of EARTH,

Besides, we find that Air is nearer of kin and affinity to Water, thanWater is to Plants ; unless I should affirm, that Air it self were but athinner Water ; for how else are thole Fires, and other Trees of prodi-gious growth, maintained amongst the barren Rocks, and thirsty Turni-ps, where Rains but seldom fall, if not from this rorid Air. Thus afiirch-Tree has been found to grow to a very considerable Substance andBulk, whole Roots were twin’d and crumpl’d in the hard Mortar of anold dry Wall, and others that grew out of a porous and otherwise impe-netrable Stone, by having \Vater only pour’dupon it. Such Virtuerhusteither the 'Dirt or the Air impart, without any other visible Cause:Of which see the Voyage to Siam. Not to insist again, that perhapseven these Rocks themselves may once have sprung from liquid Parents jaud how little, even such as are expos’d to continual Showers in otherClimates, abate of their Magnitude, since we rathdr find them to in-hale ; and that also th c Fruits and Juices of Vegetables seem to bebut the Concretion of better concocted Water, and may not only beconverted into lignous and woody Substance, ( as the learned Dr. Bealehas somewhere instane’d in a Discourse presented to you, and Record-ed in the Public Transactions) but is apt enough to petrify and be-come arrant Stone.

Whatever then it be which the Earth contributes*, or tvhether it con-tain universally a Seminal Virtue, so specified by the Air, Influences ,and Genius of the Clime , as to make that a Cinnamon-Trec inCeilon,Which is but a Bay in England , is past my Skill to determine; but ’tisto be observ’d with no little wonder, what Monsieur Bernier, 1 in hisHistory of the Empire of the Mogul , affirms to' us of a Mountaih there,which being on one side of ut intolerably hot, produces India7i Plants ,and on the other, as intemperately cold, European and Vulgar. Nothere to pass without notice at least, what even the most exhausted Mouldwill (to all appearance) produce spontaneously, when once it has beenwell expos’d to th tAir, and heavenly Influences; if what. lprings upbe not possibly from some vo-latil Rudiments and real Seeds, transport-ed by Winds, higher than we usually place our Experiments, unlesswe cou’d fix them upon Olympus top: But Porta tells us with moreConfidence, that he took Earth from a most profound and dry place,and expos’d it on such an Eminence, as to be out of reach even of theWinds ; but it produe’d, it seems, only such Plants as grew aboutstaples, and therefore may be suspected.

To return then again from this Digression, and pursue our Liquids ;where there is good Water, there is commonly good Earth, and viceversa ; because it bridles and tempers the Salts, abates the Acidity andFierceness of the Spirits, and imparts that useful ligature and connexi-on to the Mould, without which it were of no use for Vegetation . Inthe mean time, of all Waters, that which descends from Heaven wefind to be the richest, and properest in our work, as having been alreadyMeteoriz’d, and circulated in that great Digeflory, enrich’d and impreg-nated with Aflral Influences from above at those propitious Sealons;whence that Saying, Annus sruClificat, non Tellus, has just Title to aTruth we every Year’s Revolution behold and admire^ when' the - sweetHews of Spring and Autumn (hitherto constipated by Cold, or consu-med with too much Heat) begin to be loosened, or moderately con-dens’d, by the more benign temper of the Air, impregnating the pre-pared Earth to receive the Nitrous Spirits descending with their bal,4 my