588 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67I. 



with Copernicus, except that he makes the firmament to have the earth for its 

 centre. He observes further, that the Copernican system, rightly understood, 

 (or rather as he wrongly understood it) attributes no motion at all to the earth ; 

 for motion being taken for nothing else than for a successive application of a 

 body to the several parts of the immediately encompassing and neighbouring 

 bodies, what is called the diurnal motion of the earth belongs rather to the mass 

 composed of the earth, the seas, and the air, than to the earth in particular, 

 which is to be esteemed in a perfect rest, forasmuch as she is carried away by 

 the torrent of the matter wherein she swims; just as we say, that a man is at 

 rest that sleeps in a ship, while the ship is indeed in motion; and so that which 

 is called the annual motion of the earth, does not all appertain to her, nor even 

 to the composed mass of earth, water, and air, but to the celestial matter which 

 •carries this mass about the sun. After this he discourses of the nature of the 

 stars and their influences. Next he renders an account of gravity and levity, 

 and makes gravity nothing else but a less levity. And lastly, he concludes thi? 

 part with the doctrine of the flux and reflux of the sea, as depending on the 

 pressure of the moon. 



In the third part he explains the nature of the earth, and of the bodies that 

 are either contained in it or are about it, as the air, water, fire, salts, oils, me- 

 tals, minerals, and meteors. Where, among many other strange remarks, he 

 declares that though the transmutation of baser metals into silver or gold be not 

 absolutely impossible, yet morally it is, forasmuch as men not knowing in par- 

 ticular, what is the figure and size of the little particles that enter into the com- 

 position of metals, nor the shape and size of the other ingredients, that may be 

 necessary to eff^ect this transmutation, nor have yet found the secret to unite 

 them together; that therefore it may very well be concluded, that if it be true 

 what is said of some chemists having formerly converted lead into gold, it has 

 happened by so great a chance, as if a handful of sand being let fall from on 

 high upon a table, the grains had so orderly ranged themselves, as to make one 

 read distinctly a page of Virgil's ^Eneid. 



In the fourth he has endeavoured to comprise all that he thinks is hitherto 

 with any certainty known of man ; where, as usual, he utters a number of odd 

 and whimsical fancies. 



IV. Novae Hypotheseos de Pulmonum Motu et Respirationis usu Specimen. 

 Londini, 1671, in Svo. 



This anonymous tract contains nothing that requires particular notice. 



