CENTURY IX. 107 



and large. 1 The cause is, for that, the impulsion be 

 ing the same in both, where there is greater quantity 

 of water, and likewise space enough, there the water 

 rolleth and moveth, both more slowly and with a sloper 

 rise and fall : but where there is less water, and less 

 space, and the water dasheth more against the bottom, 

 there it moveth more swiftly, and more in precipice; 

 for in the breaking of the waves there is ever a 

 precipice. 



Experiment solitary touching the dulcoration of salt 

 water. 



881. It hath been observed by the ancients that salt 

 water boiled, or boiled and cooled again, is more po 

 table than of itself raw : and yet the taste of salt in 

 distillations by fire riseth not ; for the distilled water 

 will be fresh. The cause may be, for that the salt part 

 of the water doth partly rise into a kind of scum, on 

 the top, and partly goeth into a sediment in the bot 

 tom ; and so is rather a separation than an evaporation. 

 But it is too gross to rise into a vapour : and so is a 

 bitter taste likewise ; for simple distilled waters, of 

 wormwood and the like, are not bitter. 



Experiment solitary touching the return of saltness in 

 pits upon the sea-shore. 



882. It hath been set down before, that pits upon 

 the sea-shore turn into fresh water, by percolation of 

 the salt through the sand : but it is further noted by 

 some of the ancients that in some places of Africk, 



1 Arist. Prob. xxiii. 1. And see the eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty- 

 first problems of the same section for the statements in the next three 

 oaragraphs. 



