LIFE AND DEATH. 321 



or in vaults under ground, or in the bottom of a well, will 

 preserve their freshness longer than those things that are 

 kept above ground. 



15. They say it hath been observed, that in conser 

 vatories of snow (whether they were in mountains, in na 

 tural pits, or in wells made by art for that purpose), an 

 apple, or chesnut, or nut, by chance falling in, after many 

 months, when the snow hatlr melted, hath been found in 

 the snow as fresh and fair as if it had been gathered the 

 day before. 



16. Country people keep clusters of grapes in meal, 

 which though it makes them less pleasant to the taste, yet 

 it preserves their moisture and freshness. Also the harder 

 sort of fruits may be kept long, not only in meal, but also 

 in sawdust and in heaps of corn. 



17. There is an opinion held, bodies may be preserved 

 fresh in liquors of their own kind, as in their proper men 

 strua, as to keep grapes in wine, olives in oil. 



18. Pomegranates and quinces are kept long, being lightly 

 dipped in sea water or salt water, and some after taken out 

 again, and then dried in the open air, so it be in the shade. 



19. Bodies put in wine, oil, or the lees of oil, keep long, 

 much more in honey or spirit of wine, but most of all, as 

 some say, in quicksilver. 



20. Fruits inclosed in wax, pitch, plaster, paste, or any 

 the like case or covering, keep green very long. 



21. It is manifest that flies, spiders, ants, or the like 

 small creatures, falling by chance into amber, or the gums 

 of trees, and so rinding a burial in them, do never after cor 

 rupt or rot, although they be soft and tender bodies. 



22. Grapes are kept long by being hanged up in bunches ; 

 the same is of other fruits. For there is a twofold com 

 modity of this thing; the one, that they are kept without 

 pressing or bruising, which they must needs suffer, if they 

 were laid upon any hard substance; the other, that the air 

 doth encompass them on every side alike. 



23. It is observed that putrefaction, no less than desic 

 cation in vegetables, doth not begin in every part alike, but 

 chiefly in that part where, being alive, it did attract nourish 

 ment. Therefore some advise to cover the stalks of apples 

 or other fruits with wax or pitch. 



24. Great wicks of candles or lamps do sooner consume 

 the tallow or oil than lesser wicks ; also wicks of cotton 

 sooner than those of rush or straw, or small twigs ; and in 

 staves of torches, those of juniper or fir sooner than those of 



VOL. xiv. Y 



