter For but very few or allmost no hot exhalations are lifted up yet Curtius l. 8. de Alex mentioneth that in the time of Alexander There was saith he allmost a continuall Thunder and the Thunder bolts seemed to fall in divers places then suddenly a shore of hayle was poured forth like a Torrent and force of cold froze this showre into Ice Olaâ—s l. â— c. 6. thinke that they are more vehement in Northern Climates for they kill Men and in the Kingdom of Mongall in Tartary they fall mingled with Snow In Brasile Thunder bolts fall but seldome but such lightnings that they seem lighter than the Sun Joseph Ac. sta Anno 1560. In the time of Marcus Antoninus the Philosopher we read that the Enemy was stricken with Thunder at the prayers of the Christian Souldiers whence the Christian Legion was called the Thundring Legion presently saith the Emperour of them in Epist. as they lay upon their Faces and prayed to a God I know not a cold shower fell upon us but upon our Enemies hail mingled with thunder that we found immediately that the hand of the mighty God assisted us CHAP. VI. Of the Winds Artic. 1. Of the Originall of Winds ARistot 2. Meteor c. 4. saith That the Sun is the cause of the winds by drawing up the moysture that is upon the surface of the Earth and by heating doth dry the Earth it self Lydiat likes not this opinion For the Earth moystned being dryed affords but little matter for winds For the Earth drinks in no more rain than may quench its thirst and which it may change into a dry nature from whence comes no Exhalation of the same allowance much goes to rain which is no small part of it What then shall be left for the vast winds wherefore inward heat is pleaded for And truly in Winter the Earth sends forth a smoky exhalation In the Southern parts Winds arise from Snow A breath riseth from Lakes and standing Pools and storms from the Sea though it be calm whence is this but that the Earth breathes out vapours which break forth through the depth of waters The Chymical Instrument will shew this which they use for bellowes Sennert l. 4. Epitom c. 3. A Globe is made of Copper that it may be fill'd with water and then shut a pipe with a small hole is made of one side the Glob fill'd with water is set to the fire and the pipe for bellowes is set to another As the Globe growes hot and the water rarifies the Ayr continually breathes forth and serves for bellows till all the water be consumed Winds are then bred when heat burns the moyst Earth The Sun by drying openeth the pores and the Ayr helps by its motion If it rise from the Sea the Sea at firsâ— calm making a muttring noise signifies that an exhalation that is matter for wind is already then bred in the bowels of it some fishes sport some fasten themselves to rocks then the Sea swelling a little shewes that the exhalation newly bred seeks a passage forth then when it fails it shews it is come to the superficies but in small quantity then the blasts breaking forth with all their force lift up the waves before them and cause Winds and Tempests Artic. 2. Of the Kinds and Effects of Winds THere are many kinds of Winds which were chiefly found out by Navigation and the operations of them according to the difference of their blasts and properties The North-East wind drawes clowds to it Circeius a Southern wind hinders that the North wind be not mingled with the smell of plants and the force of it is so great that it will overthrow an armed man and lift ships up from the water into the Ayr and carry away Windmills with the stones house and men to some other place Pliny l. 2. c. 47. Gel. l. 2. c. 22. Olaus l. 1. c. 4. and 2. c. 3. There is a whirlwind that causeth such Tempests to those that sail out of the Country of China to Jupan that it is a miracle to escape shipwrack In the Country of St. Vincent it roots up Woods in Hispaniola it will take up men and carry them a furlong If they arise in the Island of Ormuth they kill those they meet with heat and they part the flesh of those that are killed from the bones as boyling water doth To avoid the danger they hide themselves in the water up to the head Ovetan l. 6. Polus l. 1. c. 5. Women are wonderfully prone to lust when their privities are obvious to the South wind but the North wind is said to be fit for generation whence it is that some believe it will raise men dying with its blast Rhodigin l. 54. c. 4. l. 15. c. 23. In Lesbos at Mytilene when the South wind blowes men are sick they cough when the
North-west wind blowes the North wind makes them well again In Tercera it eats Iron and stones Bertius in Geograph Amongst the rest are the Etesia that are very moderate winds every year two dayes after the rising of the dog-star they are wont to blow 40 dayes They temper the heat with their blast and cool the Summer and defend us from the burthen of the hot moneths They rise at 3. of the clock of the day thence they are called sleepy winds and they cease at night It is likely they are bred by great heat melting the Snow that yet remains in the Northern parts It is credible that the Earth being freed from Snow and uncovered they will blow the freer The Ancients sacrificed to the winds to please them Herodotus saith That a Temple in Ilissum was built to Boreas They call'd them at Athens Boreasmi who kept the Feasts of Boreas We believe P. Victor that at Rome there was a Temple for Tempest Rhodigin l. 20. c. 25. CHAP. VII Of the Earth-quake Artic. 1. Of the rising of an Earthquake THe Ancients believed that the Earth moved by waters fluctuating in the Caves of the Earth Whence they called Neptune Earth-shaker and mover Gell. l. 2. c. 28. Others thought the wind in the surface of the Earth returning into the hollow caves of it did shake it Others again that the Sun kept the vapours within the ground and they seeking passage to come forth did wander where they could when they found none Reason and Experience are against it There is in the West part of Spain a Mountain of wonderfull height with many hollow Caves Scalig. Exerc. 38. waters fall down in them with so great noise that they are heard five miles yet there is no Earthquake there nor yet is the wind or Ayr that goes under very great it is dispersed in the largenesse of the Channels and the diverticles it finds going farther it is stopt Mineral operations shew this For they make mighty bellowes to draw the ayr lest they should be choked for want of it The contest of winds doth nothing for that rather tends to the sides or flyes upwards by its leightnesse and at the first hindrance they fly from the Earth like a whirlwind It is uncertain whether the Sea can stop the passages there are seldom any such great Caves by the Sea nor can that go in at once but it will be thrust back again The Sun cannot more easily exercise its force upon the Earth and beget an Exhalation than he can bring it forth being begotten for the Sun beams operate noâ— but by resistance Whilest they heat and dry they open the same because exhalations ascend more strongly to that place which is neer One in respect of continuity followes another but howsoever they enter in they easily come out of the Earth and more easily than they can shake it for in Mines where the powder finds but a chink when it is fired it is lost labour Wherefore Exhalation bred from fire under the Earth and shut up in the bowels of the Earth causeth an Earthquake And that is apparent by this For before an Earthquake Well-waters will not onely boyl but be more troubled and brimstony vapours come forth From whence The like vapours are tossed in the bowels of the Earth Pliny l. 2. Artic. 2. Of the place time and effects of an Earth-quake THose places are subject to Earth-quakes which can easily take in wind Solid places will not admit it sandy places mixed with lime do easily discuss it they want receptacles for winds Champion places have no Caves Yet the whole Earth is never shaken for the Vapours included have no proportion to the Globe of the Earth If it should happen it must be ascribed to divine power which nature would seem to challenge to her self If you consider the duration it differs as the resistance is few Vapours are sooner discussed many last longer and rage a greater time Senec. naturalâ— l. 6. c. 3. Campania trembled many dayes Livy writes that at that time when L. Cornelia and Q. Minucius neer Consuls the Earth-quakes were so frequent that men were weary not only of it but of all businesse The same Author sayes that an Earth-quake lasted 40 days others say one hath lasted two yeares and returned again and again Livy l. 44. l. 45. Aristot. l. 2. Meteor c. 8. Plin. l. 2. c. 82. Such is the condition of the effects of it that those that hear of it will be astonished at it and those that see it dye Oft times it doth not devour Houses Cities or whole famelies only but whole Nations and Countries somtimes the Earth falls upon them somtimes it takes them into its deep jaws and leaves not so much whereby it may appear that what is not now ever was Seneca L. 6. natur c. 1. The ground covers somtimes the most noble Cities without leaving any mark of their formeâ— being when as the great hollow Caves in the Earth are forced and shaken with winds and fall down oft times in the Sea a hollow pit opening drinks up the waters on the Land Rivers that both fish and shipping sink into it On the otherside the Earth lifted up into a high tumour hath caused Mountains on land and Islands at Sea somtimes the course of Rivers hath been changed that hilly ground having been removed on that side that they formerly ran Histories are full of these calamities The last yeare of Nero fields and Olive Trees that the high way passed between in the Country of the Mâ—rrucinum were transported to the other side L. Marcius and Sextus Julius being Consuls in the Country of the Mutinenses two Mountains fell together with a mighty noise Plin. l. 2. and l. 16. c. 40. Many Villages were then beaten down and Cattel killed In Parthia there is a place called Ragai from the clifts where many Towns and Villages 2000 were overwhelmed At Cajeta in Italy there is a Mountain toward the South a part whereof an Earthquake so divided that one would believe the division was made by the art of Man the Sea runs under it with a great noise Agricol in reb quae efflu ex terra The Houses of Helice and Bura two Towns in the Sinus of Corinth did appeare in the Sea In the Island Aenania a Town was so taken in that there was no appearance of it left Not far from Ptolemais the Waves of the Sea were carried into the deep and so lifted up themselves that they appeared like a great Mountain and afterwards they were carryed to the land and drownd the Army of Tryphon When Cneius Octavius and C. Scribonius were Consuls the River at Velia brake down the bridges and threw the banks of the River into the waters drove away the stones that were in the Market place in Town and Field it shook the Churches which a few days after fell down By an Earthquake the City of Lacedemon fell all down when the Mountain Taygetus was broken
a City being on the top of the Mountains of Dofrinium where it first was like a ball but at last like a mighty round Mountain Olaus l. 59. c. 15. and l. â— c. 13. The tops of Mount Caucasus have scarce any lesse for they cannot be come at in Winter especially in Cambisena the quantity is so great that whole Troops of men are overthrown by it Strabo l. 11. The Armenians are in the same condition for those that passe over the Mountains are suddenly covered with clots of Snow that they cannot be seen and that in the fierce Winter Rhodigin l. 18. c. 29. In Tartary it comes on also in Summer mighty cold vast Snowes all are removed by the wind Hispal p. 4. c. 23. In the same the Champion places of Pamer do sustain so great cold that it will put out the fire for it will give no light nor can any thing be boyled with it Polus l. 2. c. 28. In Moscovia where water runs out of a high hill it is congealed before it touch ground Surius ad Anno 1501. In Armenia they are red which proceeds from the places that abound with Minium and by the force of its exhalations they are coloured Nor is this against reason for plenty of bloods yields a blood-coloured dew Homer shews that at Troy when he speaks of bloody drops of dew that of it sprang hairy rough red Creatures Apollonius calls them Worms Theophanes Mountain worms There is a liquour in them which the people love to drink Eustath in Homer Aristot. 5. Anim. Hail is a kin to Snow whereof we have nothing to say except of its greatnesse for in the time of Valens it fell like stones of unusual greatnesse at Constantinople Socrates histor Eccles. l. 4. c. 10. When Alaricus took the City it was greater than stones that can be handled and was about 8. pounds in weight Maiolus in Caâ—â—cul In France when Paschal was Pope one piece fell down that was 12 foot long Bonsinius At Augustodanum one 16 foot long 7 broad and 2 foot high Segebertus And no lesse fell in the time of Bergoma for it was compared to an Ostrich Egg and was 12 inches about Bonsinius They say in the same year at Bommel in Gelderland there fell one stone was 3 pounds weight on the 12th of June sometimes the forms of it have been wonderful Anno 1395 it had the Images of men with beards of women with Kerchers and hair At Cremona Anno 1240 it had the sign of the crosse But we are often deceived and imagine what is not so Yet the Works of God are wonderfull CHAP. X. Of Dew Manna and Honey DEw comes from a thin vapour resolved into water by the cold of the night It is first found in the light and thick leaves and flowers of plants and sometimes it is scarce lift up above two Cubits high Some say it was the daughter of Jupiter and the Moon for as Plutarch saith The full Moon makes plenty of Dew And therefore dogs in the full Moons can sent out things by the foot worst because the cold dew takes away the sent that they cannot smell them wherefore it is hard to hunt well in the Spring time Plutarch saith that fat women were wont to gather dew with cloaths or soft skins which they used to make them lean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christophorus Vega writes That Manna is made by some little Bees like thick Gnats from whom sitting by swarms upon Trees sweat as it were drops from them Sennertus l. 4. c. 8. thinks that they are rather drawn thither by the sweetnesse of the Manna and that they make it not The Learned make a question whether the Jews Manna was the same with ours Many things agree but in this they differ that theirs ground in a mill or bruised in a mortar was fit to make wafers If it be not prevented it will melt with any Sun for an Easterly Sun will melt it We read that it is used for Sugar with water alone to drink and to quench ones thirst amongst those Shepherds that frequent the desarts of Targa Scalig. Exerc. 164. Manna is of kin to to honey This comes out of the Ayr especially at the rising of the Stars it is made especially when the Dog-star shines nor doth it appear before the Pleiaâ—es shine in the morning Plin. l. 11. c. 12. Therefore then in the morning early the leaves of Trees are bedewed with honey and if any in the morning be in the open ayr they shall perceive their clothes anointed with the Liquour and their hair glewed together This dew is afterwards collected by Bees it is altered by them in little bladders It is put up in little Cells like pure liquor in which afterwards it grows hot and is concocted with natural heat The 20th day it growes thick then is it covered with a thin membrane which growes together by its frothing heat Pliny l. cit c. 13. Also that it is made by Wasps Pliny teacheth out of Aristotle The Spanish Navigations confirm that it is made of some Molucca flies in Trees which are lesse than Ants. Lithuania and Moscovia have great plenty The story is old concerning a Country-man that fell into a hollow Tree of honey and a Bear drew him forth We have heard that concerning honey that Aristotle speaks of grated wine for it growes so thick that it must be shaved off to drink it Amongst the Troglodites at Belgada honey is as white as Snow and hard as a stone Scaliger Exerc. 191. S. 1. It is so solid in Calicut that they carry it it in baskets Many things are preserved by honey and many things die by it for the milky humour in it is not weak wherefore that remaining uncorrupt corrupts others Wallnuts keep their nature in it for by their unctuous quality they resist their peculiar humidity but Figs Peaches Pears Apples corrupt in it Scaliger Exerc. 170. CHAP. XI Of the Rainbow THe Poets feigned the Rainbow to be Daughter of Thaumas The Ancients thought that she drew water by her two horns let down toward the Earth Hence Virgil Georgic ver 138. and the great Bowe Drank But Propertius L. 3. Why doth the Purple Bowe rain-Rain-water drink The colours are so exact that no Painter can equal them The blew colour is said to shew that the Flood is past but the fiery colour shews that which is yet to come Strabo citant Rhodigin Albertus thinks that 3 and somtimes more may be made in it When it is made at noon we cannot see it for no man ever saw a Rain-bow beyond 3 miles It is never made when the Cloud ascends but allwaies as it goes downward for so it causeth no dew but when it falls away Rhodigin l. 22. l. 12. c. 7. Celius denies that it can be made by the Moon beams Scaliger exerc 80. s. 12. approves it In the Island of St. Thomas saith he if a showr went before the Moon will make a Rain-bow the
out of the Skys Lydiat de fontib 6. c. 6. The latter is confirmed by the testimony of some Writers For the Gold of Corbachium in Westphalia every four year grows and springs again in heaps In Sclavonia a vein of Lead every 40. yeares is changed into Silver A dry scale of Brasse into Gold in one yeare Iron in Silesia at Saganum is digged a new every tenth yeare In Sweden red fâ—nny mud laid one yeare in the open Sun becomes good Iron The Mountain of Fessula in Hetruria hath lead-stones which if they be cut out will in a short time grow again Caesalpinus l. 2. de metal c. 6. relates of Iron that is dug up in Ilva an Island of the Tyrrhene Sea that all the Earth that wanted Mettal that is dug up with the Iron will the next time they dig be turned into good Iron Lastly in the Indies there is the Mountain Oromenus where salt is cut out as out of quarries and it grows again Caesalpin l. 1. de Metal c. 1. But that is wonderfull which Garzias ab horto writes of the Diamant Simpl Indiae l. 1. c. 47. The Adamaâ—ts saith he that lye deep in the bowells of the Earth and require many yeares to their perfection are bred almost on the surface of the ground and are ready in 2 or 3 yeares for dig this yeare but a cubit deep in the quarrie and you shall find Diamonds dig there after two yeares and you shall find Diamonds again But how that should be it is hard to say yet no man can speak with more care than Nature can work when especially she is prodigall and sports her self in the variety of things Pliny l. 21. praefat Yet it doth not seem unreasonable that the Vapour should congele with a fit matter and that which is not well concocted to put off to another time and so to perpetuate the generation Truly the Flux of Veins hath somthing proportionable to vegetable nature and the relation of a Physitian of Friberg that in the Lungs of such as use to dig in Mines their bodies being opened when they are dead you shall find the same Mettals grown hard wherein they laboured being alive Sennertus lib de consensu et diss Chymicorum et Galenicorum seems to intimate as much CHAP. II. Of Marle and Potters-Earth MArle is a thick fat Earth and yet is somtimes so fluxible and white that it seems like to marrow in the bones of living Creatures Of times it is hard and being drank it stops the Veins that bleed at the mouth and hath the same force that Terra Samia hath It is dug up in many places especially amongst the Saxons At Gossaria there are two sorts one is Ash-coloured and the other is whiter of which are made forms wherein your Image makers make their Pictures they cast Sharp cold will divide them both into very thin plates though the former before the cold have seazed upon it consists of thick crusts Potters Earth is thick soft it is hard to come by works are made of fat and thick matter that the force of fire will not quickly break Of the same are made Vessels that will neither drink up nor consume liquor wherein water that parts Gold from Silver is both made and kept Potters Vessells have ennobled many Countries as Asia by those were made at Pergamus those that were made at Tralleis Terra Coa and Samia are not unknown and Aretina is wonderfull Plin. l. 5. c. 13. Noriberga sends earthen Furnaces wherein Gare are and Mettals are boiled Of clay digged up at the Fort of Rottingberg are made purging Vessels wherein Alchymy is made These being cast out of the fire with the brasse do not break but are drawn and wound like burning Glasse Agricola de illis quae essodiuntur ex terra CHAP. III. Of Terra Lemnia Armenia and Silesâ—ack TErra Lemnia otherwise called sealed Earth For Diana's Priest taking it upon him for the honour of his Country offering for expiation wheat and barley brought this into the City soked with water and making it like clay he dryed it that it might be like soft wax and when it was become so he sealed it with the sacred seal of Diana Gal. l. 9. Simpl. Now it is digged up yearly not without superstition the sixth day of August onely They that dig are Greeks the pit sends forth a sweet smell It is digged after Sun-rising for 6. hours and it is laid up in one lump and it must see no light till a year be expired Then it is taken out and washt being washt it is put into a bag it is mingled with hands it is made into round Cakes and marked with the Emperours seal Then it is dryed and put into a sealed Cabinet and sent away to the Emperour to Constantinople Stephanus Albacarius in Epist. ad Busbequium It is good against deadly poysons Galen tryed it against the Sea hare and Cantharides and found it good The same Authour writes of it that in a certain hill by the City of the Ephestii where no plant lives it is dug up the ground being as it were burnt Terra Armenia was wont to be brought from that part which is adjacent to Cappadocia Galen saith it helps difficult breathing so that they die whom it cures not It is drank with Wine in a thin consistence moderately allaid if the party have none or but an easie feaver but if a strong one with water At this day there is a Bolus Toccaviensis in Hungaria it is like butter and is good against Catarrhes so that it is preferred before the Earth of Armenia Crato in Epist. Sileciaca Strigensis is also preferred before Terra Lemnia Sennert Scient natural l. 5. c. 1. Johannes Montanus Silesius was the founder of it who writ a book of the same that it is transmuted gold by the ordination of God in his providence of nature prepared and transmuted into a most excellent remedy that chiefly prevails against venome no lesse than the Medicaments that are made with great cost out of the best gold of Hungary CHAP. IV. Of Salt SAlt is either made or else it growes It is made of salt Fountains the water whereof boyled long at length is turned to salt It breeds many wayes It is dryed in the Lake Tarentinum by the Summer Suns and the whole Lake turns to salt in some places it is moderated not above knee deep In Bactria two Lakâ—s very large one toward the Scythians the other toward the Arii boyl with salt Also the tops of some Rivers and condensed into salt the rest of the River running as it were under the Ice as at the Caspian mouth that are called Rivers of Salt Amongst the Bactrians the Rivers Ochus and Oxus carry out of the opposite Mountains sholes of Salt There are also natural salt Mountains as Oxomenus in India where it is cut out of quarries and growes again and the Custome of it is more to their Kings than from gold and pearls
