14 NATURAL HISTORY. 



French disease unto the name of the disease of Naples, 

 do report, that at the siege of Naples, there were cer 

 tain wicked merchants that barrelled up man s flesh, 

 of some that had been lately slain in Barbary, and sold 

 it for tunney ; and that upon that foul and high 

 nourishment was the original of that disease. Which 

 may well be, for that it is certain that the cannibals 

 in the West Indies eat man s flesh : and the West 

 Indies were full of the pox when they were first disco 

 vered : and at this day the mortalest poisons, prac 

 tised by the West Indians, have some mixture of the 

 blood, or fat, or flesh of man : and divers witches 

 and sorceresses, as well amongst the heathen as 

 amongst the Christians, have fed upon man s flesh, to 

 aid, as it seemeth, their imagination, with high and 

 foul vapours. 



Experiment solitary touching the version and trans 

 mutation of air into water. 



27. It seemeth that there be these ways, in like 

 lihood, of version or vapours of air, into water and 

 moisture. The first is cold ; which doth manifestly 

 condense ; as we see in the contracting of the air in 

 the weather-glass ; whereby it is a degree nearer to 

 water. We see it also in the generation of springs, 

 which the ancients thought, very probably, to be 

 made by the version of air into water, holpen by the 

 rest, which the air hath in those parts ; whereby it 

 cannot dissipate. And by the coldness of rocks ; for 

 there springs are chiefly generated. We see it also 

 in the effects of the cold of the middle region, as 



