64 NATURAL HISTORY. 



the body in cells and cloisters, without going abroad, 

 yet they give space unto bodies to turn into vapour ; 

 to return into liquor, and to separate one part from 

 another. So as nature doth expatiate, although it 

 hath not full liberty : whereby the true and ultime 

 operations of heat are not attained. But if bodies 

 may be altered by heat, and yet no such recipro 

 cation of rarefaction, and of condensation, and of 

 separation, admitted, then it is like that this Pro 

 teus of matter, being held by the sleeves, will turn 

 and change into many metamorphoses. Take there 

 fore a square vessel of iron, in form of a cube, and 

 let it have good thick and strong sides. Put into 

 it a cube of wood, that may fill it as close as may 

 be, and let it have a cover of iron, as strong at least 

 as the sides, and let it be well luted, after the 

 manner of the chemists. Then place the vessel 

 within burning coals, kept quick kindled for some 

 few hours space. Then take the vessel from the 

 fire, and take off the cover, and see what is become 

 of the wood. I conceive, that since all inflam 

 mation and evaporation are utterly prohibited, and 

 the body still turned upon itself, that one of these 

 two effects will follow : either that the body of the 

 wood will be turned into a kind of &quot; amalgama,&quot; as 

 the chemists call it, or that the finer part will be 

 turned into air, and the grosser stick as it were 

 baked, and incrustate upon the sides of the vessel, 

 being become of a denser matter than the wood 

 itself crude. And for another trial, take also water, 

 and put it in the like vessel, stopped as before, but 