Pansa de prorog vitae l. 4. If a Man weare it it will be very red but pale if a woman use it Lemn l. de occult c. 22. The fuliginous Spirits in a woman are the cause of it and the faint heat in Coral In men the naturall heat is strong and evaporates Hence if Coral be covered with Mustard seed it waxeth red There are other Plants in the Sea that come from a juyce that grows into a stone About Hercules Pillars and in the outland Sea Trees grow like Bay Trees In the Indian Sea there are Bull-rushes and Reeds in the red Sea Mushrooms all which being cast forth are changed into stones Theophrastus and Pliny confirm these To this appertains Syringites that is like a joynted straw and the reed hollow CHAP. XIII Of Brimstone and Stybium BRimstone is dug up in Islandia by the Mountain Hecla and that without fire It is yellow that is digged out of a Plain of Brimstone which in Campania they call Virgin-Brimstone because women paint their faces with it It is so friendly to fire that pieces of it laid about the wood will draw the fire to them The Greeks and Romans did purifie houses with the fume of it put into the fire it will by the sent discover the Falling-sicknesse Anaxilaus made sport with it carrying it about in a red hot cup with fire under it which by repercussion made the guests look pale as if they had been dead Plin. l. 35. c. 15. The Chymists make such an effectual oyl of Balsome of Brimstone that it will suffer neither live or dead bodys to corrupt but keeps them so safe that no impression from the Heavens or corruption of the Elements or from their own original can hurt them Weck Antidot Spec. l. 1. I shall say something of Stybium It hath an exceeding purgative quality as we see by experience Mathiol ad Dioscorid l. 5. c. 59. Andreas Gallus a Physitian of Trent fell into an inflammation of the Lungs Heart and Stomack with a wonderfull thirst swelling of the Throat beating of the heart and a strangling distillation allmost from the head He took three grains of Stybium with Sugar rosat first he cast up yellow choler 4 ounces weight and afterwards 2 pound weight symptoms ceased and he recovered his former health Georgius Hendschius writes that the same thing hapned to him in the pestilence Also Lucas Contilis Senensis taking 4 grains of Stybium vomited up 12 bits of Turpentine Rosin that he had swallowed 15. dayes before But a Parish Priest of Prague that was mad of melancholy taking 12 graines of the same purged choler downwards that had like scrapings of flesh mingled with it and they appeared as great melancholly Veins called varices cut into peices CHAP. XIIII Of Juices that grow into stones I had allmost forgot juyces that harden like stones Nature hath wonderfully spoâ—ted herself in them sometimes it hardens before it touch the ground and somtimes when it is fallen down Both these ways are seen at Amberga where there are white pillars made by it Agricol l. de effl ex terra What ever drinks it in is made a stone if it be but porous Hence you shall find stony Fountaines and Wood and Bones that are dug up When the workmen in time of Warr fled into the Mines of Lydia about Pergamus the entrance being shut up they were strangled the den was afterwards made clean and there were found Vessels of stone fill'd with a stony juyce About the Coast of Elbog there are great-firr Trees with their barks in the cracks whereof a fire stone of a Golden colour growes About Cracovia in Bohemia there are Trees with boughes out of which there are Whet-stones with corners which was a Present sent from the Lords of Columbratium to Ferdinand the first Hildesham hath beames laid upon heaps the heads of these somtimes stick forth these being stricken with Iron or with another stone not unlike the marble at Hildesham they smell like the sent of burnt horn There is also Wood changed into a stone and in the cracks of it there is Ebony dug forth which Tâ—eophrastus was not ignorant of that it lay hid scattered in the hollow oâ— other stones Looking Glasses rubbing Cloths Garments Shoos being brought into a quarrey in Assus of Troas become stones Mucianus But stones that congele from juyce are commonly soft and brittle In the hot Baths of Charls the 4th many stones together are found hollow like Hives half Globe figured so great as peaâ—e they grow from the drops of the hot waters falling down But those earthen Vessells that are found in the Earth were Piâ—chers for dead mens bones because in all of them covered with lids there were ashes and in some Rings were found wee saw such a one in the Library Thoruniense It was the fashion of the Antients as all know to burn and lay up their ashes In Italy also some urns were found of glasse Caesar Carduinus had foure found in the fields of Naples but what hapned at Verona see Bertius in descâ—i agri Veronen CHAP. XV. Of the Loadstone THe Loadstone is well known The effects of it are admirable two are special its turning to the poles of the World and its dawing of another Loadstone and Iron As for the first in many places it doth nor exactly respect the poles the Declination is somtimes more or lesse This age observeth that for 10 degrees beyond the fortunate Islands where Cosmographers have set the beginning of Longitude it concurs with the poles of the World toward the East it varies more About Norimberg they count 10 degrees in Norway 16 in Zembla 17 as the Dutch observed but one Gilbertus hath found out 23 degrees variation Whence we collect the greatest variation to be 23 degrees If we ask the cause the learned are of divers opinions some say there are certain Mountains of Loadstones under the poles and they say the Loadstone moves by sympathy Others write that it turns to certain Starrs Others say there are in it two opposite points whereof the one turns to the North the other to the South Others think that it moves toward the South because the operation of all the Planets is Southward They all seem to be deceived How great and what kind of Mountains these are is yet unknown and there are many Mines of it in Aegypt It doth not directly point at the Pole unlesse it stand in the Meridian The point that is toward the South is held the stronger The work-Masters gives us a notable Maxime when in the finger of the Marriners Chart they rub that part of the neidle with the Loadstone wherewith it turns to the South Lastly there are opposite places wherein the Eccliptick declines from the Aequator toward the North and the Planets from the East make their motions by the North. It seems most probable Sennert l. 5. scient natural c. 4. that the Loadstone moves toward the South pole either only or if it
stopt as we find in the same place but this is singular that born about one awhile it will cause a great tickling yet it ceaseth in 2. or 3. days space but it returns if it be applyed again Also it causeth hollow places under the skin which if you break then they send forth a very great quantity of sand It is prepared by a singular and secret art and one dram and a half for a dose of it so prepared is given in Parsley and Juniper water But the gravel doth hurt if it find the stomach full Libavius 1. Synt. Art Chym. l. 1. c. 14. doubts of it whether it doth these things by its own force or anothers His words are Sometimes it happens that nature is stimulated by meer perswasion and belief from some conception of the mind which we ascribe to the Object the Fancy moving first by that But the efficacy is not alike in all nor is their assent and belief alike unlesse you would say that not onely the Patient is troubled with the gravell but he must be of such a disposition also as may admit the force of that stone And it is found that the Nephritick stone is uneffectual to many An Agat out of a River of Sicilia hath its name from it Veins and spots do so run up and down in it that sometime it represents a Turtle sometimes a horn sometimes one small Tree 2 3 or 4 appearing like a Wood. Camillus of Pisdura saw once one that had as it were 7. Trees in a Plain Iâ— the Agat of King Pyrrhus there were the 9. Muses naturally with Apollo and the Muses had their several badges That which is of one colour being boyled in an earthen pot full of oyl with several paints and in two hours being made somewhat hot will make one colour like red Lead out of them all Dalechamp in Plin. l. 37. Agricola l. 6. Fossil Plin. l. 37. c. 1. CHAP. XXIV Of the Ruby the Carchedonius Sandastrus Chrysolite and some others A Rubie is of an exceeding red colour Sometime it is so great that vessels are made of it containing a Sextarius A Carchedonius is so called because it was found amongst the Garamantes and Nasamones amongst the gravel and was brought to Carthage It is otherwise called a Granate It is said that when they sealed though in the shade the wax would melt Archelaus It will not burn in the fire Sandastrus hath red with a golden colour golden spots shine within as Stars in a transparent body the more they are the more costly is the Jewel But because commonly it is marked with the 5. Stars called Hyades both in their nmber and disposition the Chaldaeans were superstitious about it The Chrysolite differs in the plurality of its Stars Bochus writes he saw a Spanish one of 12 pounds weight Agricola saw a clod dug out of the Mines in Germany that was made of more than 60 Chrysolites all of them four square The greatest was an inch broad and 2 fingers in length it was too soft to polish Asyctos made hot in the fire contains the heat for 7 dayes it is black and ponderous with red veins distinguishing it Calcophnes is black but struck upon it sounds like brasse it is said to be good for Tragaedians to carry with them Catochites is a stone of Corsica wonderful if report be true it holds your hand laid upon it like Gum. The Medes send Gasidanes it growes in Arbelis They say it conceives and being shaken you may hear the noise of the Infant it conceives in 3. moneths space CHAP. XXV Of Jewels found in the bodies of living Creatures Artic. 1. Of the Draconite the Chelonia the Cock stone and Toadstone MAny Jewels are found in the bodies of living Creatures I will only set down some For too reckon them all is to much for an Epitomist Draconites of Dracontia is made out of Dragons brains but unlesse you cut it out whilst they are alive it will never grow hard by reason of the malice of the Creature finding it self ready to dye Therefore Men cut them out when they are asleep Sotacus who writ that he saw that Jewel with a King saith that those that seek it ride in Chariots and when they spy the Dragon they scatter sleepy medicaments and so they come to cut it out Plin. l. 37. c. 10. They are transparent white and admit of no art to polish them Cinediae are found in the brain of a fish of the same name they are white and somwhat long and wonderfull in effects if it be so as men write They foreshew the face of the Sea by their troubled or peaceable colour Chelonia is the eye of an Indian Tortis most wonderfull by the invented lyes of Conjurers for they promise that if you lay it upon your tongue with liquid honey it will foreshew future events at the full and new Moon for all day but when the Moon decreaseth before the Sun is up at other times from one a Clock till six Moreover of Draconitis Philostratus writ and ascribes to it as much vertue as Gyges ring had Rhodig c. 11. l. 6. antiq lection Alectorius is cut out of the gizard of a Cock with a Comb being included with a thin skin or membrane 4 yeares after he hath been gelded Lemn de occult It may be it is congealed from the excrement of seed by force of his imbred heat as milk grows hard in the breasts It procures Men favour and makes them lusty Toads produce a stone with their own Image somtimes It never grows but in those that are very old Libav l. 3. singul In the family of Lemnius there is one kept that is greater then a Hazel nut Lemnius de occult l. 2. c. 30. It is proved to dissolve tumours that rise from bitings of venomous beasts if you rub it on often The Lapis Bufonius called Grateriano the Swedes Chronicles write of it it weighed 5 Physicall pounds and 3 Ounces 2 drams lesse Crasius annal Suevit l. 12. p. 3. c. 37. The words are these After the joyfull birth of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary the mother of God Anno 1473 after the birth of St. John the 27 of June Berchtholdus Gratterus dwelling then at Hopstach in the afternoon went into a Wood which they call the Vale of Dipachia to cut poles to make hoops for Vessells In that place he heard a hissing and a great noise by a River in that Valley and when he stood a farr off to see what the matter was he saw an incredible heap of Serpents and Vipers and Toads lying twined together As nere as he could conjecture it was a greater quantity than a great washing Tub could contain He was frighted and durst go no neerer yet he cut a bough and marked the place there in the confines that day he came twice back and beheld that conventicle of Serpents and he found them all allmost together upon a heap wherefore he left them and
went home concealing the matter for three dayes when he returned to the Wood he found that these water Snakes were gon and none â—f these venemous Creatures were left but only one Toad that was killed and a Snake in a white glutenous humour and thick shining like to frog-Spawn and neere to it that Toadstone Bufonius which he catcht up and wiped it and carried it with him home keeping it for some farther profit But after that Gratterus came into the Town about a 100 yeares since the stone was used successully for Man and Beast as it followes The eldest Sonne of the house of Gratterians keeps this Toadstone and he will not lend it especially to strangers under a pawn of 50 or a 100 Livers Amongst the other vertues it is observed that it hath very great force against malignant tumours that are Venemous Cholerick or Erisipelas Apostems and Bubos and for Cattel that are bewitched They are used to heat it in a bag and to lay it hot without any thing between to the naked body and to rub the affected place with it They say it prevails against Inchantments of Witches especially for great bellied Women and Children bewitched So soon as you apply it to one bewitched it sweats many drops In the Plague it is laid to the heart to strengthen it It draws Poyson out of the heart and out of Carbuncles and Pestilent sores It consumes dissipates and softens all hardnesse Tumours and Varices Artic. 2. Of the Stones Chelidonium Crabs eyes Snail Stones and Bezar CHelidonius is so called as if it came from Swallows Yet it is formed of a yellow Gold coloured Jasper Bound to the right arme it is good against fantastick thoughts from melancholy It cures such as are Lunatick and mad and hath a peculiar vertue against diseases of the eyes Plater Also in the heads of River Crabs there are stones which steeped in most sharp Vinegar they will seem to move Quercet in dial s. 3. c. 7. With their powder to half a dram in White Wine the Stones of the Kidneys are happily driven out Henric. a Bra. de calc The Snail-Stone put under the tongue hath a great force to cause salivation It makes the tongue moyst and the humour fluent and stencheth thirst and represseth heat Bound on it helps Children to breed teeth Plin. l. 30. c. 5. A water Snake casts up by vomit a stone into the water under her if you bind a cord to her tayle Holler l. 1. de morb inter c. 39. This hath such force to consume water that it presently drinks it up Wherefore laid to the belly of an hydropick person it consumes the water by degrees Plater l. de vita The Bezar Stone is found in the Stomack of a hee Goat rather of a shee Goat in the Indian Mountaines Sennert l. 5. Epitom scient natural c. 4. Somthing which hath a kind of bark and is as I may so say Chamford saith Sennertus proceeds from a small beginning that is oft times straw to which some moisture sticks like glew and hence it is that that stone is made up as it were of many thin plates It is great in an old lesse in a young shee Goat and all those plates both inward and outward are smooth and shining Rasis by experiment commends it against all Venome Not only drank saith Mathiol on Diascorid l. 5. c. 75. but also bound on so that it may touch the naked skin of the left side it excells all other things Abdalnarchus adds farther The stone they call Bezoar we have now seen with the Sons of Almirama keeper of the Law of God for which stone at Cardubahee at the beginning of the Warrs parted with a magnificent and allmost Kings Palace Some say that the Bezar stone is nothing but the Tears of the Stag for they say that the old ones overgrown with Age do eat Serpents and grow young again and for to conquer the venom they drench themselves in a River onely their head forthâ— and as they stay so a clammy humour falls from their eyes and being congealed by the Suns heat it becomes a Stone there It is like an Acorn and being fallen from their eyes it is gathered up by such as attend for it Yet they are thought to be divers Scalig. Exerc. 112. writes thus concerning the Stags tears which he held to be the dearest thing to him in his Treasure of the Muses Before 100 years a Stag hath none after that age it growes at the corner of the eye and thrusting forth like a bone it growes harder than horn The prominent part is round very shining of a gold yellow colour with prints of other veins It is so smooth that you can scarce feel it and it so drawes it self away that it even seems to move It is an excellent remedy against poysons To those infected with the Plague it is given with a little wine and they will sweat so as if their whole body would melt Thus far Scaliger He that would be fully instructed let him read Bauhinus of the Bezar stone CHAP. XXVI Of Gold WEe have done with Minerals thus far Now follow Metals First Gold This is found in its proper vein and in stones that are of shining white also in the true Pyrite and sometimes in stones of iron In Spain some pieces have been found weighing above ten pound weight It is plough'd up in Galitia Justin. l. 44. Dubravius writes that in the Mountains of the Gelovienses a masse of ten pounds was taken out of a Rock and he saith it was presented to King Wenceslaus In India the Pismires which in Aegypt are as great as Wolves do carry it and keep it In the Islands of the Sea of Aethiopia the plenty of it is so great that the Inhabitants have barter'd a Talent for horses Plin. l. 6. c. 36. This one thing loseth nothing by fire but the more it burns it growes the better Yet the juyce of Lemmons will abate from its weight Lemnius occult l. 2. c. 36. and if hens limbs be mingled with melted gold they consume it Plin. l. 29. c. 4. The heat of living Creatures may work upon it as Wendlerus witnesseth in Prognostic Anni 1619. A Senator of Gorlicum had a fat Hen she had eaten about 4. books of leaf-gold beaten out with the hammer When she was killed it was found pure within her In her breast 3. golden streaks were seen some Artificer was thought to have drawn them Schnitzerus Epistol 50. writes that in the stomach of another that was killed some moneys were found half consumed To this adde what Zacharias à Pâ—teo affirms in his Clavis Medica Spagyrica and Chirurgica When saith he I studied at Padua it happened that one of our Hens flew upon the Table there were upon it some ornaments for women amongst the rest a precious pearl which hung to an ear Jewel curiously made by an Artificer and it had some golden covers drawn about it the Hen swallowed this
