1. Its various Moulds and Soils. 2. Its several Strata, or Beds. 1 3. Its very Subterraneous Paffages, Grotto's, and Caverns. 4. Its Mountains and Vallies. CHAP. I. Of the Soils and Moulds in the Earth, HE various Soils and Moulds are an admirable and manifeft Contrivance of the Allwife Creator, in making this Provision for the va rious Vegetables (1), and divers other Ufes of the Creatures. For, as fome Trees, fome Plants, fome Grains dwindle and die in a difagreeable Soil, but. (1) It is not to be doubted, that although Vegetables delight in peculiar Soils, yet they owe not their Life and Growth to the Earth it felf, but to fome agreeable Juices, or Salts, &c. refiding in the Earth. Of this the great Mr. Boy/ hath given us fome, good, Experiments. He ordered his Gardiner to dig up and dry in an Oven fome Earth fit for the purpofe, to weigh it, and to fet therein fome Squash Seeds, (a kind of Indian Pompion). The Seeds when fown were watered with Rain or Spring-water only. But al though a Plant was produced in one Experiment of near 31. and in another of above 141. yet the Earth when dried, and weighed again, was scarce diminished at all in its Weight. Another Experiment he alledges is of Helmont's, who dried 2001. of Earth, and therein planted a Willow weighing 57. which he watered with Rain or difilled Water: And to fecure it from any other Earth getting in, he covered it with a perforated Tin Cover. After five Years, weighing the Tree with all the Leaves it had born in that time, he found it to weigh 169 4. 3. Ounces, but the Earth to be diminished only about 2 Ounces in its weight. Vid. Boyl's Scept. Chym. Part 2. pag. 114. thrive and flourish in others; fo the All-wife Creator hath amply provided for every Kind a proper Bed. If fome delight in a warm, fome a cold Soil; fome in a lax or fandy, fome a heavy or clayie Soil; foine in a mixture of both, fome in this, and that and the other Mould, fome in moift, fome in dry Places (2); ftill we find Provifion enough for all thefe Purposes: Every Country abounding with its proper Trees and Plants (3), and every Vegetable flourishing, and gay, fomewhere or other about the Globe, and abundantly answering the Almighty Command of the Creator, when the Earth and Waters were ordered to their peculiar place, Gen. 1. 11. And God faid, let the Earth bring forth Grafs, the Herb yielding Seed, and the Tree yielding Fruit after bis kind. All which we actually fee is fo.. To this convenience which the various Soils that coat the Earth are of to the Vegetables, we may add their great Ufe, and Benefit to divers Animals to many kinds of Quadrupeds, Fowls, Infects, and (2) Τὰς δὲ τόπος ζητᾶ τὰς οικείες, ε μόνον τα πεειτα τῶν δένδρων, &c. Τα μωρ' τ8 φιλεῖ ξηρές, τὰ δὲ ἐνύδρας, τα ὃ χειμερινές, τὰ δὲ προσήλος, τὰ δὲ παλισκίας, καὶ ὅλως, τα μῷ ὀρεινὸς, τὰ δὲ ἑλώδεις. Ζητά γ τα πρόσφορα κατὰ •ZATEST + κράσιν, ἔτι δὲ απενῆ, καὶ ἰσχυρο, και βαθύρριζα, καὶ ἐπιπολαιόρριζα, καὶ εἴτε ἄλλη διαφορὰ κατὰ τὰ μέρη ταῦτα, ἔτι δὲ τὰ ὅμοια ζητᾶ τὸ ὅμοιον, καὶ τὰ ἀνόμοια μὴ ἢ αὐτὸν, ὅταν ἦ τις παραλλαγὴ ἡ φύσεως. Cauf. Plant. 1. 2. c. 9. Πάντα 28 Theophraft. de ·(3) Nec vero Terræ ferre omnes omnia poffunt. Reptiles; Reptiles; who make in the Earth their places of Repose and Reft, their Retreat in Winter, their Security from their Enemies, and their Nefts to repofe their Young; fome delighting in a lax and pervious Mould, admitting them an easy Passage; and others delighting in a firmer and more folid Earth, that will better fecure them against Injuries from without. CHA P. II. Of the various Strata or Beds obfervable in the Earth. ΤΗ 'HE various Strata or Beds, although but little different from the laft, yet will deferve a diftinct confideration. By the Strata or Beds, I mean thofe Layers of Minerals (1), Metals (2), Earth, and Stone (3), (1) Altho' Minerals, Metals, and Stones lie in Beds, and have done fo ever fince Noah's Flood, if not from the Creation ; yet it is greatly probable that they have a Power of growing in their refpective Beds: That as the Beds are robbed and emptied by Miners, fo after a while they recruit again. Thus Vitriol, Mr. Boyl thinks, will grow by the Help of the Air. So Alum doth the fame. We are affured (he faith) by the experienced Agricola, that the Earth or Ore of Alum, being robbed of its Salt, will in tract of time recover it, by being expofed to the Air. Boyl's Sufpic. about fome Hid. Qual. in the Air, p. 18. (2) As to the Growth of Metals, there is great Reafon to fufpect that alfo, from what Mr. Boyl hath alledged in his Obfervations about the Growth of Metals: And in his Scept. Chym. Part. 6. pag. 362. Compare also Hakewil's Apol.pag. 164. And particularly as to the Growth of Iron, to the Inftances he gives from Pliny, Fallopius, Cifalpinus, and others; we may add, what is well known in the Foreft