NOVUM OROANUM 271 



which is seen in the preservation of grapes and other fruits 

 in sand or flour. Wax, honey, pitch, and other resinous 

 bodies, are well used in order to make the exclusion more 

 perfect, and to remove the air and celestial influence. We 

 have sometimes made an experiment by placing a vessel or 

 other bodies in quicksilver, the most dense of all substances 

 capable of being poured round others. Grottoes and subter 

 raneous caves are of great use in keeping off the effects of 

 the sun, and the predatory action of air, and in the north 

 of Germany are used for granaries. The depositing of 

 bodies at the bottom of water may be also mentioned here; 

 and I remember having heard of some bottles of wine being 

 let down into a deep well in order to cool them, but left 

 there by chance, carelessness, and forgetfulness for several 

 years, and then taken out; by which means the wine not 

 only escaped becoming flat or dead, but was much more 

 excellent in flavor, arising (as it appears) from a more com 

 plete mixture of its parts. But if the case require that 

 bodies should be sunk to the bottom of water, as in rivers 

 or the sea, and yet should not touch the water, nor be in 

 closed in sealed vessels, but surrounded only by air, it 

 would be right to use that vessel which has been some 

 times employed under water above ships that have sunk, 

 in order to enable the divers to remain below and breathe 

 occasionally by turns. It was of the following nature: A 

 hollow tub of metal was formed, and sunk so as to have its 

 bottom parallel with the surface of the water; it thus carried 

 down with it to the bottom of the sea all the air contained 

 in the tub. It stood upon three feet (like a tripod), being 

 of rather less height than a man, so that, when the diver 

 was in want of breath, he could put his head into the 

 hollow of the tub, breathe, and then continue his work. 