a Man make water on it he is presently provoked If Virgins do but sit on them in the fields or Urine upon them the Hymen is presently broken as if they had known a Man Scalig. Exerc. 175. s. 1. CHAP. VI. Of the Scythian Lamb the bashfull Plant and Amfiâ— THe Scythian Lamb is a Plant that come 〈…〉 seed like a Kernel but not so long The Tartars call it 〈…〉 It gâ—â—ws like a Lamb about three foot high and is like a Lamb in his feet claws ears the whole head except the Horns For Horns it hath hâ—ire is is singular like a Horn and a very thin Horn covers it the inhabitants take it off and use it for cloathing It is of a wonderfull sweetnesse Blood runs forth of the wound As long as other herbs grow about it so long it will live It dies when these are gon Wolves desire it but other beasts that feed on flesh do not Scaliâ—â—r exerc 181 sect 2. The Bashfull-Tree draws back if you but touch the leaves with your hand Apollodorus Scholler to Democritus discovered that Amfia is a medicament amogst the Iridi of wonderfull use They that are not used to it from their Childhood if they eat it afterwards it kills them also it kills those that are used to it and then 〈…〉 it but hurts not those if they continue it The women of Cambaya when they would avoid punishment feed of it and dye without pain The King of Province fed with this from his young yeares grew so Venemous that the very flies that but suckt his skin swelled and died with it It is thought to be Opium and the Turks Maslach Tthough Turnheuserus herbar l. 1. c. 29. saith that by the secret relation of the Turks he learned that this was made of the juyce of Leopards bane yet it is nothing else but Opum as Scaliger Poterius and Johannes Baptista Sylvagius interpreter for the Venetians with the Turkish Emperour do testify He being demanded by Bucretius reported that the Turks have two medicaments to make them merry Afra and Bongelie That prepared of Opium this with Honey and the leaves and seeds of hemp powdred and used frequently This will make them undergo any dangers for it makes them frantick and if they sleep they dream of the fighting of Gyants and fires and Cities burning CHAP. VII Of Balsome Tree and Betel BEfore these times in Judaea the Balsom Tree yielded great profit and there was an Orchard of it in two Kings dominions one of 20 Acres the other not so many but now there is none to be found It is probable that the Kings of Aegypt transplanted it into their own Gardens as being jealous of their greatnesse Plin. l. 12. c. 25. In grand Cairo there is a Garden of Balsom Trees the leafe is like Rue leaves alwaies green The Gum of it is gathered in the Trunk of it making incision at the upper part with Iron When the Sun is hottest that which remaines is not much For a man can hardly fill a Cockle shell in a whole day Theophrastus l. 9. c. 6. de plantis Pliny writes if it be cut with an Iron it presently dies and therefore they that gather Balsome use Glasse Stone and Bone-Knives to cut the Bark and taking the juyce in wool they collect it in little Hornes That which is Indian or Occidental is brought out of the West Indies into Spain It is the liquor of a Tree called Xilon the bark of it which is thinne being cut a clammy whitish liquor in small quantity flows forth which the Inhabitants preserve Also the boughs and roots cut into pieces very small like Chips and boyled in a Cauldron with water when it is cold yeilds the same From Shell-fish they collect an Oyle that swims at top that is red from black of a most sweet smell a sharp tast and somwhat bitter A pound of it in Spain is sold for three Dudats whereas an ounce was wont to be sold for 10 or 20. Bauhin in Dioscorid Beâ—â—l a lease called so from the River which runs not far from Gambaâ—a it grows from a Plant that is wrapt with others and wants proppingâ— it hath neither flower nor juyce The Indians feed daily on it when they are at leasure for they think when it is green that it promotes venery It makes their lips red and their teeth black Mathiol l. 4. Dioscorid c. 2. It troubles their minds if they eat of it too freely therefore the women of Tarnassarum to lament for their Husbands eat it till they grow mad and so they run into the fire and are burnt with them It is sprinkled with water made of lime from Shells of Fishes and then they eat it Scaliger Exerc. 1.46 s. 2. CHAP. VIII Of Betonie Birch and Box. BEtonie is said to defend consecrated places and graves from fearfull apparitions and is so forcible that it will draw forth broken bones bruised with a little salt and put into the nose it stops the bleeding of it Mathiol in 5 Dioscorid c. 1. Birch loves to grow in a cold and Snowy Country The stalk pierced with a piercer sends forth abundance of most clear water it is good to break stones in the Reins and Bladder if it be long drank Mathiol l. 1. c. 93. The Ananii take of the bark of it and wreath it and make Candles of it to burn at night which because they abound with a Pitchy fat they burn like Torches and give the colour of Rosin like Pitch In the Boxwood there is a kind of narcotick force and a sleepy sulphureous matter That is apparent from the stinking smel of it and the ground it delights to grow in For it breeâ—â— in Mountaines and stony grounds and prospers there and drinks in a most stinking Brimstone From the rasping of it a water is distilled like the spirit of Vitriol The greatest Tooth-ach is allayed if you dip a Tooth-picker into it and thrust it into the root of the aâ—ing Tooth and that so suddenly that by miracle allmost and by way of a Charms the pain is presently gonâ— Queâ—â— et Tetrad c. 1â— The flowers 〈…〉 said so to purge the blood that if one drain thereof be givâ—â— with field Poppy water and blood be drawn aâ— hour after it will run clear Petreius in Nosol Harm discurs 14. CHAP. IX Of Batat Baxera Brusathaer and Baaraâ— BAtat is a root like a Turnep with a black rind it spreads underneath as it were by Armes The colour of the 〈…〉 and so it is divided into divers kinds but the worst is the yellow It is planted wonderfully for it is Seâ—moâ— with the root but 〈…〉 the Olive by a Slip the twig being cut into severall parts is 〈…〉 yet some of the rind must be left They set it like the Vine and prop it up for the fibres of it run about like hops In the fifth month it is ripe Scaliger exerc 181. s. 17. Baxera◠〈…〉 a Tree in the Kingdom of Belus which
that Fig was taken from the Tree And when they all granted it was newly gathered he replied 3 dayes since was this pulled at Carthage so neere to our walls is the enemy They presently began the 3d Punick Warre wherein Carthage was rooted out In Hyrcania there are some that each of them will beare 260 Bushells Plin. l. 15. c. 18. CHAP. XX. Of the Ash Mushrooms and the Beech. THe Ash is an Enemy to Serpents none of them can â—ndure the shade of it though it be late at night Plin. l. 16. c. 13. Pliny saith he proved it that if a Serpent be compassed in with Ashwood and fire he will leap into the fire before he will passe over the Ash wood This is the great bounty of Nature that it flowers before the Serpents come forth nor do the leaves fall till the Serpents be gone to hide themselves Vessels made of the wood of it for use of meat and drink help the Splâ—â—â— and the Stone wonderfully Dom. Zean l. 1. pract At the waters 〈…〉 out of which fire breaks forth it did once prosper Pliny hist. l. 2. c. 107. Mushrooms groâ— so great in Namidia that they are thicker than Quindes In the Kingdome of Nanles the crust of the ground is thick and like Marble that being covered with earth a span deep and sprinkled with warm water in 4. dayes sends forth Mushromes Scalig. Exerc. 181. S. 1. It is of necessity that there be some seminary vertue out of whose bosome they may proceed for the water that is sprinkled on affords matter and nutriment and also a procatarctical cause Libav l. 1. Epist. Chym. 30. If they be boyled or the juice be pressed forth and poured at the roots of Trees especially Beech-Trees Mushroms will grow from thence in great abundance Sennert de cons. et disp Chym. c. 12. In the Northern parts under the Pole Beech-Trees are frequent of a magnetick vertue and the Mushroms that grow to them are changed into Loadstones saith Olaus l. 12. c. 1. CHAP. XXI Of Guaicum and Gentian GUaicum is of great vertue against the French-Pox In Italy at first they were fearful to drink it Bread and Raisins were prescribed with a moderate diet and to live 40 dayes in a dark Chamber and that so curiously that they admit not of the least Ayr Mathiol in l. 1. c. 3 The errour was observed afterwards and Hens flesh was allowed but not a drop of Wine Mathiolus was the first that tryed it with successe and others followed him Gentian called also Cruciata is the herb of S. Ladistaus a King The report is that the Tartars drove him out of Hungary and that he fled to Claudiopolis a City of Daâ—ia There he grew acquainted with a rich man and became his Godfather He helped him to drive out the Tartars They as they fled threw down moneys of Gold that they had plundered in the field of Aradium as a means to hinder those that pursued them The King pray'd unto God that they might be changed into stones and it was so Hence it is that there are so many stones there After this Hungary being afflicted with a grievous Plague He obtain'd of God that what plant an Arrow shot into the Ayr should fall down upon might be a remedy for that disease It fell upon Cruciata and by the use of that the Plague was driven out of that Country Camerar Centur. 3. Memorab s. 23. CHAP. XXII Of Broom Ginger and St. Johns-wort IN stony and sandy grounds 3. foot from Broom one moneth before and after the Calends of June there is a kind of Broomrape found that is a cubit high if this be bruised and the juice pressed forth which is like to clear wine and be kept in a glasse bottle stopt all the year it is an excellent remedy against the Plague Ginger is a root that creeps along with knots and joynts the leaves are like reed leaves that wax green anew twice or thrice a year Mathiol l. 2. c. 154. There is some difference in the taste when it is dug forth before its time to be ripe The fit time to gather it is when the root growes dry otherwise it is subject to Worms and rottennesse St. Johns-Wort both feed and flower is wonderful to heal all wounds besides those in the head Some write that the Devils hate it so much that the very smell of it drives them away I think this superstitious The same is reported of Pellitary especially for green wounds If it be bruised green and bound to a wound and taken off the third day there will need no other Medicament Mathiol in l. 4. c. 81. CHAP. XXIII Of Elecampane Turnsole and Hiuoa ELecampane is a yearly Plant that growes higher than a man Sometimes 24 foot in height it growes up in 6. moneths after the seed is sown on the top of the stalk there growes a head like an Artichoke but it is rounder and broader and it extends it self with a flower as big as a great Dish Bauhin ad lib. 4. Dioscor c. 182. Sometimes the diameter of the dish is more than a foot and half and it is compassed about with long leaves of a golden colour or as it were Sun-beams and the plain of it in the middle is purple colour The seed is disposed of in the holes of the dish it hath a black rind and sweet substance within so great is the abundance of it that sometimes you shall find above a thousand in one dish Some there are that take the tender stalks of the leaves and scraping away the Down they boyl them on a grid-iron and season them with Salt Oyl and Spices and they are better tasted than Artichokes It is a wonder that it turns with the Sun East and West for when the Sun riseth as if it did adore the Sun it bows down the head and it riseth with it alwaies pointing toward the Sun and opening it self very much at the root of it till the Sun sets Turnsole kills Pismires if you stop their holes with it If a Scorpions hole be compassed about with the juice of it he will never come forth but if you put in the herb he dies Mathiol ad l. 4. c. 186. Hiuca is as great as a mans thigh it goes about with the Sun though it be a clowdy day and at night it is contracted as sad for the Suns absence Plin. l. 22. c. 21. They break it into fine meal by rubbing it with Pumex stones or whetstones then they put it into an Hippocras bag and pour water to it and presse forth the juice The Liquor is deadly but the meal that is left is set in the Sun as they do Sugar-Candy when the meal is dry they temper it with water and make bread of it Scalig. Exâ—rc 153. l. 8. CHAP. XXIV Of Impia Juniper and Glasse-wort IMpia is thought to be a plant that no Creature will taste of and from thence it hath its name yet bruised
and the Tree called Mangueis MAlabathrum is a leaf of its own kind that the Lakes of India produce swimming like Duckweed on the waters without any root they gather it and stitch it through and hang it up to dry Diosc. l. 1. c. 11. They say that when the Summer heat dryes up the waters the dry sprigs do burn on the ground and if this come not to passe it growes there no more Dioscor divides Pomgranates into 3. heads some are sweet some sharp and sowr others are between both They say that sharp ones will grow sweet if hogs or mans dung be laid to the roots of the Trees and to water them oft with old urine Mathiol l. 1. Dioscor c. 127. They are kept from corrupting a whole year if when they are almost ripe the branches they hang by be woond about the Tree or after that they are gathered they be smeered all over with Clay resolved in water and laid some dayes in the Sun Also they are dipt into scalding water and are presently taken forth again and laid 8. dayes in the Sun to dry The Assyrian Apple-Tree bears fruit alwaies some fall off others coming in their places ripening one after the other Pliny l. 12. c. 3. saith That people tryed to transport them for themselves because they are so good for health and to carry them in earthen vessels giving place for their roots to take ayr by holes in the vessels as all such things that must be carried far to be set and transplanted must be used which you must remember that we may not say one thing twice But they will not grow but amongst the Medes and Persians Doâ—dius writes as Libav de orig rerum reports than an Assyrian Apple when it was cut was found great with a young one in it that lay in it as in the Womb and was fastned to its stalk The question was how it grew so and it seems there were may Apples on that twig placed close together and the first growing but slowly that which grew over it by abundance of matter coming to it grew faster and pressing with its weight on the lesser took it into it and so grew about it Mangueis is a Tree in the Country Temistitan out of whose stock peirced there flows a watry juyce If any Man drink too much of it he grows drunk and stupid The bark is good for thread the wood for niedles the leaves to cure diseases and to cover houses Matol in Colloqu de Plant. CHAP. XXVIII Of Musk and Mosse MUsk is bred in the Navel of a certaine Creature two kinds of this Creature are described one is like a Goat with one Horn and a great body This when it is prone to venery with the vehemence of Lust the Navel swells and the impostume grows great by the thicker blood heaped together Râ—ell ex Aetio Then it will neither eat nor drink and roles it self often on the ground by which rowling it presseth forth the blood that swells in the Navell The matter pressed out in a short time grows wonderfull sweet Scaliger writes of the other that is in the Kingdome of Pegu like a roe busk white from whose lower Mandible the teeth put forth equally on both sides Under the belly of it I set down the story out of Scaliger Exerc. 21 the Navel swells They catch the beast and cut off that part with the skin and all the drops of blood that run out when it is cut and fall down they are either catcht or gathered up for good Musk. When they have cut it they set leeches on so many and so long till they kill it by drawing blood from it that blood so drawn forth being dried and made into powder they mingle with the former in small quantities that is very strong One hundred part is sufficient The sophistication is discovered if you smel to it That which is unmixt will draw blood from your nose if you put it neere There is another kind of Musk called Civet it is bred in a little Bladder in the testicles of a certaine Creature Mathiol ad l. 5. c. 20. And growing like sweat in the testicles is of quality moyst and hot that put into the Navel hole wonderfully cures the strangling of the Matrix There is one kind of Cranes-bill that smels like Musk especially Evening and morning The hairy Mosse of the Larch-Tree if it be set on fire burns so violently that it exceeds Gun-Powder Mathiol loc cit For they flame with a World of sparks in a darknight and flye up toward the Starrs leaving a sweet smell behind them Gathered new and steeped with Oyle of Roses it wonderfully abates paines of the head that come from a hot cause it stops blood layd upon wounds CHAP. XXIX Of Mandragora Mallows and the Mulberry-Tree MAndragora is a sleepy medicament as experience proves Lemnius in explic herb biblic c. 2. For when as he had negligently laid the fair and amiable fruit of it in his study he was oppressed with drowsinesse but when he removed it he grew wakefull again The same thing hapned to the Afcicans in their Warre against the Carthagenians For Hamilcar corrupted the Wine in the Vessells and let the Africans take it for spoil when they had drank they all fell asleep and the Carthagenians became Conquerors Potyan l. 5. Phythagoras calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the roots from the middle to the bottom come forth with two forks that it seems to have legs like Men. The fruit is like an Apple not far from the root upon the leaves lying on the ground Heidfeld in sphing Philosoph Wherefore if it be dug up at that time that it beares fruit it represents a Man without Armes There are also some Counterfeits made of reeds Mandragora and Bryonie roots Matthiol l. 4. Dioscor c. 7. sheweth the way an impostor used to make one They carve saith he in these the Images of both men and women sticking the graines of Barley and millet in the places where they will have haire come forth then making a hole in the ground they cover it with thin sand so long till those graines shoot forth which will be in 20 dayes at least Then they take them up againe and cut the roots where the graines grow to them with a very sharp Knife and they sit them so that they may represent the haire of the head the beard and other parts that are hairy Mallows are so venereous that the seed of that which hath but one stalk strewed on the privities is said by Xenocrates to increase lust infinitely in women Also three roots bound together are thrust up with great successe for the tenesmus and the Dysentery But it is a wonder that water should in the open ayre grow thick by it and white as Milk Plin. l. 10. c. 21. The Mulberry Tree will not bud till the cold be over yet it brings forth fruit with the first when it begins to bud it buds so
Chyrurgians expected he would dye in four days or seven at farthest he recovered by Rhubarb next under God One writes thus of it Camerar Cent. 8. in 51. Rhubarb is hot and dry the belly binds And opens Children Women great with Child May safely use it t is good for all kinds Opens Obstructions and gives purges mild Both Flegme and Choler 't is for 'th stomach good And helps the Liver serves to clense the blood Stops spitting blood and ruptures and we prise This root for weak folk and dysenteries From the small seed of Rhubarb in 3â— months so great a root grows that in some places it weighs 100 pound weight Mathiol in l. 2. c. 104. Mathiolus saw Turneps in the Country of Anamum that one of them weighed 30 pounds Those that are sowed in Summer are free from Worms mingling sutt with the seed when t is sowed or else steep the seed a night in the juyce of the greater housleek It hath been proved Columella By Harlem Anno 1585. there was one dug up like a Mans hand with nails and fingers exactly I saw the picture of it at Leyden with Cl. Bundarcius Ros solis or Sun dew which shines under the Sun like a Starr with his beams hath its name from its admirable nature for though the Sun in summer shine long and hot upon it yet the leaves of it are almost alwaies wet and the down of them is alwaies full of drops And which is admirable that moysture that is contain'd in the cups of the leaves so soon as you touch it with your fingers while it yet growes on the ground or else is pulled up presently and held in the Sun beames is drawn forth by and by into white threads like Silke which harden immediately and so continue ever after Camerar cent 8. memorab 98. CHAP. XXXVI Of Crow-foot Rue Rose-mary Rose-root and rose-Tree CRowfoot if Men eat it will cause Convulsions and draw their mouths awry They seem to laugh that dye with it Pausan. Also Salustius speaks of it In Sardinia saith he there grows an herb called Sardea like wild Smallage this contracts the Mouths and Jaws of Men with pain and kills them as it were laughing Rue resists Venome therefore a Weasel will carry it when he fights with a Serpent It is of a mighty greatnesse at Macheruntum Joseph l. 7. de bell Juddic c. 25. It was as high as any Fig-Tree and had remain'd from the time of Herod It is a singular remedy for the Epilepsy as a Country man found by accident Camerar Cent. 3. Memorab 36. He bruised it and with the smell of the Rue he stopt the nose of this Epileptick person fallen and presently he rose up Rosemary grows so plentifully in France that they burn it so thick that they make Tables of it It flowers both spring and fall Mathiol l. 3. c. 37. Barclay in his Icon animarum c. 4. writes thus of it in England Rosemary in many Countries is costly â—y the very paines is used about it to cherish it here it is common and somtimes serves to make hedges for Gardens Rhodium root is the most lively of all roots for dug out of the earth unlesse it be laid up in very dry places if it be planted again after many Months it will grow It grows on the highest Rocks where it hath scarse so much earth as to stick by Mathiol l. 4. c. 41. The Rosebush at Carthage in Spain is alwaies full of Roses in Winter and was alwaies honour'd by the Romans for they were wont to strew the leaves on their dishes of meat and to besmear their Citron Tables with the juyce of them that they might by reason of their bitternesse be free from Worms Heliogabalus commanded to throw Roses on his Banqueting guests from the top of the Room as if it rayned Roses Dalechamp in l. 21. c. 4. That is wonderfull that is related concerning revification There was a famous Physitian at Cracovia who could so curiously prepare the ashes of every part of a Plant that he would exactly preserve all the Spirits of them The ashes waxing a little hot by putting a Candle to the Glasse represented a Rose wide open which you might behold growing by degrees to augment and to be like a stalke with leaves flowers and at last a double Rose appeared in its full proportion when the Candle was taken away it fell againe to ashes Rosenberg Rhodolog c. ult The same thing allmost was done with a Nettle as Quercetan testifieth in his History of the Plague For when one would appoint a remedy against the stone at the end of Autumn he pull'd a great many Nettles up by the roots of these Nettles he made a lye the common way with hot water and by strayning and filtring he purified this lixivium that he might at last produce salt artificially as he intended but when he had set the lixivium all night to cool in an Earthen Vessel the next day when he thought to Evaporate to extract the Salt it hapned that night that the ayre was so cold that all the Lixivium was over frozen When therefore in the Morning he purposed to cast that Lixivium out at the Window besides his expectation he saw that all the water of the Lixivium was frozen and a thousand figures there of Nettles were in it so perfect with roots leaves and stocks and shewing so exactly that no Painter could paint them better CHAP. XXXVII Of Scorzonera Squills Sage and Scordium SCorzonera is no ancient Plant Mathiolus first described it l. â— c. 137. It was found in Catalonia by an African servant he that found it shew'd that it was a present remedy against the bitings of Adders he that will escape must drink the juice Of Squills vinegar is made of an admirable quality saith Mathiolus if one daily drink a little his jawes and Mouth will never be ill his stomach will be well he will breathe well see well he will be troubled with no wind in his belly and will be well coloured and long winded He that useth this vinegar will digest his meat well though he eat much There will be no crudities in his body not wind nor choler no drâ—gs nor will the urine or ordure passe away with over loosenesse Mathiol in l. 2. c. 168. Of Sage they say that it stops the flowing of the courses if one smell to it and eaten by one with Child it will retain the child and keep it lusty Mathiol in l. 3. c. 34. Hence it is that Agrippa calls it sacred If a woman drink a Hemina of the juice of it with a little salt the fourth day she hath abstain'd and layn alone and then lie with her husband she will conceive It is reported that in Coptus of Egypt after a great plague that the women drank it and did bear many children In many places of Asia they bear Apples In Calabria of Consentia Scaliger saith Exerc 168 that one did bring forth a gall of an
