Chapter XI: Part 11

And on this occasion I cannot but take notice, that whereas
the great Argument which the Chymists are wont to employ to
vilify Earth and Water, and make them be look'd upon as
useless and unworthy to be reckon'd among the Principles of
Mixt Bodies, is, that they are not endow'd with Specifick
Properties, but only with Elementary qualities; of which
they use to speak very sleightingly, as of qualities
contemptible and unactive: I see no sufficient Reason for
this Practice of the Chymists: For 'tis confess'd that Heat
is an Elementary Quality, and yet that an almost innumerable
company of considerable Things are perform'd by Heat, is
manifest to them that duly consider the various _Phaenomena_
wherein it intervenes as a principall Actor; and none ought
less to ignore or distrust this Truth then a Chymist. Since
almost all the operations and Productions of his Art are
performed chiefly by the means of Heat. And as for Cold it
self, upon whose account they so despise the Earth and
Water, if they please to read in the Voyages of our English
and Dutch Navigators in _Nova Zembla_ and other Northern
Regions what stupendious Things may be effected by Cold,
they would not perhaps think it so despicable. And not to
repeat what I lately recited to You out of _Paracelsus_
himself, who by the help of an intense Cold teaches to
separate the Quintessence of Wine; I will only now observe
to You, that the Conservation of the Texture of many Bodies
both animate and inanimate do's so much depend upon the
convenient motion both of their own Fluid and Looser Parts,
and of the ambient Bodies, whether Air, Water, &c. that not
only in humane Bodies we see that the immoderate or
unseasonable coldness of the Air (especially when it finds
such Bodies overheated) do's very frequently discompose the
_Oeconomie_ of them, and occasion variety of Diseases; but
in the solid and durable Body of Iron it self, in which one
would not expect that suddain Cold should produce any
notable change, it may have so great an operation, that if
you take a Wire, or other slender piece of steel, and having
brought it in the fire to a white heat, You suffer it
afterwards to cool leasurely in the Air, it will when it is
cold be much of the same hardnesse it was of before: Whereas
if as soon as You remove it from the fire, you plunge it
into cold water, it will upon the sudden Refrigeration
acquire a very much greater hardness then it had before;
Nay, and will become manifestly brittle. And that you may
not impute this to any peculiar Quality in the Water, or
other Liquor, or Unctuous matter, wherein such heated steel
is wont to be quenched that it may be temper'd; I know a
very skillful Tradesman, that divers times hardens steel by
suddenly cooling it in a Body that is neither a liquor, nor
so much as moist. A tryal of that Nature I remember I have
seen made. And however by the operation that Water has upon
steel quenched in it, whether upon the Account of its
coldness and moisture, or upon that of any other of its
qualities, it appears, that water is not alwaies so
inefficacious and contemptible a Body, as our Chymists would
have it passe for. And what I have said of the Efficacy of
Cold and Heat, might perhaps be easily enough carried
further by other considerations and experiments; were it not
that having been mention'd only upon the Bye, I must not
insist on it, but proceed to another Subject.

_ERRATA._

Pag. 5. line. 6. read _so qualify'd_, 15. 19. _Ratiocinations_, 25. 15. _for a_, 33. 17. in a parenth. (_that is no more_), 51. 24. _besides another Caput_, 79. 10. _employ_, 86. 13. _structure_, 97. 13. _Sack_, ibid. 22. _Sack_, 104. 29. instead of _appear it, will_, leg. _appear, it will_, 118. 20. _leasure_, ibid. _principal_, 126. 20. _and till it suffer_, 129. 3. leg. in parenth. (_notwithstanding, &c._ 131. 15. _so_, 144. 15. [Greek: Synchysis], 151. 5. _nor have been resolved_, 180. 25. _Magistram_, 185. 15. _lately_, 188. 15. _tunned_, 200. 1. _intolerable_, ibid. 2. _in_, 209. 21. _tegularum_, 210. 7. _distill'd from_, 215. 25. dele _the_, 220. 1. _bodies_, 228. 11. [Transcriber's Note: 21.] _fugitive_, 231. 17. instead of _all_ lege _a pound_, 237. 6. _Chymist_, 248. 18. _Ashes off_, 251. 23. _Deopilative)_, 259. 6. _it self_, 269. 10. [Greek: ousia analogos], _ibid._ [Greek: astron stoicheio], 276. 25. make a parenth. at the words, _by the_, and shut it after the words in the 27. line _at all_, 280. 11. _Corals_, 288. 6. _ascribes_, 294. 22. _porosity_, ibid. 28. _noted_, 296. 1. _Bodies_, 305. 8. _(attended_, 307. 12. dele _to_, 308. 12. _devisers_, 312. 14. _and_, 313. 3. _too_, 314. 24. _fugitivenesse_, 333. 13. _origine_, ibid. 24. _contrivance of_, 339. 1. _Nay, Barthias_, 142. [Transcriber's Note: 342.] 3. _in; I will_, 350. 26. _absurd_, 356. 11. [Transcriber's Note: 21.] _Goutieres_, 358. 6. _antea_, 360. 1. _compertissimum_, ibid. 18. _Joachimica_, ibid. 19 _graminis_, ibid. 23. _sua_ [Transcriber's Note: this appears to be correct on the original page 360], 362. 6. _Dutch account_, 363. 2. _diggers)_, ibid. 11. and 12. lin. read _damp as the Englishmen also call it_, 366. 25. _a height_, 368. 19. _in use_, 370. 9. _latter; And_, ibid. 24. _Water; I_, 377. 22. _Rest_, ibid. 25. _know)_, 378. 23. after _Aggregate_ insert _or complex_, ibid. 27. dele ), ibid. 28. dele ), 379. 4. before _as_ begin a parenth. which ends lin. 9. at _Gold_, ibid. instead of _Which_, put _This_, ibid. 12. with the word _Texture_ should be connected the next line, _Though_, and this word _Though_ is to have put before it a parenthesis, which is to end at the word _Fluid_ in the 16th. line, 383. 3. _Regulus Martis Stellatus_, 382. 3. _Relations_, ibid. 9. _Chymist_, 386. 29. _confesse by teaching it_, 391. 8. _and yet may_, 392. 1. _an_, ibid. 12. _of_, 393. [Transcriber's Note: line 5] _distinct Tasts_, 397. 13. _Talck_, 398. 18. _Earth_, 399. 18. _parts_, 404. 8. _sal-petrae_, 419. 20. after _it_ put in _Sal_.

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_The Publisher doth advertise the Redaer [Transcriber's Note: Reader], that seeing there are divers Experiments related in this Treatise, which the Author is not unwilling to submit to the consideration also of Forraign Philosophers, he believes this piece will be very soon translated into Latin._

END.