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then to have drawn off the water, in order to try whether it 

 would have immediately occupied the same dimensions as it did 

 before the condensation. If it had not done so, either imme- 

 diately, or soon afterwards, the condensation would have ap- 

 peared to have been rendered constant; if not, it would have 

 appeared that a restitution took place, and that the condensation 

 had been transitory. Something of the same kind might have 

 been tried with the glass eggs ; the egg should have been sealed 

 up suddenly and firmly, after a complete exhaustion of the air, 

 and should have been allowed to remain so for some days, and 

 it might then have been tried whether, on opening the aperture, 

 the air would be drawn in with a hissing noise, or whether as 

 much water would be drawn into it when immersed, as would 

 have been drawn into it at first, if it had not continued sealed. 

 For it is probable (or, at least, worth making the experiment) 

 that this might have happened, or might happen, because 

 perseverance has a similar effect upon bodies which are a 

 little less homogeneous. A stick bent together for some time 

 does not rebound, which is not owing to any loss of quantity 

 in the wood during the time, for the same would occur (after 

 a larger time) in a plate of steel, which does not evaporate. If 

 the experiment of simple perseverance should fail, the matter 

 should not be given up, but other means should be employed. 

 For it would be no small advantage, if bodies could be endued 

 with fixed and constant natures by violence. Air could then 

 be converted into water by condensation, with other similar ef- 

 fects ; for man is more the master of violent motions than of any 

 other means. 



III. The third of our seven methods is referred to that great 

 practical engine of nature, as well as of art, cold and heat. 

 Here, man's power limps, as it were, with one leg. For we 

 possess the heat of fire, which is infinitely more powerful and 

 intense than that of the sun (as it reaches us), and that of 

 animals. But we want cold, except such as we can obtain in 

 winter, in caverns, or by surrounding objects with snow and ice, 

 which, perhaps, may be compared in degree with the noontide 

 heat of the sun in tropical countries, increased by the reflection 

 of mountains and walls. For this degree of heat and cold can 

 be borne for a short period only by animals, yet it is nothing 

 compared with the heat of a burning furnace, or the correspond- 

 ing degree of cold. Everything with us has a tendency to 

 becomes rarefied, dry, and wasted, and nothing to become con- 

 densed or soft, except by mixtures, and, as it were, spurious 

 methods. Instances of cold, therefore, should be searched for 

 most diligently, such as may be found by exposing bodies upon 

 buildings in a hard frost, in subterraneous caverns, by surround- 

 ing bodies with snow and ice in deep places excavated for that 