hath a stalk like a Cane that hath a white pith in it like to Sugar-Canes in the top whereof it puts forth branches divided and empty The fruit wherein the Corn is shut up in thin covers come forth of the sides of the stalk The Ear is as great as the apple of the Pitch-Tree there are round about it clear white grains within as great as Pease disposed of in 8. or 10. right lines on all sides From the Top of the Cod hang long shoots of the same colour with the corn the Indians call it Malitz It is steeped 2 dayes in water before they sow it nor do they trust it untill it be wet with rain They reap it in 4 months but that which growes in Eubaea is ripe in 40 dayes Theophrast lib. cit Thyme begins about the Summer Solstice and honey from thence is successefull for Bees and Bee-masters Theophrast l. 6. c. â— If it put forth its flowers otherwise the making of honey doth not succeed well the flower perisheth if a shower fall There runs oyl from it of a golden colour when the herb is distilled through a bath of hot water when it is green It tastes like a pome Citron Mathiol in l. 3. Dioscor c. 37. CHAP. XLII Of Tobacco TObacco or Nicotiana from the finder of it is called also the holy Herb the Queens herb the herb of the holy Crosse and Petum It is well known to them that know the Indian Merchandise and those that have smelt the fume of it in Britany France and the Low-Countries It is sowed when the Moon increaseth and cut down when she decreaseth There is one kind call'd the Male with a broad leaf and another called the female with a narrower leaf but a longer stalk The least seed of it falling of its own accord lies safe in the coldest winter and the next Summer being carried into many grounds with the wind cometh up of itself Camerar in hort Neaâ—der in Tobaccolog From the seed of the male they say the female will spring if it fall into a ground where Tobacco grew before and that so fruitfully that it will yearly grow up of it self But it will not endure the cold but if it be well preserved it will like Citron Trees continue all the year and remain 4 years without damage Monardus de simpl medicam As for the forces of it it will cause thirst hath an acrimonious taste it troubles the mind and makes head-ach Neander They that drink it too greedily have fallen down dead and stupified for a whole day Benzon l. 1. c. 26. hist. nov orb Hence it was that King James of famous memory King of England writ Misocapnos For he supposed it weakned the bodies of his Subjects Yet many famous men have written high commendations of it The Spaniards say it resists poyson For when the Cannibals had wounded them with poyson'd darts they cured themselves with the juice of Tobacco laying on the bruised leafs Monard loc cit The Catholick King made tryal of it on a Dog wounded with a venomâ—â— weapon and it cured him Heurnius writes that it oures perfectly the pain of the teeth and takes away all the dolour His words are When I was vehemently pain'd with Tooth-ache about a year since I boyled Tobacco in water with some Camomil flowers and I held a spoonfull of the warm decoction in my mouth I spit it forth and used this for two houres the pain abated The next day saith he I went to my Garden in the Subburbs as I was wont to do and bending down with my head to pull up some grasse there ran a moysture out of my nostrills yellow as Saffron it smelt like Tobacco and all the pain of my teeth was gone Never did blood nor any thing but a flegmatick matter run forth of my nose in all my life and I never saw any deeper yellow than what ran now out of my nostrills That it restores the sight see Wiburgius ad Schnitz Epist. 209. A certain Maid had the pupil of her eye covered he with the juice of the best Tobacco boyl'd to an unguent with May butter and anointing the Eye outwardly with it the eye being shut effected so much that none could discern it but those that stood close by Clusius saith That the Indians use to make pills with the juice of it and Cockle-shells bruised that will stop their hunger for 3. dayes It is no wonder for by resolving of slime that falls upon the stomachs mouth it abates the appetite Castor Durantes in an Epigram describes the vertues of it thus An herb call'd Holy Crosse doth help the sight It cures both Wounds and Scabs and hath great might 'Gainst Scrophulous and Cancerous Tumours Burnings and Wild-fires repressing humours It heats it binds resolves and also dries Asswages pains diseases mundisies Pains of the Belly Head or Teeth with ease It helps old Coughs and many a sad disease Of Spleen and Reins and Stomach and more parts As Womb sore Gums and Wounds with venom'd darts Are cur'd thereby with sleep it doth refresh And covers naked bones with perfect flesh For Breast and Lungs when that we stand in need All other herbs Tobacco doth exceed CHAP. XLIII Of Trifoly Teucrium Thelyphonon Yew Thapsia and Thauzargent TRifoly foreshews a tempest at hand for when it is coming it will rise up against it It hath been observed that when this hearb hath plenty of flowers it portends many showers and frequent inundations that year and a few flowers shew drinesse Fuchs in herb It is called Cuccow bread either because she feeds of it or because it comes forth about the time the Cuccow sings seven times in a day it hath a sweet smell and seven times in the day it loseth it But pulled up it always holds it and when a showr is coming it will smell so sweet that it will fill all the houses Teucrion otherwise Hermion neither beares flowers nor seed It cures the Spleen and they say it was so found out Plin. l. 25. c. 5. when the entralls were thrown upon it they report it stuck to the Spleen and drew it empty It is said that swine that feed on the root of it dye without a Spleen Thelyphonum hath a root like to a Scorpion and put to them it kills them but if you strew white Hellebour upon them they will revive again it is scarce credible Theophrast l. 9. c. 19. The Yew brings forth berries that are red and like red Wine they that eat them fall into Feavers and Dysenteries Cattel will dye if they eat the leaves of it and do drivel Theophrastus writes it l. 3. c. 10. but Pliny confutes it l. 16. c. 10. It is so Venemous in Arcadia that it kills such as sleep under its shadows Ovetan Sum c. 78. In India it makes the eyes and mouth of such as sleep under it to swell Thapsia grows in the Athenian land Cattle bred there will not touch it but strange Cattle will
pressing and moving it with his tongue he breaks them and chews them as it were and then swallows them Nature gave this bird a crooked bill like halfe a circle it is very strong Because she is of a clambering disposition and hath not feathers in her taile that she can fasten into a Tree she had need of a strong beck that she might first cast it in like a hook and by that she might raise her body and then take hold with her feet They live in hot Countries In the Country of Parrots they are so cheap that one may be bought for two pence They alwaies flye by couples and lest they should hurt their weak feet when they light upon the ground they trust to their strong beck and break the fall with lighting upon that They imitate a man they learn his words and will pronounce all almost with an articulate voyce One was taught that would say the Creed to a Cardinal Scalig. exerc 238. He will answer questions Henry the eight King of England had one that fell into the Sea and cried for help promising 20 pounds but when he was pull'd forth he bad Give a Groat If you stroke her gently she will kisse you Scalig. exerc 236. Amongst mourners she will lament also Tiraquel saith that the females do never or very seldome speak like to Men. They are so simple that when a Parrot cries in a Tree and the fowler sits close in the boughs of the same Tree great multitudes of them will flye thither and suffer themselves to be easily taken Pet. Martyr in Decad. Oceani They are fed and grow fat on wild saffron seed that is a purgative to men They will hang by the heels with their heads down toward the water and their tails upwards They build in a high Tree They bind a branch that hangs down with small twigs to the top and they hang their nest upon it as round as a ball with a little hole in it They lay eggs fit for their bignesse They dye by much rayn They are sacred amongst the Indians but not so in Columbus days CHAP. XXVII Of the Phoenix and Woodpecker CLaudian describes the Phoenix thus A fiery mouth with sparkling eys A glittring crest like Sun it 'h Skies The legs are of a Tyrian dye Lightning the Ayre as she doth fly She is reported to inhabit Arabia and chiefly Heliopolis a City of Aegypt where she was seen Her nest is made of spices namely Cinamon and Cassia neere to Nilus she sits in it and by waving her wings she kindles a fire from her ashes a Worme breeds from that a young Phoenix Oppian doth not so much as speak of the Worm Men write diversly of her age The common opinion is 500 years some say she lives 1461 years But all this is false The Woodpickers have a sharp bill that is hard round and strong to pick holes in Trees with They have a long tongue that is extended to the hinder part of their head and is wrapped up over all the crown of the head like a clue of yarn it is exceeding sharp and the end of it is gristly They feed on Wormes and when they seek for them they will so exceedingly make Trees hollow that they will throw them down Arist. l. 9. hist. c. 9. Their nest is made so artificially that the sticks put together they make it of are better to pull a sunder with ones hands than to cut in peices with a sword Pliny reports that the young ones come forth of their eggs with the tayle first because the weight of their heads turns the eggs upside down and so the dam sits on their tails They never sit on stones for fear of hurting their sharp claws They climb unto the top like Cats and that backwards In what Tree soever they breed no naile nor wedge can stick in it but when it is fastned it will fall out with a cracking of the Tree Plin. l. 10. c. 18. Men suppose that she hath the greater Moon-light an herb that increaseth and diminisheth CHAP XXVIII Of the Pie. THe Pie almost every hour changeth her note she learnes and loves to speak as men do One at Rome hearing the Trumpet sound at first was astonished but came to her self and did perfectly imitate the same Plutarch If she be catcht in a Snare she will move nothing but her beck lest moving her body she should be more ensnared when rapes are sowed then is the time for her to moult her feathers Her feathers being pul'd off and her guts taken out if she be boyl'd in White Wine till the Wine be consumed and the flesh part from the bones and then she be bray'd with the broth and so set for three days in the Sun and then applyed to the eys with a fine rag it will cure the roughnesse darknesse and rednesse of the eyes The Pye that feeds on mosse hath blew ouerthwart marks on the sides of her wings you shall seldome see the like in any other bird she hath a throat so wide that she will swallow Chestnuts The Pye in Brasil hath a bill two hands breadth long and one almost in breadth measured from the bottom of the lower part to the top of the upper part The substance of it is very thin like a parchment yet bony shining hollow and most capacious as the Ear also it is dented and made up as it were with certain skales she feeds on pepper but she presently casts it up again raw and indigested CHAP. XXIX Of the Peacock OF old Peacocks were rare in Europe when Alexander saw one in India he forbad to kill it on pain of death but afterwards in Athenaeus his time they grew so common that they were as ordinary as Quails In the Land Temistana they lay sometimes 20 or 30 eggs Martyr They are so cleanly that when they are young they will die if they be wet Albert. When they want cooling they spread their wings and bending them forward they cover their bodies with them and so drive off the force of heat but if the wind blow on their back-parts they will open their wings a little and so are they cooled by the wind blowing between They are said to know when any venomous medicament is prepared and they will fly thither and cry Aelian reports that a Peacock will seek out the root of flax as a natural Amulet against Witchcraft and will carry it thrust close under one of its wings The Peacock suffers such languishing pains as children are wont to suffer when their teeth first come forth and they are in great danger when their crest first grows out Palladius l. 1. de re rustica c. 20. When in the night they double their clanging note it foreshews rains at hand The cause is said to be that by doubling of that troublesome noise is shewed that with heat that sharp vocal spirit breaks forth Mizaldus Their flesh will not corrupt easily After a whole year it will not
treads them and ratifies as it were the seed eaten Those hens that he treads not do bring eggs that are windy Olaus Magnus writes that in the Winter in the North the lesser Urogalli will lye hard under the Snow two or three moneths But in Pontus they say in Winter some Birds are found that neither boult their feathers nor do they feel when their feathers are pluckt out nor when they are thrust through with a spit but onely then when they wax hot at the fire It is hardly true The greater Grygallus is so deaf that he cannot hear the noise of a great Gun CHAP. XXXVI Of the Batt PLato calls the Bat a bird and no bird Valla half a Mouse He loves Caves and holes in the earth In the hollow placeâ— of Apenniâ—uâ— there were some thousands that lodged It brings forth the young ones ready formed when they are bred they are first like young Mice smooth and naked as young children She suckles her young ones with her milk and she casts them especially between the hollow places in Tiles or roofs of houses They stick so fast to her Teats that they cannot be pull'd off when she is dead She the second day after she hath disburden'd her self of them flies to find food but in the mean time she devours the secondines Sometimes she is bred of putrid matter Frisius saith she proceeds from a sickly excretion of the Ayr she flyes with leather wings or as Isidore saith born up with the membranes of her arms flying winding up and down and not far from the earth When she is weary she hangs by her claws the rudiments whereof they have in the middle of their wings she will fly also with two young ones in her bosome They eat Gnats Flies Bacon They will so eat a flitch that hangs by a beam that they will lye in the hollow place In hot Countries they will fly at mens faces In Dariene a Province of the New World they troubled the Spaniards in the night One of them fell upon a Cock and Hen and bit the Cock dead Martyr Pompilius Azalius saith That in the East-Indies some are so great that they will strike men passing by down with their wings The Argument of this is their carcases that lie all over the Vale. The Storks eggs grow barren if a Bat touch them unlesse she take â—eed by laying Plane-tree leaves in her nest It is killed by the smell and smoke of Ivy Aelian de animal Locusts will not flye over the place where Bats are hang'd on the Trees that lie open The biting of it is cured with Sea-water or other hot water or with hot ashes as hot as one can suffer it Strabo saith That in Borsippa a City of Babylon where they are greater than in other places they are pickled up for food So in St. John's Island they are skinned with hot water and they are made like chickens with their feathers pull'd off with us for their flesh is very white The Inhabitants of the Isle of Catigan in the Sea del Zur do eat them They are as great as Eagles and as good meat as Hens Scalig. Exerc. 236. s. 3. CHAP. XXXVII Of the Vulter THe Vulter hath filthy and terrible eyes and a space under his throat as broad as ones hand set about with hairs like Calfs hairs Bellonius l. 2. observ c. 1. He hunts after Cattell in Chyla a Province of the West-Indies and that not from Sun-rising till Noon but from Noon till Night Monard de Arom Some say that the males are not bred but the females conceive by the wind which is false for they have been seen between Worms and Augusta of Trevirs â—o couple and to lay eggs Alb. Mag. They are so libidinous that when they are kindled if the male be absent they will tread one the other and conceive by a mutuall Imagination of lust or else drawing dust by force of desire they will lay eggs When he wants his prey he will draw blood from his thighs to feed on Simocatta writes that they are great with eggs 3. years He hath an excellent sight for he will see when the Sun riseth from East to West and when the Sun sets from West to East He will smell Carrion 500 miles Aldrovand Avicenna saith That he sees the carcases from aloft but Aldrovanduâ— writes That the wind carries the sent of them to him He hath an exquisite sense to perceive He lives a hundred years If you pick your teeth with his quill it will make your breath sowr A kernel of a Pomegranate will kill him Plin. l. 30. c. 4. Aelian l. 6. c. 46. The End of the Sixth Classis AN APPENDIX TO The Sixth Classis Wherein some things are taken out of a Treatise of Michael Maierus a most famous Physitian concerning the Bird that growes on Trees WHen one shall read that there is a place in the World where Geese grow on Trees like Apples perchance he will be doubtfull concerning the truth of it and question the Authour And if any man shall say that living Creatures are bred not onely of one but of divers kinds from Trees and vegetables that part will fly and part will not fly hâ— will have enough to do to make good what he sayes if he would not be accounted a Lyar. Yet I think it may be easily proved by what we have said already where we have asserted from experience that Gnats are bred in Okes and mosse of Okes and Worms are bred in other Trees and Vegetables which though they be small creatures yet are they reckoned in the number of living creatures because they feel and move Yet I should not affirm the first as the words sound For Birds make their nests sometimes in Trees hedges bryars and other vegetables but that they grow there like pears is incredible There is one of the Canary Islands called Ferro where is a Fountain of sweet water concealed and there is none besides in the whole Island in some Trees by a wonderfull Indulgence of Nature the leaves do draw abundantly water out of the Earth or Ayr which they drop down for the Inhabitants to drink For should they want this boon no men nor Cattell could live there for there are no Fountains but the Ocean or salt-water runs round about it The great bounty of God hath afforded water to those to whom it is denyed in other considerations As in Egypt where there never falls any rain Nilus overflowes to supply that defect and other Countries have other gifts given them So also is this bird afforded to the Isles of the Orcades and other neighbouring places which is found no where else Yet should any man look to find him growing on the Trees he might wander all the Woods over and find none nor yet do Pyrats amongst the Ferrenses find water but are forced to leave the Country for want of it nor can they find it in the Trees Concerning this bird that is no Fable that
upper parts being the sharpest they take hold of the ends of the weeds and are fast shut in the broader parts which afterwards open that the fruit may come out to flye Thus a thousand at least of these shell fish are fastned to the weeds at the ends which as I said are fastned to the pitcht Wood with the other end in such plenty that the Wood can hardly be seen yet those weeds do hardly exceed 12 fingers breadth in length and are so strong as thongs of leather somtimes they are longer and are some-feet-long This is the whole external description For you can see nothing but a piece of a Mast full of rotten holes and Sea Weeds thrust into them having at the other end shell-fish like to the nayle of a Mans little finger But if these shells be opened those small Birds appeare like chickens in eggs with a beck eys feet wings down of their feathers beginning and all the other parts of callow Birds As the young Birds grow so do the shells or covers of them as they do in all other Oysters Muscles shell-fish snails and the like carriers of their houses It may be asked how they get their food I answer as other Zâ—ophyta do partly from the sweeter part of the water or else as shell fish that breed pearls and Oysters do from the dew and rayn partly from the pitchy fat of the rotten Wood or the resinous substance of Pitch or Rosin For these by the intermediant grass as by umbilical Veins do yeeld nutriment to these Creatures so long as that Wood is carried by the ebbing and flowing of the Sea hither and thither For were it on the dry land it would never bring forth the said shell fish An example of this we have in places neere the Sea where those shell fish are taken alwaies with black shells sticking to Wood put into the water as also to the woodden foundations of bridges and to Ships that have been sunk And they stick either to the wood by some threds like to hayrs or Mosse or else by Sea Weeds whence it is evident that some clammy moysture is afforded to shell-fish sticking to any Wood whatsoever though it be Oke but much more to firre Wood full of Rosin whereof Masts of Ships are made For this Wood is hotter than Oke and hath much aeriall clamminesse and therefore takes fire suddenly and when it is wounded while it is green it sends forth an oily Rosin but when it is dry it will easily corrupt under water but the Oke will not because it is of a cold and dry nature It longer resists corruption and under water grows almost as hard as a stone If any man will consider the abundance and diversity of fish and living Creaturs which are bred in the Seas every where he cannot but confesse that the Element of water is wonderful ferâ—ill which breeds not only the greatest living Creatures as Whales whereof some as Pliny writes l. 32. entred into a River of Arabia that were 600 foot long and 300 foot broad and that in such abundance and variety that the same Authour reckons up 176. kinds of fish in the Sea only besides thâ—se bred in Rivers But one would chiefly admire the great diversity and beauty of Sea shell-fish for I remember that I saw aâ— â—eâ—terdam Anno 1611 with Peter Carpenter a very famous man above a thousand severall kinds of them in such plenty that he had a whole Chamber full of them which he kept as the pretious treasures and miracles of nature No doubt but these are the Ensignâ— of Natures bounty for they rather serve for the ornament of the world than for mans use wherein you may see a kind of an affected curiosity in the variety of the forms of them Hence we may conclude the great fruitfulnesse of the Sea which doth exceed the Land in breeding of living Creatures and vegetable animals which the Antients observing they ascribed to Neptune who was god of the Sea great multitudes of Children begotten from divers Concubines call'd Sea-Nymphs amongst these were Tryton and Protheus whereof he sounding a shell-fish is his Father Neptunes Trumpeter but this is changed into various forms as into fire a Serpent and such like clearly teaching that the Sea breeds divers forms These causes seemed to move them who ascrib'd the generation of these Birds in the Orcades to the Sea alone as being the Authour of fruitfulnesse and of diversity of Creatures But how rightly they did that shall be seen We deny not but that many pretty shell-fishes are bred of the Sea onely from the influence of omnipotent nature so that the Ocean affords the place and matter of them but not the form and the cause efficient All the fish except a few are bred of the seed of other fish naturally and here can be no question of these Yet we may doubt whether so many kinds of shell-fish do breed from the seed of other shell-fish It is manifest of the foresaid Bird that it breeds neither from an egge as other birds do nor yet from seed Whence then From the Ocean or must the cause be imputed to the Ocean Not at all For though the place be said to generate the thing placed yet that is understood of the matrices that are the cause of generation sine quâ non but not the efficient cause much lesse the formal material and final and not concerning every generall thing containing But to search out more exactly the nature of this wonderfull Bird we will run over those four kinds of causes not doubting but having searched out these as we ought what why and from whence it is will easily be resolved The Efficient cause therefore of this generation is external heat such as the Sun sends forth into sublunary bodies as also in the internal heaâ— in the matter corrupting For without heat nature produceth no generation but useth heat as her chief Instrument whereby homogeneous things are congregated and heterogeneous are parted the parts and bowels are formed in living Creatures and are disposed in their orders and figures In Artificiall things that men make they use divers Instruments as their Hands which may be call'd the Instrument of Instruments Hammers Anvils Files Sawes Wimbles and the like In natural things there is onely Heat as the efficienâ— cause and Nature moves it as the Artificer doth them The outward heat brings the internal into Action Without which this would be uneffectual and shut up in the matter as dead as it appears in some living creatures which when Winter comes and the outward heat fails they are as it were asleep and lye as dead as Swallows Frogs Flies and such like But so soon as the Sun beams heat the water and the earth presently these little Creatures revive as owing their lives to the Suns heat And as the heat is greater so is the efficacy thereof and their flying about and crying as we see in Flies and Frogs As for
