NATURAL HISTORY. 



CENTURY VIII. 



Experiment solitary touching veins of medicinal earth. 



701. THERE be minerals and fossils in great va 

 riety ; but of veins of earth medicinal, but few ; the 

 chief are, terra lemma, terra sigillata communis, and 

 bolus armenus ; 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-armoniac 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 fabulous ages consecrated to Vulcan. 



Experiment solitary touching the growth of sponge*. 



702, About the bottom of the Straits are ga 

 thered great quantities of sponges, which are gathered 

 from the sides of rocks, being as it were a large but 

 tough moss. It is the more to be noted, because that 

 there be but few substances, plant-like, that grow 

 deep within the sea ; for they are gathered sometimes 



