superior there is the body of the star and the pure sky. And these pairs, though they be unlike in the primitive differences of matter, yet they seem to have many consents: for mercury and sulphur are principal materials of metals; water and oil are principal materials of vegetables and animals; and seem to differ but in maturation or concoction: flame, in vulgar opinion, is but air incensed; and they both have quickness of motion, and facility of cession, much alike: and the interstellar sky, though the opinion be vain, that the star is the denser part of his orb, hath notwithstanding so much affinity with the star, that there is a rotation of that, as well as of the star. Therefore it is one of the greatest magnalia natura, to turn water or watery juice into oil or oily juice: greater in nature, than to turn silver or quicksilver into gold. 355. THE instances we have wherein crude and watry substance turneth into fat and oily, are of four kinds. First in the mixture of earth and water; which mingled by the help of the sun gather a nitrous fatness, more than either of them have severally; as we see in that they put forth plants, which need both juices. 356. THE second is in the assimilation of nourishment, made in the bodies of plants and living creatures; whereof plants turn the juice of mere water and earth into a great deal of oily matter: living creatures, though much of their fat and flesh are out of oily aliments, as meat and bread, yet they assimilate also in a measure their drink of water, etc. But these two ways of version of water into oil, namely, by mixture and by assimilation, are by many passages and percolations, and by long continuance of soft heats, and by circuits of time. 357. THE third is in the inception of putrefaction; as in water corrupted; and the mothers of waters distilled; both which have a kind of fatness or oil. 358. THE fourth is in the dulcoration of some metals; as saccharum Saturni, etc. 859. THE intention of version of water into a more oily substance is by digestion; for oil is almost no thing else but water digested; and this digestion is principally by heat; which heat must be either outward or inward: again, it may be by provocation or excitation; which is caused by the mingling of bodies already oily or digested; for they will somewhat communicate their nature with the rest. Digestion also is strongly effected by direct assimilation of bodies crude into bodies digested; as in plants and living creatures, whose nourishment is far more crude than their bodies: but this digestion is by a great compass, as hath been said. As for the more full handling of these two principles, whereof this is but a taste, the inquiry of which is one of the profoundest inquiries of nature, we leave it to the title of version of bodies; and likewise to the title of the first congregations of matter; which, like a general assembly of estates, doth give law to all bodies. Experiment solitary touching chameleons. 360. A chameleon is a creature about the bigness of an ordinary lizard: his head unproportionably big: his eyes great: he moveth his head without the writhing of his neck, which is inflexible, as a hog doth his back crooked; his skin spotted with little tumours, less eminent nearer the belly; his tail slender and long on each foot he hath five fingers; three on the outside, and two on the inside; his tongue of a marvellous length in respect of his body, and hollow at the end; which he will launch out to prey upon flies. Of colour green, and of a dusky yellow, brighter and whiter towards the belly; yet spotted with blue, white, and red. If he be laid upon green, the green predominateth; if upon yellow, the yellow; not so if he be laid upon blue, or red, or white; only the green spots receive a more orient lustre; laid upon black, he looketh all black, though not without a mixture of green. He feedeth not only upon air, though that be his principal sustenance, for sometimes he taketh flies, as was said; yet some that have kept chameleons a whole year together, could never perceive that ever they fed upon any thing else but air; and might observe their bellies to swell after they had exhausted the air, and closed their jaws; which they open commonly against the rays of the sun. They have a foolish tradition in magic, that if a chameleon be burnt upon the top of an house, it will raise a tempest; supposing, according to their vain dreams of sympathies, because he nourisheth with air, his body should have great virtue to make impression upon the air. Experiment solitary touching subterrany fires. 361. It is reported by one of the ancients, that in part of Media there are eruptions of flames out of plains; and that those flames are clear, and cast not forth such smoke, and ashes, and pumice, as mountain flames do. The reason, no doubt, is, because the flame is not pent as it is in mountains and earthquakes which cast flame. There be also some blind fires under stone, which flame not out, but oil being poured upon them they flame out. The cause whereof is, for that it seemeth the fire is so choked, as not able to remove the stone, it is heat rather than flame; which nevertheless is sufficient to inflame the oil. Experiment solitary touching nitre. 