in other birds But since it is not propagated ex traduce from an egg or seed it neither leaves egg nor seed nor gives more to another than nature gave to it For if it lay'd eggs that chickens might proceed from the Barnacle had been so bred her self but neither of these is so For as a Mule is not bred of a Mule but from the mingling of an Asse and Mare together so it doth not generate a Mule but continues alwaies Barren as this bird doth Bees are bred of Worms the Worms in the honey combs from honey by a wonderfull operation of nature though without any sensible body of seed yet not without virtuall seed imprinted on the Honey-Combs by the Bees which they first had from Heaven Nor is it possible that these effectual and spiritual qualities should proceed from the pure Elements or onely by propagation since the matter of the seed which is made of nutriment and blood could be extended in infinitum without diminution of it self For we observe that the Elements are but like dead and materiall receptacles of the formal vertues and that the matter of the seed is dayly supplyed and heaped up by the Elements And therefore it is necessary that the formative force should daily flow into the formed seeds or where they are wanting into a matter prepared by Nature from corruption or other operations From whence the form of this wonderfull Creature is easily drawn namely that it is an imaginative vertue of the Heavens or of the Sun actively infused into a viscous matter of that wood in those places so disposed by corruption that it may enliven it and promote it to be a new kind of living plant or bird included in a shell which so soon as it falls into the waters may swim and when the wings are grown fly about The final cause is the common ornament of the World the variety and wonderfull works of Nature the profit of those that dwell near and especially the providence omnipotence and clemency of our good and great God all whose attributes do appear to mankind as well from this creature as from the rest whilest he crowns the year with his free gifts and the whole earth with variety of Creatures So that he is far more mighty in creating and making different kinds of living Creatures than we are able to expresse them to nominate or to know them Let it suffice us that we have seen some part of the wonderfull works of God and taken a view of them for it is not possible for a mortall Man to be capable to apprehend them all yet to consider of none of them were brutish and we should so be more like unto Beasts than Men. OF Naturall VVonders The Seventh Classis Wherein are set down the Wonders of Four-footed Creatures Seneca l. 3. de ira c. 30. WE are troubled with frivolous and vain matters A red colour makes a Bull angry and a viper is stirred by a shadow A picture will make Bears and Lions fiercer All things that are cruell and ravening by nature are moved with vain things The same things happen to unquiet and foolish spirits they are stricken with jealousie and suspition of things CHAP. I. Of the Elk and the Ram. THe Elk is a four-footed beast commonly found in Scandinavia in Summer of an Ash-colour almost in Winter it turns toward black The horns are fit for footstools each of them is 12 pound weight and two foot long His upper lip hangs out so long that he cannot eat but going backwards Men write that he is subject to the falling sicknesse and that the remedy he hath is to lift up the right claw of the hinder foot and put it to his left Ear. It holds the same vertue if you cut it off when he goes to rut in August or September He is commended for his swiftnesse for he will run as much ground in one day as a horse shall in three He is very strong for a strong blow with his foot will kill the hunter The Ram for six Winter moneths sleeps on his left side but after the vernal equinoctiall he rests on his right Aelianus hath discovered this but the Butchers deny it In Camandu a Country of Tartary they are as big as Asses their tails weigh 30 pound weight One was seen in the Court of the King of the Arabians whose tail weighed 40 pound Vartom Cardanus ascribes that to its cold temperament when the rest of the bones will no more be extended Lest he should be choked with his own fat he sends down the humour unto his tail CHAP. II. Of the Asse IN the Kingdom of Persia Asses are so esteemed that one of them is sold for 30 pound of gold amongst the Pigmies they are as big as our Râ—ms Paul Venet. In Egypt they ambâ—e so swiftly that one will go 40 miles a day without any hurt Scalig. Exerc. 217. s. 1. She doth sparingly dip-in her mouth when she drinks She is afraid saith Cardanus For when she beholds the great shadow of her ears in the water she is fearfull they will be wet There are some found in Africa that do not drink She staleth when she seeth another stale or upon a dunghill For Nature doth stirre them up being slothfull by the acrimony of the smell Cardan l. 10. subtil Observation proves that where an Asse hath cropt a vine branch the vine will grow more fruitfull The monument of this matter was seen at Nauplia where an Asse of stone was set up in thankfull remembrance for posterity Vadimonius writes that there is a fruitfull Orchard in the middle whereof she was buried Aldrovand l. 1. de quadr c. 2. In Hetruria when they have eaten Hemlock they fall asleep that they seem to be dead The Countrey-men are deceived by it for oft-times they rise up and fright them when they have pull'd off their skins almost Mathiol in Dioscorid Sheep will run into the fold if you pen them in an Asses stall If one be stung by a Scorpion if he sit upon on Asse with his face toward the tayl the Asse will endure the pain and not he It is a sign of it because she will dye farting Merula Asses milk is commended Poppaea the Wife of Domitius Nero that conceived in all 500 times did wash her body in a Bath of Asses milk thinking to stretch her skin thereby Plin. l. 15. c. 40. 〈…〉 of crete being in a Consumption recovered by feeding on Asses flesh Moreover there are some in Scythia whose horn contains Stygian water for it will pierce through iron vessels Some in 〈…〉 have one horn in their forehead Who drinks out of that is preserved from a disease but if any venomous matter be drank it is caâ—t forth They are so strong that they will kill a horse to travell with them Also that was a wonderfull one that was sent as a present with other gifts by the King of Assyria to Ferdinand of Naples for the hair was
wonderfull the body was full of streaks of divers colours and equall lines Pontan dâ— Magnificent CHAP. III. Of the Boar and the Archopitecus IN Crete there are no Boars In a great part of the New World there are some that are lesse than ours Their tails were so short that the Spaniards thought they were cut off The fore-feet are whole the hinder feet cloven In some parts of Scandinavia they are 12 foot long Scaliger writes that the petty King of Salvimons had a huge one which would at the sound of the horn go forth to hunt with his Lord and the dogs Archopitecus is a creature in America that is wonderfull ill-favour'd The Inhabitants call it Haâ—â—t He is as great as a Monky his belly toucheth the ground he hath a head and a face like a child and when he is taken he sighs like to a child Three claws hang to his hinder feet and four long ones to his fore-feet like the great prickly bones of a Carp and with these he creeps up upon Trees His tail is 3. foot long He was never found to eat mans flesh whilest he is alive and they think he lives upon nothing but leaves which in their language they call Amohut When he is tame he will love a man and run up upon his shoulders Thevet left him in the open Ayr yet was he never wet CHAP. IV. Of the Ox. IN one of the outermost Provinces of Asia between the outmost Mountains of India and Cathay Oxen are bred white and black with a horses tail but more full of hairs and reaching down to their feet The hairs of them are most fine like feathers and as dear Venet. Brought into Hispaniola they will grow so much that they are greater than Elephants Petr. Martyr in Decad. In these parts where we write these things Guickardinus testifieth that one of them weighed above 1600 weight we saw one at Leyden that weighed 2970 pound But Ptolomaeus 11 had the horn of one that held 27 gallons When the Cows are great with young men say they carry their young ones on their right side though they be great with two But they that drink of the River Charadrus not farr from the City of the Patrenses conceive for the most part only Males the same will come to passe if in time of copulation you bind the left testicle of the male with a band or let them couple when the North wind blows Pausan. in Achaicis and if the right or when the South wind blows the Cows will conceive a female The Cows if they be more fruitfull in summer are a Token of a rainy Winter For a fruitfull Creature cannot abound with generative humour unlesse it be moved by a celestiall influence Albert. Somtimes they are very fierce In the yeare 1551 in Rhoetia between Duria and Velcuria some of them brought into the fields from two Villages fought so violently that 24 were killed before the combate could be ended Gesner de quadrup Somtimes they are puffed up with fullnesse for the cure whereof they use a Charme nameing the swelling In the name of the Father Son and Holy-Ghost Men say that Pythagoras by whispering some words at Tarentum tamed an Oxe so that he forsook bean straw and followed a Country Man and lived to be very Old at Tarentum eating out of mens hands Coelius The smok of Oxe-dung will preserve Bee-hives free from Flies and Spiders Bullocks blood powred into a wound will stop the bleeding Also the dry dung burnt drunk three spoonfulls will cure the dropsy CHAP. V. Of the Buffe and Bonasus A Buff is a Creature greater than an Oxe with a bunch on his back two or three men may sit between his Horns for it hath a very large forehead and curled with haire that smels like Musk. The flesh of it is most fat in Summer but it tasts of Garlick that it feeds on It is wonderfull strong for he will take up a Horse and his Rider The blood of it is redder than purple so hot that it will make Iron on the Hunters Speare turn every way and in the greatest cold it will corrupt in two houres In the Scotch woods they so abhor the company of men that they will not touch the shrubs that men have touched after many days and being taken by art they will dye for grief Cambd. in Scotia Gesner makes the Bonasus to be a kind of Bugle of whom men write that he dungs extream hot when the Hunter follows him but that happens to living Creatures by running so fast The intestines grow hot thereby and heat raiseth winds which being shut in they break forth violently through a narrow place chiefly if there fall out to be any pressing of the places by motion Also the Cuttle fish gives an example that feare will cause her to cast out her inky juyce Philip King of Macedon killed one with a Dart at the foot of Mount Orbelus the Hornes were 16 handfulls which were consecrated to Hercules CHAP. VI. Of the Camel THe Camel hath a manifold belly either because he hath a great body or because he eats Thorny and Woody substances God hath provided for the concoction Puddle water is sweet to him nor will he drink River water till he have troubled it with his foot In Africa when they have fasted 50 days they will not eat at night but when they have their burdens taken off they will feed on leaves in the fields Leo Afric L. 3. He lives a hundred yeares unlesse the Ayre agree not with him Plin. They serve the Indians to travel with if we credit Philostratus nor is it beyond his force to go a thousand furlongs in one day But that kind of Camel the Africans call Ragnail will go a hundred miles a day for 8 days together with a very little meat They never couple with their dams When as his keeper had admitted him to the dam vailed when she was discovered he was so inraged that she trampled on him and threw her selfe headlong Arist. in admirand Examples shew that they are very docile when they are longer on their journey than ordinary between Aethiopia and Barbary they do not whip them forward but they sing to them whereby they will run so fast that men can hardly follow them One at Alcair danced at the sound of a Taber being taught by a strange art For when he is young he is brought into a stove the pavement being very hot One plays on a Tabret at the dore he because of the heat lifts up one foot they continue this exercise and use him to it a whole yeare that coming in publick remembring the hot pavement when one plays on the Tabret he will lift up his feet and seem to dance Leo. Aphric In the Land of Gyants there is a Creature that hath a head ears and neck like to a Mule a body like a Camel a taile like a Horse he is 6 foot high and five foot long his neck is as white as
thou wilt a Collar he will wear And when thou list to take it off again Unto thy feet he coucheth down most fair As if thy will were all his good and gain In fields abroad he looks unto thy flocks Keeping them safe from Wolves and other Beasts And oftentimes he bears away the knocks Of some odde Thief that many a fold infests And as he is thy faithfull bodies guard So is he good within a Fort or Hold Against a quick surprise to watch and ward And all his hire is bread musty and old Canst thou then such a creature hate and spurn Or barre him from such poor and simple food Being so fit and faithfull for thy turn As no Beast else can do thee half such good CHAP. XII Of the Maâ—maseâ— and the Catoblepas IN the Country of Prasium Monkeys are as big as great Dogs The tail of one is five cubits long hair hangs down from their foreheads and they have long beards and an inbred tamenesse Strabo l. 15. There are others wonderful great like to men For by their legs face privities they look like Countrey men they are elsewhere all-over hairy They love Children and women and desire to embrace them Cardanus The common ones are well known they have testicles of a blew and green colour When they eat up the ears of Corn one of them lies perdue in the field and makes an out-cry when he spies a Country man the rest fly They so hate a Crocodile that they cannot endure to see his skin at a great distance Gyllius made tryal of it and he observed that they being tyed in chains yet trembled and scowred and would have run away through fire and water to escape In the borders of Cariai there is a kind of them that will leap from bough to bough as if they flew they are enemies to Boars for it will leap furiously upon him and twine about him with the tail Aelian l. 3. saith That the Catoblepas is like the Bull and is very terrible to behold and fierce and with blood-shot eyes it looks downwards It feeds on venomous herbs and so soon as it looks on them with a countenance like a Bull it fears and lifts up the Mane having lifted up this with open lips it roars terribly sending such a steam out of the Throat that the Ayr over the head will be infected and will make others dumb that draw it in and causeth mortal convulsions The Souldiers of Marius found it to be so for they supposing it had been a wild sheep they ran at it with drawn-swords several times but when they were killed by it they found their errour This wild beast was slain afterwards by the Nomades that were horsemen and they brought it to Marius CHAP. XIII Of the Baboon and Chamaeleon A Baboon is a Creature with a head like a dog but in shape like a man he will fish cunningly for he will dive all day and bring forth abundance of fish He takes wonderfull delight to wear a garment he hurts no man He understands what the Indians say he will gently feed sheep for their milks sake Plin. l. 7. c. 7. Strabo l. 15. Two things are most wonderful in him that in the two equinoctials 12 times a day he will make water once every hour and doth the same at night Precâ—os Johan in Epist. ad R. P. Hence the Egyptians have the picture of a Baboon pissing upon their Dials The second is that when the Moon hath been sometimes in conjunction with the Sun and loseth her light the male will not look nor feed but holds down his face to the Earth nor will the female move her eyes any way casting withall her sperm forth Therefore are they held sacred and fed untill this day that by them the set time of the Moons conjunction with the Sun may be known by them Africa breeds Chamaeleons but India more frequently He is said to have five toes of his feet which he stands upon opened but he draws them in when he lies down upon round young branches He changeth his colour oft-times both in his eyes his tail and his whole body and he changeth like that thing he next toucheth except red and white when he is dead he is pale Plin. It is certain that sometimes he lives by the Ayr. For he will suffer hunger a whole year and taking in the Ayr by gaping and shutting his chaps he will shew forth his great belly Some said that he turns to the Sun and drawes in the Suns beams and followes them with open mouth From Zandius we have it that he will hunt flies who saith he dissected the tongue of one that was as long as ones hands breadth hollow and empty in the top was a hole with snivel in it with which he catcht his prey Card. de subtil Alexander Myndius saith he fenceth himself against the hungry Serpent after this manner He holdeth a broâ—d and strong stalk and turning himself under that like a buckler he encounters the Serpent The Serpent because the stalk is broader than he can take in his mouth to bite in sunder and the rest of the Chamaeleons limbs are too hard for him to do him any harm he labours in vain CHAP. XIV Of the Crocodile THe Crocodiles are bred in Egypt but not all so dangerous the furious ones are towards the Mountains from Caire to the Sea they are mild that is because there is scarsity of fish but here are men that are rewarded to kill them For whosoever kills a great Crocodile and brings it into the City hath ten crowns out of the Treasury Also when Nilus runs back to its channel the Crocodiles will lye hid in the mud watching to satisfie their hunger and they strike those that come and strangle them with their tails They strike so strongly that one of them brake the four legs of a great beast at one blow Martyr They lay one egge as big as a Goose egg yet from this small beginning they grow to a vast bignesse sometimes they are more than 18 cubits long In the time of Psammeticus 25 cubits in the time of Amasis 26 Plin. They hold their young one legitimate if he catch up something so soon as he is hatched Aelian Their tongue sticks all fast the reason is given by Aristot. l. 2. de part Anim. c. 7. The Trochilus is his guard and the Tentyritae are his Enemies He awakes him when Ichneumon is like to do him hurt and entring into his wide Jaws he pulls out flesh from amongst his rows of teeth with his beak when he flies away he is warned to close his upper chap Plutar. Plin. 8.25 But these swim in the River and getting upon their backs as if they rid they thrust a bough into their mouths and frighting them with their cry alone they compell them to vomit up the bodies they had newly devoured that they may be buried hence it is that there are none in their Island and the
