NATURAL HISTORY. 



CENTURY VIII. 



Experiment solitary touching veins of medicinal earth. 

 701. THERE be minerals and fossils in great variety; 

 but of veins of earth medicinal, but few ; the chief are, 

 Terra Lemnia, 1 Terra Sigillata communis, and Bolus 

 Arminus ; whereof Terra Lemnia is the chief. The 

 virtues of them are, for curing of wounds, stanching 

 of blood, stopping of fluxes and rheums, and arresting 

 the spreading of poison, infection, and putrefaction : 

 and they have of all other simples the perfectest and 

 purest quality of drying, with little or no mixture of 

 any other quality. Yet it is true that the Bole-Ar- 

 minic is the most cold of them, and that Terra Lemnia 

 is the most hot ; for which cause the island Lemnos, 

 where it is digged, was in the old fabulo\is ages con 

 secrated to Vulcan. 



Experiment solitary touching the growth of spunges. 



702. About the bottom of the Straits 2 are gathered 

 great quantities of spunges, which are gathered from 



1 See, for some account of Terra Lemnia, Sandys s Travels, p. 18. (7th 

 edition). 

 3 That is, the Hellespont. See Sandys, p. 14. 



