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Effects thereof were much more vigorous where the Pressure os the Atmofiphere was taken off; for a long Glafs-Receiver having a light Down-Fcatherincluded, being Evacuated of Air, the Feather which in the Air would hard-ly sink, did in Vacuo desccnd with nearly the tarne Velocity as if it had beena Stone.

Some think to Illustrate this Descent os Hcavy Bodies, by comparing itwith the Virtue of the Loadstone ; but setting aiide the Difference there is inthe mariner of their Attractions, the Loadsione drawing only in and about itsPoles, and the Earth near equally in all Parts of its Surface, this Comparilonavails no more than to explain Ignotum per atque Ignotum .

Othersallign a ccrtain Sympathetica! Attractio» between the Earth and its Parts,whereby they have, as it were, a defire to be united, to be the Gante we er.q jireafter : But this is to far from explaining the Modus , that it is little more, thanto teil us in other terms, that Hcavy Bodies Desccnd, becaute they Delcend.

But though .the Eßcicnt Cau/e of Gravi ty be so obsourc, yet the FinalCaufc thereof is clear enough ; for it is by this Single Principle that theEarth and all the Celestial Bodies are kept from Diffolution: the least of theirPartieles not being fuffered to recede far from their Surfaces, without beingjinmediately brought down again by Virtue of this Natural Tendcticy, whichfor their Prelervation, the Infinite Wifdom of their Creator has ordained tobe towards each of their Centers ; nor can the Globes of the Sun and Planctsotherwife be destroyed, but by taking from them this Power of keeping theirparts united.

The Afiections or Properstes-o( Gravity , and its mariner of Acting upon p,„f erUesBodies Falling, have been in a great measore difcovered, and most of them ->/ gj-jw.made out; by Mathematical Demonstration in this our Century, by the lM ‘ 6 'accurate Diligence of Galilxus, Torriceltius, Hugcnius, and others; and nowlately, by our worthy Countryman Mr. If Newton. Which Properstes I Ihallhere enumerate.

I. The First Prcperty is, That by this Principle of Gravitation , all Bodiesdo Desccnd towards a Point, which either is, or eile is very near to, theCenter of Magnitudc of the Earth and Sca, about which the Sea forms it seifexactly into a Spherical Surface, and the Promincnces of the Land, conlide-ring the Bulk of the whole, dister but insensibly therefrom.

z. That this Point, or Center of Gravitation, is Fixt within the Earth, orat least has been so, ever since we have any Authentick History : For a Con-sequence of its Change, tho’ never so little, would be the over-stowing ofthe Low-Iands on that side of the Globe towards which it approached, andthe leaving new Islands bare on the opposite side, from which it receded ;but for this Two Thoutand years it apptars, that the Low Iflands of the Me-diterranea» Sea (near to which the Ancientest Writers lived) have continuedmuch at the tarne height above the Water, as they now are found-j and noInundations or Receffes of the Sea arguing any such Change, are Recordedin History, excepting the Universal Delugc , which can no better way be ac-countcd for, than by lüpposing this Center of Gravitation Removed for a time,towards the Middle of the then Inhabited Parts of the World; and a Chang“

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