CENTURY VIII, 421 



to it, he is ready to fall : for imagining a fall, it 

 putteth his spirits into the very action of a fall. 

 So many upon the seeing of others bleed, or strangled, 

 or tortured, themselves are ready to faint, as if they 

 bled, or were in strife. 



Experiment solitary touching preservation of bodies. 



796. Take a stock-gilly-flower, and tie it gently 

 upon a stick, and put them both into a stoop-glass 

 full of quicksilver, so that the flower be covered : 

 then lay a little weight upon the top of the glass 

 that may keep the stick down ; and look upon them 

 after four or five days ; and you shall find the 

 flower fresh, and the stalk harder and less flexible 

 than it was. If you compare it with another flower 

 gathered at the same time, it will be the more mani 

 fest. This sheweth, that bodies do preserve ex 

 cellently in quicksilver ; and not preserve only, but 

 by the coldness of the quicksilver indurate ; for the 

 freshness of the flower may be merely conservation ; 

 which is the more to be observed, because the quick 

 silver presseth the flower ; but the stiffness of the 

 stalk cannot be without induration, from the cold, as 

 it seemeth, of the quicksilver. 



Experiment solitary touching the growth or multiplying 



of metals. 



797. It is reported by some of the ancients, that 

 in Cyprus there is a kind of iron, that being cut into 

 little pieces, and put into the ground, if it be well 