and Garlands and according to the musick they gently and in order moved their feet and performed all things as well as the best sword Players Then they which is a mad wonder as they were taught sat down at Table did eat and drink very modestly as if they had been men The beds to sit on were low covered with Purple and embroidered work the Tables were furnished with divers kinds of provision in abundance cups of Gold and Silver great and small were set upon them in great dishes were meat bread flesh and fruit Then came in the Elephants 6 males and 6 females they in Mens Gowns these in Womens Cloaths They lay themselves very decently and reverently on the beds and so sat at Table Then when the Mr. gave the sign they put forth their snowts to the Table instead of hands and take the meat very modestly and tast of it no greedinesse or ravening was observed in them none seemd to covet the greater or the better part nor did they catch one before the other when boys that waited on them gave them the cup and then by meanes of their trunk drank it jovially off and they did sprinkle the remainder of the Wine upon the standers by and so made a noise as pot companions do Lipsius writes this in his own words and it is the direct opinion of Aelian And they learn all these things so eagerly that Plutarch and Pliny say that an Elephant that was somthing dull and was often beat for not learning well was found acting his part by Moon light and some say that Elephants will learn to write and read For Pliny saith plainly from Mucianus that one of them learned to describe the Greek letters and did write in the same tongue these words I my self writ this and I offerd the Celtick spoils But what we may judge of them may be collected out of Libavius de Intellectu bestiarum They seem also to hold a sympathy with the Moon for when the Moon after Conjunction begins to appeare again they crop boughs from Trees and hold them up and looking toward the Moon they shake them They may 〈…〉 her diety But I say no more CHAP. XVIII Of the Dormouse and Gulo THe Dormise sleep all the Winter as round as a ball when they come to the calm Ayr they will revive between your hands by a warm breathing Gesner They are strangely taken in the valley of Pelnig for the Country men go forth in the night with Torches and coming near them they blind them with the light and so take them with their hands They put Apples on cleft sticks or forks which the Dormise love to eat the kernels of so they can the better take them out Amongst the Rhetians that speak Italian they salt up their flesh because it is sweet and fat and as pleasant as hogs flesh Gesner Gulo is a creature in the North parts he feeds on Carrion till he be full like a drum then he goes between narrow Trees and presses his stretched belly till he unload himself and then he crams again Michov l. 2. descript Sarmat Europeae CHAP. XIX Of the Hyaena and the Porcupine THe Hyaena is a Creature as big as a Wolf and hath horses hair but harder and it goes all over his back Aristot. in admirand He seems to have the genitals of both Sexes but some have onely a long line under their Tail Aristot. If you take hold of the right when he is at his venery he becomes stupid but if by the left it kills him Gillius in Aelian A Portupine is like a Pig at two moneths old he hath a head like a Hare ears like a man feet like a Bear a mane that stands up and the forepart is hollow Two little bunches of skin grow on both sides of his mouth long bristles grow out of them In Summer he lies hid but comes forth in Winter and when it is great with young it is said to follow the Bear in time Agricola de subterran Gisner refers Cardanus Monster to the Porcupine for he writes thus l. 10. subtil There was a Creature saith he of a strange kind which this present year 1530 January 19 we saw at Papia It was as great as Fox but the face was sowething longer and the jawes were like to a Hares with long hair and two very long teeth for they stuck out as long as a mans finger like to a Squirrils teeth the eyes were like to Serpents eyes black and without corners There was a cap on its head like a Goats beard but no otherwise than a Peacocks tuft The hair was like to a Weasels very fair onely about the neck it appeared like white wooll the forefeet were like a Badgers the ears and hinder feet like to mens but that the feet had nails like a Bear On the back and hinder part there were about a hundred thorny quills like a Porcupine some of them were crooked at the point they stuck forth but were not moveable as they say the Porcupine can shoot hers when it moved they made a noise by rusling together The tail was like a Gooses but the feathers were pointed like thorns If you saw nothing else you would say it were a Goose. He had feathers white and coloured and a great eye like a Goose. The tone was obscure and hoarse like the barking of a dog It was an angry creature yet the Mountebank could easily deal with it It hated dogs extreamly this was a young one and a shee It did not drink but eat bread dipt in water c. CHAP. XX. Of the Hee-Goat A Goat sometimes runs so violently at one that he will run a hole in a board or a Target after he is 7 months old he begins to couple Aelian His blood is a present remedy for the pains of the stone in the Reins or bladder For it dissolves stones that are bred and will let no more grow easing the pains also Aetius l. 11. c. 12. But great Gesner shews how it must be prepared When the Grapes begin to grow ripe take a new pot and pour water into it and boyl it untill the pot have been well cleansed then take a Hee-goat that is of ripe age out of the herd about 4. years old and kill him and receive the middlemost blood in the pot leaving that blood that came first forth and that which comes last let the middlemost blood thicken and as it is in the pot break it into many pieces with a sharp reed then expose it to the open Ayr covered with a thick net or thin linnen cloath or a close sieve that it may be prepared by the Sun and become dewy wipe off the dew and after two of the clock set it in the Sun taking care that no rain fall upon it When it is well dryed put it up diligently in a box for use and when the pain abates give a spoonful of it with Candie wine This medicament is called Gods-hand CHAP. XXI
grunt and grow so mad that they will rend those that come near unto them Aristotle They will miscarry They are friends with the Crocodile and will come to the banks of Nilus without offence Calcagn They mightily hate some kind of Barley in Thrace for they do not onely forbear to eat it but they refuse all excrements that proceed from it Aristot. in admirand· The Measils is a common disease amongst them and there is scarce any Hogg that hath not three kernels The Druides make mention of a famous remedy an herb that growes in moyst grounds but because they command us to gather it with the left hand and that he that gathers it must not look back and must lay it no where but in their trough that they drink having first bruised it it is superstitious CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Mole THere is great store of Moles in Boeotia in the Country Orchomenia Arist. In Lebadia that is near unto it there are none and brought from other places they will not earth Aristotoles saith they want eyes but Gesner saith their eyes are plain and putting forth without the skin like black spots as great as Millet seed and fastned to their nerves Also a Learned man in Gesner saith That he found young ones in one that he dissected with great heads and they had eyes They delight in Toads and Albertus testifieth it by his own example but he also knew Frogs and Toads to eat a dead Mole Johan averlin Consul Gedanensis was cured of a Fistula in the corner of his eye by the powder of a Mole that was burnt and given him in powder to drink CHAP. XXXIX Of Tatus and the Tyger TAtus is a four-footed Creature that is a stranger to us It hath a thick covering and a scaly shell so that his flesh may be easily taken forth of it I first saw this Creature at St. Andrews in Scotland it is an Archiepiscopall City and there is a famous University in it in the place for rarities of the most noble and most courteous Gentleman John Arnet Protonotary for the Office of the Commissary in the Archbishoprick of St. Andrews at whose house I lodged But because it drawes it self into its shell it is thought to be a kind of Brasilian Urchin It is like to that which in new Spain is called Avitochli it is as big as a Cat having a bill like a Duck feet like a Hedge-hog a long neck and men report that it grunts like a Sow I have little to say of the Tyger unlesse I should set down the history of Peter Martyr of one in Dariene an Island of the new World It did so afflict the whole Island with killing people that no man could go safe out of his house afterwards it fell into a Pit that was dug and stuck upon sharp stakes that were fastned in the bottom and was yet so strong that it would break Spears cast upon it into a thousand pieces but in the end it was killed with stones Ledesma a Spaniard saith they boyl'd the flesh of it and he eat part thereof and it was as good as Ox-flesh It is a Creature so swift that Oppianus compares it to the West wind CHAP. XL. Of the Tortoise TOrtoises in Taprobana are so great that one of them will weigh 300 pound Scalig. Pliny saith that some are so great that men may dwell under them And between the Islands especially of the red Sea they rowe in them for Boats The Sea Tortoises have no tongue nor teeth they break all things with the edge of their snowe In Hispaniola at what time they are given to venery they come forth of the Sea Sand being cast into a deep pit she lays 3. or 400 eggs there when she hath laid all she covers her eggs with sand and returns to the Sea taking no more care for her young ones At the time appointed they come forth as out of an Ant-hill in great multitudes onely by heat of the Sun without help of the old ones Martyr The eggs are as big as Goose egs When the head of one is cut off it doth not die presently but sees and will shut its eyes if you put your hands before them and if you put them near it will bite them Aelian Bellonius saw a kind of Tortle brought out of Turky that the Ancients knew not of The shell of it is thin and Transparent like to the colour of a Chrysolite The Turks make hafts for knives of them they are so pretious that they adorn them with studs of gold There is an Island in the Sea found by Jambolus toward the South that brings forth little Creatures that are of admirable vertue for their blood and nature Their bodies are round and like to Tortles with two overthwart lines cutting one the other in the middle in the end of each of them there is an ear and an eye so that they see with four eyes and hear with as many ears It hath but one belly without any gut and what it eats runs into that They have many feet round about and walk both wayes The blood is said to be of wonderfull vertue For every body that is wounded will grow together again if it be smeered with this blood Johan Boemus CHAP. XLI Of the Bear IN the farthest part of Arabia they devour flesh Strabo l. 1◠But in Mysia it is otherwise for when they are hunted they send forth a breath that will corrupt the flesh of the Hunter and if they come nearer they will cast a flegme out of their mouthes that kills or blinds dogs and men Aristot. in mirab Sometimes they are very great five cubits long There was one brought to Maximilian that was as great as a large Ox Vadianus His head is so weak that a sound blow will strike him dead Pliny He eats his water when he drinks and having tasted of the Apples of Mandragora he recovers by licking at an Ant-hill She is said to bring forth a young one bigger than a Rat but lesse than a Cat that is both naked and unformed in its parts Gillius and Pliny a rude masse But one that was cut forth in Polonia was sent to Gesner it was above ones finger long and as thick as ones thumb the body had joynts except the hinder feet Gesnerus When he is fa◠he creeps into his den upon his back and so takes away his footsteps that the hunters may not perceive them In this den he will grow lean in 40 dayes and he will keep himself alive lying still and sneking his right foot 14 dayes When he perceives that his 〈…〉 is grown so empty that it cleaves almost together he comes forth and feeds on Cuckow-pint Aelian Then there is no shew of meat left but onely a little moysture in his belly and some small drops of blood about his heart Theophrastus thought that during that time the flesh was digested and the Bear grew bigger by it The Males love women Amongst the
his own observation I thought fit to joyn his historicall observation as an Appendix to the end of this Classis for the benefit of those that search the Secrets of Nature CHAP. V. Of the Spanish Fly and the Glo-worm CAntharides are bred from a Worm in a spungy substance especially of the sweet-brier but most fruitfully in the Ash. If they breed in Fig-trees it is likely that the Tree will die Plin l. 29. Their venom is most tart A Physitian call'd out of Egypt kill'd Cossinus a Roman Knight whom Nero loved with Cantharides in drink when he was sick of a Tetter which was a peculiar disease in Egypt Plin l. 1. c. 4. The same thing happened to an Abbot from a whore Paraeus l. 20. c. 28. A Glo-worm hath a belly with roundles divided with many segments in the end whereof there are two spots very light like to fire tending toward a kind of sky-colour Then is she most conspicuous when her belly is pressed and that transparent humour goes to the end of her belly and her brest against the light shines like to fire Aldrovand de Insect l. 4. c. 8. There is something spoken of this in the Second Classis Adrianus Junius when he was in the Country of Bononia drew the liquor of them upon Papers that shined like Stars what is writ with that in the day may be read in the night Many have shewed the way to compound it Baptista Porta doth it thus We did cut their tails from their bodies taking care that nothing should mingle with the shining parts we ground it on a Porphyr stone and 15 dayes or longer we buried it in dung in a glasse vessel and it is best that these parts should not touch the sides but hang in it for these dayes being over the glasse being put into a hot oven or a bath of hot water and â—itted you may by degrees receive that clear distilled liquor in a receiver underneath and so putting it into a fine Crystall glasse you may hang this water that causeth light in your private Chamber and it will so enlighten the Ayr that you may read great letters Albertus de sensu et sensato shews why their light cannot be extinguished by water For their light cannot be said to be of a coelestiall body because a coelestiall nature comes not into composition of bodies generative and corruptible But the determination of this question and the like is fetched from what we determined in our second de Anima where we shew That the nature of perspicuity is not proper to any Element but it is common to many and is participated by them per prius et posterius which is the more pure the farther it is from darknesse and this is so by how much it is more like to the nature of superiour bodies and the proper act of this is light which hath to do in that nature Now this falls out in it as often as the parts of it are very noble and clear and therefore all such things do shine Now this composition sometime is in the whole body sometimes not in the whole but in some externall parts the cause whereof is that when such a nature is from the Elements that are light it proceeds more from the internall parts to the external because such things will swim And so it is found in the heads and sins and bones of some Fish and in the shells of some eggs because such parts are lesse rosted and heat hath wrought in them much nature of perspicuous bodies condensed Sometimes this heat acts in the externall parts of some things when it exhales from them and that which is subtile brings with it much perspicuity so the parts of Okes corrupted do shine But all those things that have but a weak light are hid when a clearer light appears CHAP. VI. Of the Grashopper ISidore writes that Grashoppers breed of Cuccow-spit Plutarch in Sympos saith Out of the Earth Baldangelus saith they breed out of the earth not tilled that looks Eastward toward the Sun-rising and that white ones were dug up under Okes but their form was as the rest were Aristotle l. 5. hist. c. 30. saith they breed by copulation Pliny sets down the manner First there is a Worm bred then of that Tettigometra or Mother of the Grashopper the shell of it being broken about the Solstices they fly forth alwaies in the night being first black and hard but when he strives to come forth of his Tettigometra You may observe that Grashoppers and Butterflies breed alike for what is in these at first a Caterpillar is in them first a little worm and that case call'd Chrysalis or Aurelia for the Catterpillar is call'd Tettigometra for the Grashopper Yet you shall know that they differ For a rude Chrysalis is a lump wherein no parts of the body are distinguished as we can discern but in the Tettigometra you may see the head eys feet breast and all the parts except the wings it is whitish in colour and sprinkled with small lines First he gets up a Tree and sticks to some branch of the Tree then at the upper end where a cleft is first seen he comes forth his whole body is then almost green shortly his upper part enclines to Chestnut colour and that in one day becomes of a black colour and because his legs and wings are weak at first he sits upon his cast skin till be can fly In Cephalenia there is a River where Grashoppers are on one side but none on the other Plin. l. 11. c. 27. And Antigonus writes that the same thing happeneth in Dulichium an Island of the Ionian Sea Ambrosius Nolanus writes the same of Nola and the hill Vesuvius In the Country of Rhegium they are all mute In Locris beyond the River they sing in Acanthus also they are mute Pliny l. 12. c. 27. If you ask the reason Strabo thinks that at Rhegium the Country is dark and shady at Locris the heat is great and therefore he thinks that the dewy skins of their wings are not there extended but here he thinks they have dry and as it were horny skins But because they do that when they fly and when they stand which the others are thought not to do the heat is the cause of it For being hotter by nature they need more cooling and move the Ayr the stronger The others do not need so much either because they are but of a weak heat they are not heard to do it therefore it may be thought they are said not to do it Nicolaus Leonicus CHAP. VII Of the Crabfish and the Shell-fish breeding Pearls CAmmarus is a River-Crab in his head are two little stones In the full Moon they are seen in figure of a Globe divided into two Agricola It is said to eat flesh It will eat the Pike in a net And Gesner writes That in Danubius when flesh is tyed to their ships and hang'd down into the water multitudes of
nourished is very great at the place he comes forth of his shell This is very brittle milk white shining polished altogether representing the form of a round ship for it swims on the top of the Sea arising from the bottom and the shell comes the bottom upwards that it may ascend the better and sail with an empty Boat and when she is come above the water then she turns her shell Moreover there is a membrane that lyes between the fore-legs of the Boat-fish as there is between the toes of water-fowl but this is more thin like a cobweb but strong and by that she sails when the wind blowes the many tufts she hath on both sides she useth for rudders and when she is afraid then she presently sinks her shell full of Sea water Farther she hath a Parrots bill and she goes with her tufts as the Polypus doth and after the same manner she conceives in hollow partitions CHAP. XVIII Of Oysters and Muscles THough Oysters love sweet waters yet Pliny reports that they are found in stony places but Aristotle saith that though they live in water and cannot live without it yet they take in no moysture nor Ayre When in the time of the Warr with Mithridates the earth parted at Apumaea a City of Phrygia Rivers did suddenly appeare and not only sweet but salt waters brake out of the bowels of the earth though the Sea were farr distant so that they filled all that Coast with Oysters Athen. l. 8. The Oysters are of divers colours In Spain they are red in Sclavonie brown in the red Sea they are so distinguished with flaming Circles that by mixture of divers colours it is like the Rainbow Aelian l. 10. c. 13. At the beginning of Summer they are great and full of milk At Constantinople they cast this wheish matter into the water which cleaving to stones will beget Oysters Gillius writes it and it is very probable For of the decoction of Mushroms powred on the ground it is certain that Mushroms will grow the Crabfish doth wonderfully desire the meat of them but he comes hardly by them because they have a strong shell by nature wherefore he useth his cunning For when in places where the wind blows not he sees them taking pleasure in the Sun and to open their shells against the Suns beams he privately casts in a stone that they cannot shut again and so he conquers them CHAP. XIX Of the Butterflye and the Polypus THe Butterflies couple after August the male dying after copulation the female lays egs and dieth also How they are preserved in winter is hardly discovered by any man except by Aldrovandus de Insectis But he enquired of Country people and they hold him that the leaves were great with the Butterflies seed at what time they plowed the ground they were hid in the bowells of it and fostered by its heat yet he thinks that they only are preserved that lye hid in the hollow barks of Trees but what lyes on leaves is quickned the same yeare And Aldrovandus adds I saw eggs layd under the leaves of Chamaeficus out of which about the end of August little Catterpillars naturally came forth They were wrapped in a thin down that the ayre might not hurt them and these little Catterpillars falling did not fall to the ground but hung by a small thred like Spiders in the Ayre When they lay under leaves they fold them so that the rain cannot hurt them and lay them up as under a penthouse I twice observed one Catterpillar that I took amongst the Coleworts first to lay yellow eggs wrapt up also in fine down and when they were laid she turned into a Chrysalis of the same colours that she was that is yellow green and black and that which seemed strange to me out of those eggs little flying creatures came forth that I could hardly see them such as are wont to be found in the bladders of Elms when they are in great abundance they shew contagion of the Ayre Anno 1562 they flew at Bannais neere the waters in such multitudes that they darkned the course of the River especially after Sun set then coming hither about night they wandred through the Villages as in Battel aray little differing from Moths Cornelius Gemma testifieth that that was a tempestuous yeare The Polypus in time grows so great that it is taken for a kind of Whale In the bowells of them there is a strange thing like a Turbane that you would say it had the nature of the Heart or of the Liver but it suddenly dissolves and runs away They exceedingly love the Olive-Tree For if a bough on which Olives hang be let down into the Sea and held there you may catch abundance of them hanging about the bough Somtimes they are taken sticking to Figg-Trees growing by the Seaside and they eat the fruit of them They also delight wonderfully in Locusts of which you shall find a cleare Testimony in Petrus Berchorius I have heard saith he that some Fishermen in the Sea of Province had set Locusts on the shore to boyle over burning coles and a Polypus smelling the Locust came forth of the Sea and coming to the fire would with his foot have taken a Locust forth but he feared the heat of the fire and so went back to the Sea and filâ—'d a coat which he had on his head like a Friers cowle with water and went and came so often with it and cast it on the fire that he put the fire out and so taking the Locust he had carryed it to the Sea unlesse one of the Fishermen that saw him had caught him and broyl'd him to eat instead of the Locust CHAP. XX. Of a Lowse and a Flea SOme think that Lice are bred of flesh others of blood but both opinions are false For first they breed in the skin of the head and we know they abound in the second and third kind of hectick feavers when as there is little flesh and here they are almost consumed Again in putrid Feavers they breed not and things bred do confirm their principles Their colour shews they proceed not from blood Wherefore some think they breed from putrid matter that is cold and moyst which abounds in the skin in places where they cannot be blown away Experience teacheth that they will leave those that are dead either because the blood is cold in the body when the heat is gone or because the dead body is cold and they fly from the cold Nolanus Problem 225. They that eat figs often are thought to be troubled with them Nolanus makes the juice of them to be the cause For this increasing in the veins heats the blood and makes it moyst and frothy which because it naturally tends to the skin and retain'd under that it putrefies it turns to lice Truly they that feed on figs have little knots and warts on their skins A Flea is a small Creature yet Africanus a cunning
