26 NATURAL HISTORY. 



that those creatures being engendered of putrefaction, 

 when they abound, shew a general disposition of the 

 year, and constitution of the air, to diseases of putre 

 faction. And the same prognostic (as hath been said 

 before) holdeth, if you find worms in oak-apples : for 

 the constitution of the air appeareth more subtilly in 

 any of these things, than to the sense of man. 



Experiment solitary touching the prognostics of hard 

 winters. 



737. It is an observation amongst country people, 

 that years of store of haws and heps do commonly por 

 tend cold winters ; and they ascribe it to God s provi 

 dence, that (as the Scripture saith) reacheth even to 

 the falling of a sparrow ; and much more is like to 

 reach to the preservation of birds in such seasons. The 

 natural cause also may be the want of heat, and abun 

 dance of moisture, in the summer precedent ; which 

 putteth forth those fruits, and must needs leave great 

 quantity of cold vapours not dissipate ; which causeth 

 the cold of the winter following. 



Experiment solitary touching medicines that condense 

 and relieve the spirits. 



738. They have in Turkey a drink called coffa? 

 made of a berry of the same name, as black as soot, 



1 Sandys, p. 52. The use of coffee was, when Bacon wrote, of compara 

 tively recent introduction at Constantinople. According to Abd el Kadir 

 ibn Mahommed (ap. Silvestre de Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe), who wrote 

 in the 16th century, it has been used from all antiquity in Abyssinia, and 

 passed from thence into Aden about the beginning of the 14th century. 

 From Aden it spread gradually over the Mahommedan world, and reached 

 Constantinople about the middle of the 16th century. I believe the first 

 scientific description of the coftee plant is that given by Jussieu, in the 

 Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1713. 



