24 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



Chalke-river, they will sniff and snort, it is so cold and tort. I suppose being so much impregnated 

 with o [nitre]. 



Advise my countrymen to try the rest of the waters as the Sieur Du Clos, Physitian to his most 

 Christian Majestic, has donne, and hath directed in his booke called " Observations of the Minerall 

 Waters of France made in y 6 Academy of Sciences." I did it transient, and full of businesse, and 

 aliud agens tanquam canis e Nilo. 



The freestone fountaine above Lacock, neer Bowdon, in the rode-way, is higher than the toppe of 

 Lacock steeple. Sir J. Talbot might have for a small matter the highest and noblest Jeddeau 

 [jet-d'eau] in England. 



It is at the foot of St. Anne's-hill, or else Martinsoll-hill, y 1 three springs have their source and 

 origen ; viz. the south Avon, which runnes to Sarum, and disembogues at Cliristes Church in Hants ; 

 the river Kynet, which runnes to Morlebrugh, Hungerford, and disembogues into the Thames about 

 Reading ; and on the foote of the north side arises another that runnes to Cahie, which disembogues 

 into the north Avon about Titherton, and runnes to Bristowe into the Severne. [See also Chap. III. 

 Rivers. J. B.] 



In the parish of is a spring dedicated to S*. Winifred, formerly of great account for its 



soveraignc vertues. What they were I cannot learne ; neither can I tliinke the spring to be of less 

 vertue now than in the time of Harry the Eight ; in which age I am informed it was of great 

 esteeme : and I am apt to conjecture that the reason why the spring grew out of fame was because 

 S'. Winifred grew out of favour. 



At the Devizes, on the north side of the castle, there is a rivulet of water which doth petrifie leafes, 

 sticks, plants, and other tilings that grow by it; which doth seem to prove that stones grow not by 

 apposition only, as the Aristotelians assert, but by susception also ; for if the stick did not suscept 

 some vertue by which it is transmuted we may admire what doth become of the matter of the stick. 



At Knahill [Knoyle] is a minerall water, which D r . Toop and D r . Chamberlayn have tryed. 

 It is neer M r . Willoughby's house : it workes very kindly, and without any gripeing ; it hath been 

 used ever since about 1672. 



D r . Guydot sayes the white sediment in the water of North Wiltshire is powder of freestone ; and 

 he also tells me that there is a medicinall well in the street at Box, near Bathe, which hath been 

 used ever since about 1670. 



Mr. Nich. Mercator told me that water may be found by a divining rod made of willowe ; whiche 

 he hath read somewhere ; he thinks in Vitruvius. Quaere Sir John Hoskins de hoc. 



In Poulshott paiish the spring was first taken notice of about thirty yeares since by S. Pierse, 

 M.D. of Bathe, and some few made use of it Some of the Devises, who dranke thereof, told me 

 that it does good for the spleen, &c., and that a hectick and emaciated person, by drinking this 

 water, did in the space of three weekes encrease in flesh, and gott a quick appetite. 



