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which is intitled Disquisitio Heliana; where you shall find full satisfaction.

The fourth letter of the cross-row, touching restitution.

FIRST, therefore, it is to be inquired in the negative, what bodies will never return, either by their extreme fixings, as in some vitrifications, or by extreme volatility.

It is also to be inquired of the two means of reduction; and first by the fire, which is but by congregation of homogeneal parts.

The second is, by drawing them down by some body that hath consent with them. As iron draweth down copper in water; gold draweth quicksilver in vapour; whatsoever is of this kind, is very diligently to be inquired.

Also it is to be inquired what time, or age, will reduce without help of fire or body.

Also it is to be inquired what gives impediment to union or restitution, which is sometimes called mortification; as when quicksilver is mortified with turpentine, spittle, or butter.

Lastly, it is to be inquired, how the metal restored, differeth in any thing from the metal rare: as whether it become not more churlish, altered in colour, or the like.

Dr. Meverel's answers touching the restitutions of metals and minerals.

REDUCTION is chiefly effected by fire, wherein if they stand and nele, the imperfect metals vapour away, and so do all manner of salts which separated them in minimas partes before.

Reduction is singularly holpen, by joining store of metal of the same nature with it in the melting.

Metals reduced are somewhat churlish, but not altered in colour.

THE LORD VERULAM'S INQUISITION

Concerning the versions, transmutations, multiplications, and effections of bodies.

EARTH by fire is turned into brick, which is of the nature of a stone, and serveth for building, as stone doth and the like of tile. Qu. the manner.

Naphtha, which was the bituminous mortar used in the walls of Babylon, grows to an intire and very hard matter like a stone.

In clay countries, where there is pebble and gravel, you shall find great stones, where you may see the pebbles or gravel, and between them a substance of stone as hard or harder than the pebble itself.

There are some springs of water, wherein if you put wood, it will turn into the nature of stone: so as that within the water shall be stone, and that above the water continue wood.

The slime about the reins and bladder in man's body, turns into stone: and stone is likewise found often in the gall; and sometimes, though rarely, in vena porta.

Query, what time the substance of earth in quarries asketh to be turned into stone?

Water, as it seems, turneth into crystal, as is seen in divers caves, where the crystal hangs in stillicidiis. Try wood, or the stalk of herbs, buried in quicksilver, whether it will not grow hard and stony.

They speak of a stone ingendered in a toad's head. There was a gentleman, digging in his moat, found an egg turned into stone, the white and the yolk keeping their colour, and the shell glistering like a stone cut with corners.

Try some things put into the bottom of a well; as wood, or some soft substance: but let it not touch the water, because it may not putrify.

They speak, that the white of an egg, with lying long in the sun, will turn stone.

Mud in water turns into shells of fishes, as in horse-mussels, in fresh ponds, old and overgrown.

And the substance is a wondrous fine substance, light and shining.

A SPEECH TOUCHING THE RECOVERING OF

DROWNED MINERAL WORKS.

Prepared for the parliament (as Mr. Bushel affirmed) by the Viscount of St. Albans, then Lord High Chancellor of England*.

My lords and gentlemen,

THE king, my royal master, was lately graciously pleased to move some discourse to me concerning Mr. Sutton's hospital, and such like worthy foundations of memorable piety: which humbly seconded by myself, drew his majesty into a serious consideration of the mineral treasures of his own territories, and the practical discoveries of them by way of my philosophical theory: which he then so well resented, that afterwards, upon a mature digestion of my whole design, he commanded me to let your lordships understand, how great an inclination he hath to further so hopeful a work, for the honour of his dominions, as the most probable means to relieve all the poor thereof, without any other stock or benevolence, than that which divine bounty should confer on their own industries and honest labours, in recovering all such drowned mineral works, as have been, or shall be therefore deserted.

And, my lords, all that is now desired of his majesty and your lordships, is no more than a gracious act of this present parliament to authorise them herein, adding a mercy to a munificence, which is, the persons of such strong and able petty-felons, who, in true penitence for their crimes, shall implore his majesty's mercy and permission to expiate their offences by their assiduous labours in so innocent and hopeful

a work.

For by this unchargeable way, my lords, have I proposed to erect the academical fabric of this island's

* See Mr. Bee's extract, p. 18, 19.

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Solomon's House, modelled in my new Atlantis. And I can hope, my lords, that my midnight studies, to make our countries flourish and outvie European neighbours in mysterious and beneficent arts, have not so ingratefully affected your noble intellects, that you will delay or resist his majesty's desires, and my humble petition in this benevolent, yea, magnificent affair; since your honourable posterities may be enriched thereby, and my ends are only to make the world my heir, and the learned fathers of my Solomon's House, the successive and sworn trustees in the dispensation of this great service, for God's glory, my prince's magnificence, this parliament's honour, our country's general good, and the propagation of my own memory.

And I may assure your lordships, that all my proposals in order to this great architype, seemed so rational and feasible to my royal sovereign, our Christian Solomon, that I thereby prevailed with his majesty to call this honourable parliament, to confirm and impower me in my own way of mining, by an act of the same, after his majesty's more weighty affairs were considered in your wisdoms; both which he desires your lordships, and you gentlemen that are chosen as the patriots of your respective countries, to take speedy care of: which done, I shall not then doubt the happy issue of my undertakings in this design, whereby concealed treasures, which now seem utterly lost to mankind, shall be confined to so universal a piety, and brought into use by the industry of converted penitents, whose wretched carcases the impartial laws have, or shall dedicate, as untimely feasts, to the worms of the earth, in whose womb those deserted mineral riches must ever lie buried as lost abortments, unless those be made the active midwives to deliver them. For, my lords, I humbly conceive them to be the fittest of all men to effect this great work, for the ends and causes which I have before expressed.

All which, my lords, I humbly refer to your grave and solid judgments to conclude of, together with

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such other assistances to this frame, as your own oraculous wisdom shall intimate, for the magnifying our Creator in his inscrutable providence, and admirable works of nature.

Certain experiments made by the Lord BACON about weight in air and water.

A NEW Sovereign of equal weight in the air to the piece in brass, overweigheth in the water nine grains: in three sovereigns the difference in the water is but twenty-four grains.

The same sovereign overweigheth an equal weight of lead, four grains in the water, in brass grains for gold in three sovereigns about eleven grains.

The same sovereign overweigheth an equal weight of stones in the air, at least sixty-five grains in the water the grains being for the weight of gold in brass metal.

A glass filled with water weighing, in Troy weights, thirteen ounces and five drams, the glass and the water together weigheth severally, viz. the water nine ounces and a half, and the glass four ounces and a dram.

A bladder weighing two ounces seven drams and a half, a pebble laid upon the top of the bladder makes three ounces six drams and a half, the stone weigheth seven drams.

The bladder, as above, blown, and the same fallen, weigheth equal.

A sponge dry weigheth one ounce twenty-six grains the same sponge being wet, weigheth fourteen ounces six drams and three quarters: the water weigheth in several eleven ounces one dram and a half, and the sponge three ounces and a half, and three quarters of a dram. First time.

The sponge and water together weigh fifteen ounces and seven drams: in several, the water weigheth eleven ounces and seven drams, and the sponge three ounces seven drams and a half. Second time.

Three sovereigns made equal to a weight in silver in the air, differ in the water.

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