they are drawn asunder they discover a green throat or intestine They stick to the plectrum as if there were some passage for breathing though they do not breathe But it is no doubt but there is the Seat of life though I discovered in the young ones a kind of red part as I shall shew underneath beating by it self alone like the heart when that plectrum is cut a moyst yellowish liquour comes forth and the Worms themselves do not dye but they stirr the more violently and roule and turn themselves that you will judge that they are in great pain the nervous principle being hurt The dung of them represents their meat for it is dry with six corners long as it were set with eyes whence one may collect the disposition of the gut or belly They are green from their food but because they are hard and without moysture they seem black as those that are more moyst seem more green Here if you mark you may distinguish the males from the females For the females here as the Philosopher writes of other females are greater fatter moyster softer whiter than the males which are more rude more spotted with wan spots and more slender If you handle them you shall find them all to be cold They use oft to rayse themselves on their hinder feet and to stand so like statues When they will feed they fasten on the sides and swelling veins of leaves contrary to Catterpillars I believe the appendixes of their mouths hinder them yet they afford some help for their former feet to hold their meat with They eat the leaves round that they leave a round pit When they are full they go aside and they rest many together on a heap I think they are delighted with mutuall heat you may discern those that sleep from those that cast their skin by observing the pulsation in their back For the motion in those that sleep is equall to those that wake but when they cast their skins it is slower and lesse that you would then think they were sick Also those that sleep have but one mouth but such as cast their skins shew a little mouth besides But this is not in Silk-worms but whilst they are yet Catterpillars Some of them being four times renewed have a filthy dark head and yet they feed on Some do not increase much but continue small We said before that from May 25 to May 29 the fourth change is made in divers of them From this time to June the 7th and 8th 9 10 11th they feed greedily and grow fat and great and I was forced three times a day and about the last days four times a day to give them meat or oftner For when they are almost ripe for Silk work they eat more greedily going with great courage to the leaves and biting off the nervs You shall note that about 13 days passe between their fourth change and their abstinence from meat and provision to make their Silk For the times answer one the other from the 25 of May to the 7 of June from 26 to 8 from 27 to 9 from 28 to 10 from 29 to 11 wherein I included the last except one small male that fed longer About the last days many begin to grow of a spiceous colour which begins to appeare more evidently on the hinder part and from thence to enlarge and go forward to the bunch of the breast though others are more and almost all yellow some remaine white with blew mingled with it When they must dye they go to the sides of the chest nor will they bite the leaves though they creep over them Some fasten their threds at the corners as if they were beginning the entry others creep by the outsides and seek here and there for a fit place to lye hid in I shut many of them in with paper-Coffins which I disposed of and fastned commodiously in some place in which by gnawing and rending the sides they do make a noise for a while but afterwards by voiding a dry and moyst excrement of their belly for they void out both by their hinder parts they fasten them so fast to the paper that you would think they were glewed Afterwards for 3 days continually they make a little bladder which being absolved they lay aside their fifth skin with their head and tayle and are transformed into a nympha again Some I did not shut up in papers but disposed them in a wodden chest with boughs and let them choose a nest for themselves you shall observe thence that they seek chiefly for corners and hiding places and oft times many of them make their Silk in the same place if it may be some ordering them right forward others obliquely others broad ways If the place be too narrow the wrong end of the skin is pressed together on the side nor doth it containe perfectly Oval One of these cases is longer thicker larger than another for the greatnesse and strength of the Silk-worm They differ also in colour some are Gold Silver Citron colours and they are double For some are greenish some more yellow though others call all these green The first of them all as I observed was white except some few that send a yellowish tow before Some of Gold colour have their inward coat white nor is the yellow colour certain For when the cases are unfolded in water the silk growes white and in dye yellow c. But it is worth your labour to contemplate the matter of the silk and what that is that yields a thred so long When therefore I saw a great worm to wander I put a line about his neck and dissected him He lived stoutly when his throat was tied and felt acutely For at every incision of his back the knife scarce touching him he would tosse himself violently as if he would help himself with his mouth and forefeet His skin being divided I saw his long gut as in a pike the forepart was swoln and wide the hinder part narrower On that gut did the nerves or beating arteries lye with a continuall systole and diastole and they ended on the plectrum of 〈…〉 tayl When I cut off this not onely a yellow clear humour did break forth but the heads of the nerves put themselves forth in the motion and their stirring grew weaker The Intestine hath a double coat one thick outward coat and another thin one within The thick coat feels accurately and it is near the throat covered over with much glutinous matter which afterwards becomes matter for their wings and of the hairinesse of the Silk-worm as the external excrementitious moysture becomes the Aurelia or outward shell When the thick coat is pricked the intestine comes forth yet wrapt with a thin coat and it contains much of the meat they eat the day before of green leaves Also you may see when the skin is cut and the thick coat of the Intestine that moysture will run forth in abundance that is
into a Nymph and the fleeces are taken first choosing what males and females you please for preservation of their kind Some say you may know their sex by the colour of their case some by the bignesse And this is some argument For because females are commonly the greater they make also the greater houses Yet sometimes we are deceived for a strong male may make a greater case than a weak female I have seen them both of a bignesse and I have seen females â—ed in other places to make far lesse houses than my males Wherefore the signs must also concur observed in the silk-worms themselves of which before The other cases are cast into scalding water that the worms may dy or they are choaked with the heat of an oven after the bread is taken forth taking care they burn not Then taking away the Towe maid-servants or such as can labour are ready who may loosen the beginnings of the threds which being found out many of them are cast into a bason of cold or warm water and the servant Maid sitting ready with a drawing instrument doth continually roll down 30 or 40 or more threds joyned together If the thred break any where the fellow-labourer must seek for the begining of it and give it again to him that unwinds it That is continued untill they come to the inward coat which being very difficult to untwist it is dryed and pull'd into towe and kembed When the threds are thus untwisted they send much dust into the Ayr and you may see in the bottom of the vessel some filth that fell from the silk I tryed carefully whether I could with one work unwind a whole case not breaking it taking away the Towe which by reason of its various foldings together weaknesse and divers principles cannot be untwisted at once drawing I obtain'd my desire onely in the middle of the silk for that which is before the house is wont to break easily but the middle holds best The last coat by the weight added to it for then the Nymph falls down was unfolded by me with great care to the thin skin which was scarce equall to the thumbs nail Those cases are best untwisted whose basis and top answer diametrically but those are harder whose top is bound and they that are crooked or bunched For here the thred sticks and is tangled that it will hardly yield without breaking First the point is made bare and untwisted all to the middle of the case The thred of one silk case was as long as this line here drawn when it was drawn forth 7000 times and in one it was above 8000 times longer yet they are not all of one thicknesse and greatnesse which may be seen by drawing them asunder into little skins For some fleeces I drew into 12 some into 8 more or lesse coats The wild Silk-worm hath an entrance a single coat and somthing a thicker case wherefore the thinner cases easily yeeld to the fingers pressing them but the thicker will resist When the top hath a hole almost to the middle that the Nympha may easily fall forth she falls with her cast skin wherein there is both her head and all her feet Somtimes commonly the head of this old skin is over against the top of the case that we may understand that it was cast off whilst the Worm when the case was perfected doth bend and turn her self upwards through narrow streets The Crown of the Nympha is toward the basis the tail toward the top and being that the Silk-worm is above twice as long the Nympha is contracted to a small bignesse that it is scarse so long as the middle joynt of the second finger of a man She is alive and gives tokens that she is so by the moving of her top or tail when she is touched If you regard her outward forme you would say she is a scaly Worm and her head is covered with a bag The scales are dark coloured as if they were staind with smoke and they are eight in number as farr as the confines of the Crown On the sides of each of them there are two round points out of which the tendons or bands appertain to the young Silk-worm On the Crown there is a white spot as if the mouth of the young Silk-worm shined through it with three little black spots After this on the foremost part there are prints of feet and horns and on the hinder part toward the sides are prints of wings If you will observe the inward parts the fourth day before it is changed into a young Silk-worm after it hath lain hid you may open it you shall see nothing else but a common empty place and in this only three distinct humours One of a watry thin substance of a yellow colour This is equally diffused through the whole space The other is red like blood This sticks in the upper part where the head and brest will be you would judge it to be the rudiment of the heart because I saw the like afterwards in the young Silkworm a certain Masse that moved of it self if a heart may be attributed to this creature The third humour is white and yellow and it is like to a hen egge cast into a hot water and run about or like cheese-curds if you add some yellow to them Where you see the prints of wings and feet outwardly there lies hid a phlegmatique clammy matter fit to make the membranes of you shall see no distinction of parts I think the life is in the nervous coat that is next under the outward shell For the Silk-worm in that part was exceeding sensible and had a motion of the heart and arteries you would call this a little bladder fill'd with humours which yet compared to the Aurelia after the young Silk-worm is crept forth is far thicker and you would say it were a shell cloathed on the inside with coats and a tenacious glow After this is the down of the young Silk-worm the wings feet skin and the other outward parts So the Silk-worm passeth into throat and belly for whose sake only it was detain'd there Yet here appeareth no green colour which was much in the intestine of the Silk-worm now ready to spin Part therefore was voided before the case was made and part was changed into some other juyce In the tip of the tayle there was also some clammy matter like to the raw white of an egge I thought it to be the rudiment of the genitall parts For with that the matrix spermatical Vessels were cast off the beginning whereof is seen also in the belly of the Silk-worm The humours taken on a clean paper and dried were stain'd with black as if you had mingled ink with them yet the tallowy substance remain'd white and in some places a red and yellowish spot appeared with a white spot like chalk whence we may collect that that blacknesse was only from a watery yellow humour which only shined on
to intreat and leaping in the nets strive to free themselves Oviedus and Plutarch say that with their sharp backs they will cut the line and free their captive fellowes The Dace of Phalera is so soft and fat a fish that if it be held long in the hand it will melt or if many of them be carried in Ships they will drop fat which is gathered to make Candles with Apitius as Suidas reports set the pictures of these Fishes with Rape roots cut into long and slender pieces boyl'd with oyl and strewed with pepper and salt before Nicomedes the King of Bithynia CHAP. II. Of the Eele ALl know that Eeles are found in many fresh Waters yet Nauclerus writes That in the Danube there are none but in the Rhein there are Albertus makes the cold of Danubius to be the cause thereof and this proceeds because it runs before the mouth of the Alps from West to East and receives the greatest part of its water from thence These onely contrary to other fishes do not flote being dead Pliny The reason is given by Aristotle from the small belly it hath and little fat The swimming of Lampreys Congers and Muraenas that abound with fat confirm this to be true They are so lusty that being devoured whole by a Cormorant they will come forth of his guts nine times one after another and when they are grown weak then he retains them Gesner Held in a mans bosome especially great eels will twist about a mans neck and choke him Cardanus On the Land they dye if the Sun shine on them otherwise very hardly as you may see them living when their skin is pull'd off Athenaeus Aelianus and Plutarch do testifie that in Arethusa of Chalcidon there are tame ones adorned with ear-rings of gold and silver that will take their meat by hand Nymphodorus reports the same of the River Elorus CHAP. III. Of the Whale and the Barbel THe Whale is the greatest and chief of all Fishes Pliny calls this the greatest creature in the Indian Sea which was four Acres in bignesse Massarius interprets this to be 960 foot long Nearchus saith that there are Whales of 23 paces in length and reports that in the Island before Euphrates he saw a Whale cast forth of the Sea that was 150 cubits That Whale which was taken in the Scald ten miles from Antwerp Anno 1577 on the second day of July was of a blackish blew colour he had a spout on his head wherewith he belched up water with great force he was 58 foot long and 16 foot high his tail was 14 foot broad from his Eye to the top of his nose the distance was 16 foot His lower chap was 6 foot of each side armed with 25 Teeth and there were as many holes in the upper chap where there were no teeth yet so many might have stood there The longest of his Teeth was not above 6 thumbs long A Whale not long since was taken at Sceveling a Village near the Hague in Holland was 60 foot long His head was about 3. cubits long I saw him there Platina observes that the Barbels eyes are venomous chiefly in May. Antonius Gazius found it so For when he had eaten but two bits thereof at Supper time his belly was so inflated that he looked as pale as ashes he was distemper'd all over at last he fell into the cholerick passion Nor did these symptomes abate â—ill the eyes were voided upward and downvvard CHAP. IV. Of the Carp the Clupaea and the Conger THe Carp saith Gesner hath a little white hard stone in his head near his tongue and in the middle of his head a thick substance like to a heart that is flexible while it is new but afterwards it grows hard Sometimes it is found 20 pound weight Jovius saith That there was one found in the River Latium two hundred pound weight When the Female finds her self great with young when the time of bringing forth is past by moving her mouth she rouseth the male who casts on his milt and then she bringeth forth In Polonia broad Carps being put into a fish-pond by one when the waters were frozen though he sought them diligently he could not find them when the Spring came and the waters were thawed they all appeared Gesner Clupaea is a great fish In Sagona a River in France when the Moon increaseth it is white but black when it decreaseth When the body is but a little augmented it is destroy'd by its own prickles In the head of it there is found a stone like a barley corn which when the Moon decreaseth some think it will cure the quartan Ague if it be bound to the left side Calisthenes Sybarita citante Stobaeo Congers contain their off-spring within them but it is not equally so in all places nor doth their increase appear in a fat grosse matrix but it is contain'd in it in a long rank as in Serpents which is manifest by putting it into the fire For the fat consumes but the eggs crackle and they leap forth Aristotle 6. Hist. c. 17. CHAP. V. Of the Dogg-fish THe men of Nicea saith Gellius took a Dogg-fish that weighed 4000 pound a whole man was found in the belly of it Those of Massilia found a man in Armour Rondeletius saw oâ—e on the shore at Xanton the mouth and throat were so wide that they would take in a fat man Bellonius saith that each side of the mouth had 36 teeth wherefore some think the Prophet Jonas was swallowed by this fish and that this is that they call the Whale it being so vast a creature The same Bellonius writes that this Fish at divers times brings forth 6 or 8 young ones and somtimes more each of a foot long perfect with all their parts and oft times the young one coming forth there are eggs yet raw in the matrix and some hatcht lying in the upper part toward the midriff and some of them are contained in the right turning of the matrix some in the left In her Whelps this is chiefly wonderfull that they were covered with no secondine and they are fed from some part of the Navell that hath Veins For since saith he she doth not put forth her eggs and they are tied by certaine bands to the matrix they seem to need no other coat than the Amnios whereby the Whelp being now formed and by a chink in the sternon that passeth between the fins that are toward the gills it receiveth nourishment from the matrix by a band or the middle of it that is so slender as a Lute string But this nutriment by that slender string is carried into a little bag which you would say were the stomach which is alwaies full of it like to the yolk of an egge the position of it is in the middle of the belly and under the two laps of the Liver And that this is true if you cut a Whelp taken out of the dams belly through the
