LIFE AND DEATH. 319 



stances in the like fire will burn up, and be dried and 

 : parched. 



3. Air, especially open air, doth manifestly dry, but not 

 melt; as highways, and the upper part of the earth, 



i moistened with showers, are dried ; linen clothes washed, 



| if they be hanged out in the air, are likewise dried ; herbs, 



1 and leaves, and flowers, laid forth in the shade, are dried. 



But much more suddenly doth the air this, if it be either 



enlightened with the sunbeams (so that they cause no putre- 



! faction), or if the air be stirred, as when the wind bloweth, 



I or in rooms open on all sides. 



4. Age most of all, but yet slowest of all, drieth ; as in 

 all bodies, which (if they be not prevented by putrefaction) 

 are dry with age. But age is nothing of itself, being only 

 the measure of time ; that which causeth the effect is the 

 native spirit of bodies, which sucketh up the moisture of 

 the body, and then, together with it, flieth forth, and the air 

 ambient, which multiplieth itself upon the native spirits 

 and juices of the body, and preyeth upon them. 



5. Cold of all things most properly drieth ; for drying is 

 not caused but by contraction ; now contraction is the pro 

 per work of cold. But because we men have heat in a high 

 degree, namely, that of fire, but cold in a very low degree, 

 no other than that of winter, or perhaps of ice, or of snow, 

 or of nitre; therefore the drying caused by cold is but 

 weak, and easily resolved. Notwithstanding we see the 

 surface of the earth to be more dried by frost or by March 

 winds than by the sun, seeing the same wind both licketh 

 up the moisture, and affecteth with coldness. 



6. Smoke is a drier, as in bacon and neats tongues, 

 which are hanged up in the chimneys ; and perfumes of 

 olibanum or lignum aloes, and the like, dry the brain and 

 cure catarrhs. 



7. Salt, after some reasonable continuance, drieth not 

 only on the outside, but in the inside also, as in flesh and 

 fish salted, which, if they have continued any long time, 

 have a manifest hardness within. 



8. Hot gums applied to the skin dry and wrinkle it, and 

 some astringent waters also do the same. 



9. Spirit of strong waters imitateth the fire in drying, for 

 it will both poach an egg put into it and toast bread. 



10. Powders dry like sponges by drinking up the mois 

 ture, as it is in sand thrown upon lines new written ; also 

 smoothness and politeness of bodies (which suffer not the 

 vapour of moisture to go in by the pores) dry by accident, 