of Deane in Gloucestershire: That the (3), lying under that upper Stratum, or Tegument of the Earth laft fpoken of, all of a prodigious Ufe to Mankind: Some being of great use for Building, the best Iron, and moft in Quantity, that is found there, is in the old Cinders, which they melt over again. This the Author of the Additions to Gloucestershire in Cambd. Brit. of the last Edition, p. 245. attributes to the Remiffness of the former Melters, in not exhaufting the Ore: But in all probability it is rather to be attributed to the new Impregnations of the old Ore, or Cinders, from the Air, or from fome feminal Principle, or plastick Quality in the Ore it self. (3) As for the Growth of Stone, Mr. Boyl gives two Inftances. One is that famous place in France, called Les Caves Goutieres: Where the Water falling from the upper Parts of the Cave to the Ground, doth presently there condenfe into little Stones, of such Figures as the Drops falling either feverally, or upon one another, and coagulating presently into Stones, chance to exhibit. Vid. Scept. Chym. pag. 360. Such like Caves as thefe, I have my felf met with in England; particularly on the very Top of Bredon Hill in Worcestershire, near the Precipice, facing Perfhore, in or near the old Fortress, called Bembsbury-Camp; I faw fome Years ago fuch a Cave, which (if I mif-remember not) was lined with those Stalactical Stones, on the Top and Sides. On the Top, they hung like Icicles great and fmall, and many lay on the Ground. They feemed manifeftly to be made by an Exfudation, or Exftillation of fome petrifying Juices out of the rocky Earth there. On the spot, I thought it might be from the Rains foaking through, and carrying with it Impregnations from the Stone, the Hill being there all rocky. Hard by the Cave is one or more vaft Stones, which (if I mistake not) are incruftated with this Sparry, Stalactical Subftance, if not wholly made of it. But it is 'fo many Years ago fince I was at the Place, and not being able to find my Notes about it, I cannot fay, whether the whole Stone is (in all probability) Spar, (as I think it is,) or whether I found it only cafed over with it, notwithstanding I was very nice in examining it then, and have now fome of the Fragments by me, confifting, among other fhining Parts, of fome transparent angular Ones. The other Inftance of Mr. Boyl, is from Linschoten, who faith, that in the Eaft-Indies, when they have cleared the Diamond Mines of all the Diamonds, In a few Years time they find in the fame place new Diamonds produced. Boyl. Ibid. fome fome ferving for Ornament; fome furnishing us with commodious Machines, and Tools to prepare our Food, and for Veffels and Utenfils, and for multitudes of other Ufes; foine ferving for Firing to drefs our Food, and to guard us against the Infults of Cold and Weather; fome being of great Ufe in Phyfick, in Exchange and Commerce, in Manuring and Fertilizing our Lands, in Dying and Colouring, and ten thousand other Convemences, too many to be particularly fpoken of: Only there is one grand Ufe of one of thefe Strata or Beds, that cannot eafily be omitted, and that is, thofe fubterraneous Strata of Sand, Gravel, and laxer Earth that admit of, and facilitate the Paflage of the fweet Waters (4), and may probably be the Colanders whereby they are fweetned, and then at BUT I Memle the (4) It is not only agreeable to Reason, but I am told by Perfons converfant in digging of Wells throughout this County of Effex, where I live, that the fureft Beds in which they find Water, are Gravel, and a coarse dark coloured Sand, which Beds feldom fail to yield Plenty of sweet Water: But for Clay, they never find Water therein, if it be a strong, ftiff Clay, but if it be lix and fandy fometimes Springs are found in it, but fo weak, that they will scarcely ferve the Ufes of the finallest Family. And fome times they meet with thofe Beds lying next under a loose black Mould, (which, by their Defcription, I judged to be a fort of oazy, or to have the Refemblance of an antient prushy Ground,) and in that Cafe the Water is always naught and ftioks. And laftly, another fort of Bed they find in Effex, in the clayie Lands, - particularly that part called the Redings, which yields Plenty of Tweet Water, and that is a Bed of white Earth, as though made of Chalk and white Sand. This they find, after they have dug through forty, or more feet of Clay; and it is fo tender and moist, that it will not lie upon the Spade, but they are forced to throw it into their Bucket with their Hands, or with Bowls; but when it comes up into the Air, it soon becomes an hard white Stone. Thus much for the Variety of Beds wherein the Waters are found. That it is in thefe Beds only or chiefly the Springs run, is farther manifeft from the forcible Eruption of the Waters fome F times |