belly you shall find the true stomack of it to be alwaies empty For it takes and devours nothing by the mouth But you shall see the right intestine to swell with wan colour'd excrements If you take the young Whelp alive out of the dams belly and do not hurt him but cast him into the water you shall see him to live and swim presently Rondeletius observed the eggs to stick in the middle of the matrix toward the back bone and when they increase they are translated into both the Sinus of the matrix The forme of the eggs is like to pillows we sleep upon under our heads out of the corners there hang long and slender passages which Aristotle calls hairy pores and they are rowled up like Vine tendrels if you stretch them out at length they are two cubits long When the shell breaks the young ones come forth CHAP. VI. Of Dracunculus DRacunculus is a fish with a great head a compacted nose sticking forth a little mouth without any teeth without any opening at the gils but in the place of this above the head there is a hole on both sides wherewith it takes in and puts forth water It hath great eyes set above the head the head-bone ends at the prickles that tend to the tayl The Fins are exceeding long considering the body partly Silver part Gold colour'd Those about the Gills are Gold-coloured and Silver colour'd in the root These that are in the lower part and next to the mouth are longer than those that are next to the gils On the back two stand up the first is small Gold colour'd distinguished with Siver lines the latter is very great on the middle of the back not much unlike to butterflies wings and is made of five bones like to ears of Barley and a membrane The former bones of radii are the longer the hinder are the shorter contrary to what it is in the membrane which being as it were woven between all the distances of those radii increaseth by degrees The same also is divers for it is distinguished with Silver lines set between two black lines This is hid in the middle hollow of the back as in a sheath There is also another Golden colour'd membrane from the tail to the Podex excepting the fringes that are black CHAP. VII Of the Dolphin Exocaetus and the Fiatola THe Dolphins see so exactly that they will see a fish hid in a hole Oppianus They are so swift that Bellonius observed one of them to swim faster than a ship could run under sayle before the wind that blew strongly Some make their Fins to be the cause of it others their light body The famous Baudarcius thinks the membrane between their foreyards being extended serves them for sails They love one the other so well that one being taken at Caria and wounded a great multitude of them came to the Haven and departed again when he was set free When the Marriners whistle they will stay the longer about the ship but when a tempest riseth the credulous Greeks say if any man be in the ship that hath killed a Dolphin they will all flock thither to be revenged When then play on the calme Sea they foreshew which way the wind will blow and when they cast up water the Sea being troubled they foreshew a calme Plin. l. 8. c. 35. Thomas thinks that exhalations rising from the bottom of the Sea when a storm is at hand in Winter is the cause of it and he thinks that the Dolphins feel heat thereby and so break forth the oftner But since more fishes also perceive a tempest coming Rondeletius thinks that they are affected in the water with the motion of the ayre as those that are sick are wont to be when the South wind begins to blow Exocaetus lives long on the dry land The cause is the plenty of ayr which being he doth not draw it in too largely he is not choked by it Hence it is that an Eele will live a long time under ground Rondelet Fiatola is a broad plain fish with a taile like to a half Moon a fleshy tongue contrary to all other fish he hath no sins under his belly and he is wholly without them His Liver hath but one lap without any Gall his stomach is made like the Letter V the lower part of it ends in a point and there are so many Appendixes of hairs unto it that they cannot be numbred CHAP. VIII Of Glanis and Glaucus WRiters report of Glanis that it is a mighty and terrible fish especially in the River Tissa that runs into the Danube Hee riseth so boldly that he will not spare a Man It is publikely said in Hungaria that there was found in the belly of one a hand with rings upon it and peices of a Boy that swam in the Danube that was devoured by it Comes Martinengus Gesner saith he heard it of a learned Hungarian that the same was taken in the River Tissa it was 7 or 8 cubits long and was carried in a Cart. This had layn hid in the River 16 yeares neere the Kitchin of a Noble man at last it was caught with a hook when it had young ones to look to when she found her self taken she leaped forth the fishers ran after her two miles at last they wearied and took her and carried her to a Town called Nadlac There was in her belly a Mans head with his right hand and three Gold Rings upon it The Glaucus hath a spongy Liver distinguished into two laps the left is the larger From the right lap there hangs a little Gall bladder from a thred three fingers long so great as a pease and it hath in the bottom of the stomack a kind of Apophysis not to be seen almost in other fishes besides five others in the Pylorus that fence the stomack about CHAP. IX Of the Herring and Huso THat the Herring lives by water the Author of the Book of Nature witnesseth taken out of it it will not live as experience testifies In his belly there is nothing found for it hath onely one hungry gut They swim together in such great sholes that they cannot be taken for multitudes When they see light they swim in flocks and so they are caught in the autumnal equinoctiall They shine in the water turning their bellies upward and they send forth such a light that the Sea seems to lighten It is a miracle that some relate concerning the Inhabitants of the Island Terra Sancta of the German Ocean namely that in the year 1530 after the Virgins delivery 2000 men lived by Herring-fishing there but when they peevishly whipped one of them they had taken with rods these fishes did so diminish that afterwards scarce 100 could live by that labour The Husons have a grisle instead of a back bone that hath a great empty hole from head to tail as bored with a piercer What Aelian l. 14. c. 25. saith of the Autacea that
Salmon striving to overcome the precipice of the water be frustrated at the second or third leap he swims to the foard and there he will lye hid under stones and gravel and pine away he is full of brasse colour'd spots and his beck is bent like a great hook In Scotland in Autumn they meet in little Rivers or places fordable where they joyne bellies and lay eggs and cover them in the gravel at which time the male is so spent spending his milt and seed and the female with her spawn that they are nothing but bones and prickels and skin That leannesse is infectious for they will infect all the Salmons they come neere It is an argument thereof that oft times they are taken and one side is consumed the other not so From their eyes covered in the sand little fishes breed the next spring that are so soft that untill they be no bigger than a mans finger if you presse them with your fingers they will run as from congeled moysture Then first as Nature leads them they hasten to the Sea and in 20 days or a little more it is incredible how great they will grow when they come from the Sea against a River that runs thither they shew a wonder For the Rivers that are straightned with Rocks and Banks on every side and therefore run down swiftly when they fall with a great fall the Salmons do not presently swim forth by the Channel but they fling themselves up crooked by force of the water and so are carried in the Ayre before they fall That they are lively is seen by their heart taken forth Robertus Constantinus testifies that he saw the heart of a Salmon that was unbowelled that was wet with a moyst sanies and it lived after it was taken forth above a day There are some different kinds of Turdi Some have as it were some skiny yellowish Apophyses hanging down from their lower chop somtimes they vary and are all for the most part Gold colour or colour of the Amethyst or blew Their eyes are extreme great and a black circle goes about a Golden Apple a Golden circle about the black and lastly a black circle goes about them all The fins by the gills are wholly Gold colour but of the brest they are all blew except their nervs that are Gold colour'd The fin that is from the anus and that which is on the back and taile where they are joyn'd to the rump are Gold colour'd but sprinkled with little red blood spots the rest are blew CHAP. XX. Of the Torpedo and the Tunie I Have nothing to say of the Torpedo but that he benums the hands and hence he hath his name And he doth this so effectually that before he is taken he will do it by the net or the rod. He useth this cunning that covering himself with mud and dirt he will catch little fish very strangely Plin. l. 1. utr anim The Tunies though they be caught in many places yet chiefly about Constantinople for when they come to the Islands Cyaneae and are past by the shore of Chalcedonia a certain white rock appears to them and doth so terrifie the Tunies that immediately they put over to the farther bank and being taken away with the swift current of the waters the natural fitnesse of the place turns the course of the Sea to Constantinople and the winding thereof so that being driven thither by force of Nature it is no wonder that they fall into snares They are also ingendred in the Lakes of Maeotis and when they are a little grown they break forth of the mouth of the Lake in sholes and run by the Asiatick shore so far as Trapezunda but because they cannot endure tempests and cold weather whereby their eyes grow dim they stay in a very deep place of the Thracian Sea that harbours them it is called Melas and it hath hollow and muddy places fit to cherish fish in and they grow till the Spring They seem to understand the blowings of the winds For Pliny saith they stay for the North wind that they may get out of the Pontick Sea with the flowing of the water to help them They enter into Pontus one way and go forth another For Aristotle l. 8. Histor. c. 13. saith they lye on their right side next the Earth when they no in and come forth on the contrary side for they turn on the left side which saith he they are therefore said to do because naturally they see clearest with their right eye and duller with the left The old Oracle of the Prophet Amphyllus in Herodotus proves that they go forth in the night And this is again confirmed by ancient medalls such as Bellonius writes that he saw at Paris on one side was an Ear of Corn and on the other side the Tunie and above this the Moon with an Inscription of Phillips They sleep so soundly that they may be taken napping CHAP. XXI Of the Uranoscopus and the Sword-fish URanoscopus is a fish that swims alone and eats flesh so lively saith Bellonius that if you take out all his Entrals yet he will move still It is the greediest eater of all fish he hath an apophysis hanging forth of his mouth and with that he ensnares the fish This shews he is an insatiable paunch that if you cast meat to him he will feed so long till the meat come up to his throat The Sword-fish hath a beck on both chaps but the lower of them is short and triangular the upper is more bony and harder and far longer sometimes two cubits long In the Indian Sea they grow so great that they will pierce the sides of the strongest Ships a hand and half in thicknesse sometimes Jovius Gesner writes from the relation of a faithfull friend of his who saw a man when he sailed into Syria that swam by the Ship side and he was cut in the middle by the beck of this fish He fears a Whale and when he sees one he claps his sword into the earth or some place of the Foard that he can and so forms himself like to a log and the Whale neglects him and swims by him CHAP. XXII Of some other Wonders concerning Fishes IN Minerals and Quarreys also fishes are found especially if the places be moyst though there be no water Theophrastus observed this in many places of Pontus Eudoxus in Paphlagonia Agricola at Orterantum beyond the Albis There is a plain by the River Narbon by this run the Rivers Iliberis and Roschinus there are fossil fish found therein The earth is tender there and brings much grasse about two or three cubits under this runs the water of the Rivers that hath dilated it self If at any time they overflow they fill the plain with fish from underground Polyb. in Histor. There are two sorts of them some round like to Eels but they want a tuff skin they are scaly as Gudgeons their flesh is hard and not well savoured The
Ayre and sents that they take in by their nostrills they take no meat nor drink but only the diversity of smells from roots and flowers and wild Apples that they carry with them in long Voyages that they may not want sweet smells and if the sents be too strong a little they easily are killed thereby Pliny l. 7. c. 3. Yet surely sents being but qualities can nourish no man they may out of all question refresh and cherish the brain Artic. 3. Of prodigious Eaters THere was a Woman once at Alexandria as Athenaeus sets it down he saith She eat 12 pound of flesh four chaevice of bread that is more than 12 pound and she drank a gallon of wine and upward Maximinus the Emperour would drink often in one day 9. Gallons of Wine of the Capitol measure he eat 40 pound of flesh and as Cordus saith 60 pound Capitolinus is my Authour now an Amphora is 8 congii that is about 9 Gallons One Phagon in Vopiscus who was in great respect with Aurelianus the Emperour eat so much in one day that he devoured a whole Bore a hundred Loafs a Wether and a young Hogg and he drank more than an Orca of Wine with a tunnel put into it now an Orca was a Vessel of Wine greater than an Amphora What shall I say of Clodius Albinus the Emperour He as Capitolinus writes devoured so much fruit as is incredible to speak for Cordus saith that he eat 500 dried Figs which the Graecians call Callistruas for a breakfast and a hundred Peaches of Campania and ten Melons of Ostia and 20 pounds of Grapes of Lovinium and a hundred Gnatsappers and 400 Oysters Uguccio Fagiolanus being a banish'd old man did glory at the Table before Scaliger at Verona that when he was a young man he eat four fat Capons and so many Partridges and the roasted hinder parts of a Kid and the breast of a Calf stuft beside salt fish at one Supper To this appertains that prodigious man in the time of Caesar Maximilian who eat a raw Calf and a Sheep at one meal Suidrigellus Duke of Lithuania sate 6. hours at Supper and fed on 130 dishes Sylv. l. 2. Comment in Pannormit The Epitaph of Thymocreon Rhodius was this Here Lies Timocreon Rhodius who had skill To eat and drink and rail and speak much ill Now over-great appetite if it proceed from a praeternatural cause it is called Bulimos and if it be with vomiting it is call'd dogs appetite And it proceeds from some gnawing humour in the stomach or from a consumption of the whole body or by reason of the operation of the cold ayr or lastly from Worms Brutus when he went from Dyrrachium to Apollonia through the Snow had like to have got this disease and a woman that cast up a Worm of twelve fingers breadth long lost her great stomach and so did another that voided 100 worms Brasavolus testifies that this disease was epidemical at Ferrara and Anno 1535 it was so in Borussia Leonellus Faventinus writes it Gemma Frisius speaks of a woman not very aged that could not live one moment without eating He gives the cause to be the greatnesse of her Liver and the prodigious peculiar temperament of it For her fat being increased unmeasurably and her heat choaked her belly was opened and about 20 pounds of fat were taken out her Liver was found to be sound swelling with blood and spirits but extream red and huge great that by its very weight it pressed the vitall parts Frisius l. 1. c. 6. Cosmocrit Article 4. Of monstrous drinkers IT is no hard matter to find men that sail in drink and rowe in their cups You see that drunkennesse abates in no part of the World and as if we were born to consume Wines and they could not be poured forth but through the bodies of Men. What Seneca foretold That a time should come when drunkennesse should be honour'd and to drink abundance of Wine should be esteemed Vertue is come to passe in our dayes He is counted best not he that can speak knowingly of Philosophy but he that can drink off many great cups Galen And not onely wine and waters but smokes and fumes are introduced to make men mad Yet all go not an equal pace some will win the garland In that publick drinking for a wager before Alexander there was one Promachus that drank four Congii that is 40 pound We read the same of Proteus of Macedonia in Athenaeus Novellius Torquatus of Millan drank 30 pints at one draught Tiberius the Emperour standing by to see this wonder Plin. l. 14. hist. Natur And which is more wonderfull in him they are Pliny his words He wan the glory of it that is very rare for he never fail'd in his speech nor did he vomit or void any thing any way when he drank nor did he sleep he drank most at one draught and drank many more little draughts and he was faithfull in the businesse not to take his breath when he drank nor to spit any out nor did he cast away any snuff that could be heard dash on the pavement Cicero the son drank two gallons Bonesus as the words of Spartianus confirm drank more than any man Aurelianus said often of him He was not born to live but to drink Yet he long honour'd him for military affairs For if any Embassadours of barbarous people came from any Country he drank with them to make them drunk and so in their cups he would find out their secrets He drank what he pleased and was alwaies sober and as Onesimus the writer of Probus his Life He was wiser in his drink This was farther admirable in him that so much as he drank the like quantity he pissed and his belly or stomach or bladder were never burthened A certain man drank 6 gallons at a marriage of a Noble-man in the dayes of Lipsius Nicetas l. 3. Histor. writes of Camaterus Logotheta that drank two gallons Article 5. Of some Secrets concerning Drunkennesse DRunkards differ in their manner of their drunkennesse for some are drunk before others And some when they are drunk fall backwards some forward some sing some quarrel Writers give many reasons for this They that are soonest drunk are not accustomed to Wine or they have drank more then their ability for naturally one cannot go from one extream to another without inconvenience or they have narrower veins that are too hot or have a thicker constitution of body or they prate too much when they drink For speaking out augmenteth natural heat that is inflamed by wine and fills the head with vapours and heaps up abundance of them which being corrupted by continuall motion are distributed through the whole body distending the eyes inflating the temples offending the brain The same reason serves for such who at Feasts eat hot bread drink strong wine and eat abundance of meats that are salt and talk continually For all these things increase thirst
he put his mouth to the wound and sucked it to help it but he grew suddenly speechlesse and died Mathiol What shall we say for touching The Turks have Poysons that will kill in one day by touching Cardan l. 1. de venen c. 15. Otho the 3 Emperour of Rome was killed by a pair of venom'd gloves sent him from the Wife of Crescentius a Roman Consul who was frustrated of his marriage Johan Galeacius was killed by Venome put into his stirrop when he rid Dryinus if any man tread upon it it will excoriat his feet and the hand of the Chirurgion that dresseth the sore will be excoriated by it Lastly many dye by venom'd smells For Alexander Magnus his horse-forces in India died all almost of the smell of a Pestilent shrub and Franciscus Ordelaphus a Captain of Forolivium had a kind of Poyson that cast upon coles would kill all came neere it Think not that to be done by the naked quality some Venemous thing was joyn'd with the smell for certain it is that there are many effluxions of things CHAP. VII Of the internall and externall Sense Article 1. Of Imaginations of melancholy people THose that are sick of melancholy have such strange phantasms presented to them that sometimes the wisest men are deceived by them One man thought he was all Soul another that he was a Millet seed One that he had so great a nose that no gates were great enough to let him in Lemnius l. 2. de complex c. 6. Some thought they had no head some thought their buttocks were made of glasse Lemnius One of Sena of noble birth thought that if he should make water he should drown the World Laurent l. de melanchol c. 7. A woman saith Trallianus tied the middle finger of her hand as if she carried the whole world upon it she cryed saying she feared that should she bend it the whole World would fall down A learned man in Quercetan Diaetet Polyhist l. 1. c. ult thought that two evill spirits were put into him by his friend that brought them out of Italy and that they oft-times talked with him A Burgundian at Paris in the Temple of St. Julian said he was dead and desired the Physitians to trouble his soul no longer that was flying out of Purgatory into Heaven Then he imitated men dying Scholiogr ad c. 17. l. 1. Holler de morb intern A certain man in Montan. consil 75. thought the world was made of fine glasse and that Serpents lay under it and that he was in his bed as in an Island and should he come forth he should break the glasse and fall down amongst the Serpents I say nothing of a Maid who supposed she was in Heaven and that she walked with the sacred Trinity and Angels and the Devill perswaded her to think so Sometimes such people use to speak strange tongues and foretell future events So Erasmus in Encom Medicinae writes that one of Spoletum when he was sick spake a strange Language when he recovered he forgat it Guainerius tract 15. c. 4. reports that he saw a Country man that was sick of melancholy who alwayes when the Moon was combust would write Latine verses and after a new Moon about two dayes till the next new Moon he could not speak one word in Latine Forestus writes of a melancholy woman that would sing Latine songs that she had never learned And Johan Huartus in scrutin Ingenior makes mention of a Spanish servant who imagined himself to be a King and made learned speeches concerning Government when he was sick But we must needs confesse that the Devill is the Author of these things by a just Judgment of God Nor can this be ascribed to the Stars as Guainerius thinks nor to the agreement of the Latine tongue with the rationall Soul as Huartus would have it nor to the pure overshadowing of the spirits or to a malignant quality as others suppose Whether some modern examples appertain to this matter I leave it to wise men to judge and will say no more of it Article 2. Of the force of Imagination THe force of Imagination may be known by the former Article but because melancholique Imaginations are with sicknesse they do not so well expresse it as fear and conception do For when a noble Youth who had ravished a Maid was to dye for it he considered so deeply of it that his vital heat and spirits were so extinguished that all his beauty became despicable and the roots of his hair grew dry for want of moysture and turn'd grey Camer memorab medic Cent. 2. Mem. 15. The same happened to Franciscus Gonzaga when he was imprisoned for a Traytor Scalig. Exer. 312. And to Lodowick Bavarus the Emperour when he had slain Helica a Virgin of Prenneberg cut off his Wifes head and had cast another Noble woman headlong from a Tower he fell sick of it by a vision in the night Avent l. 7. Innumerable Examples prove that in conception the same may happen The Wife of Duke Plumbinus having layn with a Black-moor was delivered of a Blackmore Persina an Aethiopian seeing the Image of a white child when she lay with a man had a child with a white face Heliodor When Charles the fourth was Emperour the Wife of John Baptista looking often on a picture bare a hairy child A man disguised lying with the Wife of Bolduck as if he had been the Devill got her with child and the boy ran about so soon as he was born You shall find the like Monster in Lemnius in occult And he extends Imagination so far that he thinks that in more venereous Virgins their seed being mingled with their blood by imagination of venereous things may cause the rudiments of a living creature How that may be it is hard to explain nor doth it belong to this place Artic. 3. Of Sight and Smelling AUgustus Caesar had such clear eyes that whom he looked on intentively he would make them to wink as at the Sun beams Suetonius saith that Tiberius could see in the dark like a Cat. It is certain that Strabo had such acute eyes that from Lilybaeum he could discern Ships going forth of the Carthagenian Haven Val. l. 1. c. 8. and he could number all the Ships The distance was 135 miles If this be true that is true also That a Spaniard one Lopes was in Gades who from a high Mountain call'd Calpen would see over the Sea against it and discern out of Europe the banks of Africa the passage as Cleonardus in Epistol ad Jacob. Labocum saith is in a calm Sea 3 or 4 hours over yet he could see what was done there Camer hor. subcis l. 3. c. 81. In the West of Africa there are Blackmores with four eyes Lycosten Also Isigonus and Nymphodorus report that Some Families in Africa have eyes that bewitch people If they praise any things they perish by it trees will wither Children will die and Isigonus saith