362. IT is reported, that in some lakes the water is so nitrous, as. if foul clothes be put into it, it scoureth them of itself: and if they stay any whit long, they moulder away. And the scouring virtue of nitre is the more to be noted, because it is a body cold; and we see warm water scoureth better than cold. But the cause is, for that it hath a subtle spirit, which severeth and divideth any thing that is foul and viscous, and sticketh upon a body. Experiment solitary touching congealing of air. 363. TAKE a bladder, the greatest you can get; fill it full of wind, and tie it about the neck with a silk thread waxed; and upon that put likewise wax very close; so that when the neck of the bladder drieth, no air may possibly get in nor out. Then bury it three or four foot under the earth in a vault, or in a conservatory of snow, the snow being made hollow about the bladder; and after some fortnight's distance, see whether the bladder be shrunk; for if it be, then it is plain that the coldness of the earth or snow hath condensed the air, and brought it a degree nearer to water: which is an experiment of great consequence. Experiment solitary touching congealing of water into crystal. 364. It is a report of some good credit, that in deep caves there are pensile crystals, and degrees of crystal that drop from above; and in some other, though more rarely, that rise from below: Which though it be chiefly the work of cold, yet it may be that water that passeth through the earth, gathereth a nature more clammy, and fitter to congeal and become solid than water of itself. Therefore trial would be made, to lay a heap of earth, in great frosts, upon a hollow vessel, putting a canvas between, that it falleth not in and pour water upon it, in such quantity as will be sure to soak through; and see whether it will not make an harder ice in the bottom of the vessel, and less apt to dissolve than ordinarily. I suppose also, that if you make the earth narrower at the bottom than at the top, in fashion of a sugar-loaf reversed, it will help the experiment. For it will make the ice, where it issueth, less in bulk; and evermore smallness of quantity is a help to version. Experiment solitary touching preserving of rose leaves both in colour and smell. 365. TAKE damask roses, and pull them; then dry them upon the top of an house, upon a lead or terras, in the hot sun, in a clear day, between the hours only of twelve and two, or thereabouts. Then put them into a sweet dry earthen bottle, or a glass, with narrow mouths, stuffing them close together, but without bruising: stop the bottle or glass close, and these roses will retain not only their smell perfect, but their colour fresh, for a year at least. Note, that nothing doth so much destroy any plant, or other body, either by putrefaction or arefaction, as the adventitious moisture which hangeth loose in the body, if it be not drawn out. For it betrayeth and tolleth forth the innate and radical moisture along with it when itself goeth forth. And therefore in living creatures, mo derate sweat doth preserve the juice of the body. Note, that these roses, when you take them from the drying, have little or no smell; so that the smell is a second smell, that issueth out of the flower afterwards. Experiments in consort touching the continuance of 366. THE continuance of flame, according unto the diversity of the body inflamed, and other circumstances, is worthy the inquiry; chiefly, for that though flame be almost of a momentany lasting, yet it receiveth the more, and the less: we will first therefore speak at large of bodies inflamed wholly and immediately, without any wick to help the inflammation. A spoonful of spirit of wine, a little heated, was taken, and it burnt as long as came to a hundred and sixteen pulses. The same quantity of spirit of wine, mixed with the sixth part of a spoonful of nitre, burnt but to the space of ninety four pulses. Mixed with the like quantity of bay-salt, eighty three pulses. Mixed with the like quantity of gunpowder, which dissolved into a black water, one hundred and ten pulses. A cube or pellet of yellow wax was taken, as much as half the spirit of wine, and set in the midst, and it burnt only to the space of eighty seven pulses. Mixed with the sixth part of a spoonful of milk, it burnt to the space of one hundred pulses; and the milk was curdled. Mixed with the sixth part of a spoonful of water, it burnt to the space of eighty six pulses; with an equal quantity of water, only to the space of four pulses. A small pebble was laid in the midst, and the spirit of wine burnt to the space of ninety four pulses. A piece of wood of the bigness of an arrow, and finger's length, was set up in the midst, about a and the |