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■where they have been sedulously gathered off, by many (not improbably)thought to proceed from worm-casts, hardened by the air, and a certainlapidescent succus or spirit which it meets with; and this, for happeningmost on downs very much exposed, (yet undisturbed) is the more proba-ble ; as, on the other side, it establishes our conjecture of the purestmoulds being capable of such a change; that which is thus cast up bythe worms being so exceedingly elaborated and refined. Nor perhapsare all those innumerable perforations, especially through the hardest sur-faces, the labour of worms alone, but the effect of some nitrous spirit thatspews out those molecuhe. In the mean time, let no man be over confi-dent that because some earths are soft, fat, and slippery, they may notpofsibly consist of sands (of which there are so many kinds) since it isevident that even all fofsile bodies, which can be reduced and brought tosands, may, by contrition of the particles, be rendered so minute as toemulate the finest earths we have enumerated; the compactnefs and ac-cidental mixtures resulting, as we affirm, from things extrinsical, not ex-cluding exhalations, pafsage of liquors, and several juices to them, orconveyed by subterraneous steams and influences, be the stones, or rockglareous, metallic , testaceous , salts, or any other concretes whatsoever!And what if we should indeed suspect all earth to be arrant salt, nayglafs; and that glafs, how hard soever, the offspring and child of water,the most fluid, crystalline, sincere, and void of all other qualities ? It isnot impofsible, I think, but by the different texture of its parts, eventhat liquid element may be brought to the consistence of a most differentbody to what it appears. We know that water (besides that it was thefirst immense body which invested the chaos) was by some thought to bethe Mother of Earth k , (nay the principia soluta of all mixts whatsoever)and that the bottom of the sea was made by a perpetual hypostasis or sub-sidence, which precipitated from every part of it to the centre. I do notstand to justify these speculations, but to illustrate what I am about, name-ly, that water is apt enough to be condensed and made hard ; and crude
k This was the opinion of Thales, the Milesian, who taught that all things originatedfrom water. Milton, where he describes the formation of the earth, makes a beautifulallusion to this doctrine :
On the wat’ry calmHis brooding wings the sp’rit of God outspread,And vital virtue infus’d, and vital warmthThroughout the fluid mafs.
PARADISE 103.T, -