THE FOVRTH BOOKE 



Of the Naturall and Morall Historic of the 



Indies. 



CHAP. i. Of three kindes of mixtures or compounds, of the 

 which I must intreate in this Historie. 



HAVING intreated in the former booke of that which con- LlB - 

 cernes the Elements, and the simples of the Indies, in this 

 present booke we will discourse of mixtures and compounds, 

 seeming fit for the subject we shall treate of. And 

 although there be many other sundrie kindes, yet we will 

 reduce this matter into three, which are Mettalls, Plants, 

 and Beasts. Mettalls are (as plants) hidden and buried in i 

 the bowels of the earth, which have some conformitie in/ 

 themselves, in the forme and maner of their production ; 

 for that wee see and discover even in them, branches, and 

 as it were a bodie, from whence they grow and proceede, 

 which are the greater veines and the lesse, so as they have 

 a knitting in themselves : and it seemes properly that these 

 ininerales grow like vnto plants, not that they have any 

 inward vegitative life, being onely proper to plants : but 

 they are engendered in the bowels of the earth, by the 

 vertue and force of the Sunne and other planets, and in 

 long continuance of time they increase and multiply after 

 the manner of plants. And even as mettalls be pl 

 hidden in the earth, so we may say, that plants be living 

 creatures fixed in one place, whose life is maintained by 

 the nourishment which Nature furnisheth from their first 

 beginning. But living creatures surpasse plants, in that 



