CHAP, i S Y L V A 9 



digested, for distribution through every part of the 

 plant ; and therefore had need be such as should feed, 

 not starve, infect or corrupt ; which depends upon 

 the nature and quality of the mix'd, with what other 

 virtue, spirit, mineral, or other particles, accompanying 

 the purest springs, (to appearance) passing through 

 the closest strainers. This therefore requires due 

 examination, and sometimes exposure to the air and 

 sun, and accordingly the crudity, and other defects 

 taken off and qualified : All which, rain-water, that 

 has had its natural circulation, is greatly free from, so 

 it meets with no noxious vapours in the descent, as 

 it must do passing through fuliginous clouds of smoak 

 and soot, over and about great cities, and other 

 vulcanos, continually vomiting out their acrimonious, 

 and sometimes pestiferous fervor, infecting the ambient 

 air, as it perpetually does about London, and for many 

 adjacent miles, as I have elsewhere 1 shew'd. 



In the mean time, whether water alone is the cause 

 of the solid and bulky part, and consequently of the 

 augmentation of trees and plants, without any thing 

 more to do with that element (tho* as it serves to 

 transport some other matter) is very ingenuously 

 discuss'd, and curiously enquired into by Dr. Woodward, 

 in his History of the Earth ; fortified with divers nice 

 experiments, too large to be here inserted : The sum 

 is, that water, be it of rain, or the river (superior or 

 inferior) carries with it a certain superfine terrestrial 

 matter, not destitute of vegetative particles ; which 

 gives body, substance, and all other requisites to the 

 growth and perfection of the plant, with the aid of 

 that due heat which gives life and motion to the 

 vehicles passage through all the parts of the vegetable, 



1 Fumefugium. 



