208 ON WATEK AND WATERING PLANTS 



here being excluded, which he judges to be, when variously com- 

 pounded and driven by winds, which are the causes of these 

 various seasons, and changes of weather which we now find. 



" But instead of supposing an earth covered all over with wa- 

 ter, you suppose the sea interspersed about wide and spacious 

 tracts of land, and also divided by high ridges of mountains, such 

 as the Alps, the Appcnine, and the Pyrenean in Europe ; the 

 Caucausus, the Imaus, and the Taurus in Asia; the mount Atlas 

 of the Moon in Africa ; the Andes and Apalatean mountains in 

 America ; each of which surpasses the usual height to which the 

 aqueous vapours do of themselves ascend ; and on the tops of 

 which the air is so cold and rarified, as to retain but a small 

 portion of these vapours, which are brought hither by the 

 winds. 



" Then the vapom-s thus raised from the sea, and carried by 

 the winds over the low lands to those ridges of mountains, are 

 there compelled by the streams of the air to mount with it up to 

 their tops, where the water presently precipitates, gleeting down 

 by the cranies of the stones ; and part of the vapours entering 

 into the caverns of the hills, the waters thereof gathers, as in an 

 alembic in the basons of stones; and these being once full, the 

 overplus water rims down at the lowest place of the bason, 

 and breaking out by the sides of the hills, forms single springs ; 

 many of which running down by the vallies or guts, between 

 the ridges of the hills, and after uniting, form little rivulets and 

 brooks, and many of these meeting again form large rivers. 



" Dr. Woodhouse has made these useful experiments of water 

 following : 



" He tells us, that he chose several glass phials, which were 

 all as near as possible of the same shape and bigness ; that he 

 put water into every one of them, as much as he thought fit, and 

 took an account of the weight of it, then strained and tied a 

 piece of parchment over the surface of each phial, and made 

 a hole in the middle of it large enough to admit the stem of the 

 plant he designed to set in the phial, without confining and 

 straitening it so as to hinder its growth. This design was to hin- 

 der the enclosed water from evaporating or ascending any other 

 way, than only through the plant that was in it. 



To be continued. 



