TO A HISTORY OF 



seen ti; iwiA up the desert, is often found, in other places, to assisi 

 the uxuriance of vegetation ; and water, which, next to fire, is the 

 most fluid substance upon earth, nevertheless, gives all other hodiea 

 their firmness and durability ; so that every element seems to be a 

 powerful servant, capable either of good or ill, and only awaiting ex- 

 ternal direction, to become the friend or the enemy of mankind. These 

 opposite qualities, in this substance in particular, have not failed to 

 excite the admiration and inquiry of the curious. 



That water is the most fluid penetrating body, next to fire, and the 

 most difficult to confine, is incontestibly proved by a variety of experi- 

 ments. A vessel through which water cannot pass, may be said to 

 retain any thing. It may be objected indeed, that syrups, oils, and 

 honey, leak through some vessels that water cannot pass through ; 

 but this is far from being the result of the greater tenuity and fine- 

 ness of their parts ; it is owing to the rosin wherewith the wood of such 

 vessels abounds, which oils and syrups have a power of dissolving ; 

 so that these fluids, instead of finding their way, may more properly 

 be said to eat their way through the vessels that contain them. How- 

 ever, water will at last find its way even through these ; for it is 

 known to escape through vessels of every substance, glass only ex- 

 cepted. Other bodies may be found to make their way out more 

 readily indeed ; as air, when it finds a vent, will escape at once ; and 

 quicksilver, because of its weight, quickly penetrates through what- 

 ever chiuky vessel confines it: but water, though it operates more 

 slowly, yet always finds a more certain issue. As, for instance, it is 

 well known that air will not pass through leather ; which water will 

 very readily penetrate. Air also may be retained in a bladder; bul 

 water will quickly ooze through. And those who drive this to the 

 greatest degree of precision, pretend to say, that it will pass through 

 pores ten times smaller than air can do. Be this as it may, we are very 

 certain that its parts are so small that they have been actually driven 

 through the pores of gold. This has been proved by the famous 

 Florentine experiment, in which a quantity of water was shut up in 

 a hollow ball of gold, and then pressed with a huge force by screws, 

 during which the fluid was seen to ooze out through the pores of the 

 metal, and to stand, like a dew, upon its surface. 



As water is thus penetrating, and its parts thus minute, it may easi- 

 ly be supposed that they enter into the composition of all bodies, 

 vegetable, animal, and fossil. This every chymist's experience con- 

 vinces him of; and the mixture is the more obvious, as it can always 

 be separated, by a gentle heat, from those substances with which it 

 had been united. Fire, as was said, will penetrate where water 

 cannot pass ; but then it is not so easily to be separated. But there 

 is scarce any substance from which its water cannot be divorced. 

 The parings or filings of lead, tin, arid antimony, by distillation, yield 

 water plentifully : the hardest stones, sea-salt, nitre, vitriol, and sul- 

 phur, are found to consist chiefly of water ; into which they resolve 

 by force of fire. " All birds, beasts, and fishts," says Newton, " in- 

 socts, trees, and vegetables, with their parts, grow from water ; and, 

 oy putrefaction, return t> water again." In short, almost every sub- 

 stance that we see, owes its texture and firmness to the parts of WT 



