VOL. XIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 11 



before any animal or vegetable was created, or the sun itself. But on the 

 creation of these the fresh water had its rise accidentally, because it owes its 

 being in great part (as I have elsewhere shown *) to the vapours of plants and 

 the breath of animals and the exhalations raised by the sun, and by this means 

 the rivers may be furnished from the sea by the breath of its own plants and 

 animals, so as to make what the wise man says very intelligible, Eccles. 1 , All 

 the rivers run into the sea, and the sea is not full ; into the place from whence 

 the rivers come, thither they return again ; that is by way of exhalation and 

 vapours. 



Now that the sea-water is made fresh by the breath -|- of plants growing in it, 

 I have elsewhere demonstrated;;}: thus I took a long glass body, and having filled 

 it pretty full with sea water, taken up at Scarborough, I put into it common 

 sea-weed, fresh and new gathered, some with the roots naked, and some grow- 

 ing on and adhering to stones : the glass body being full, I put on it a head 

 with a beak, and adapted a receiver to it, all without any lute or closing the 

 joints ; from these plants distilled daily, though in a small quantity, a fresh, 

 very sweet, and potable water, which has no empyreuma or unpleasant taste, as 

 all those distilled by fire necessarily have. 



I urge this experiment, as the most natural, most easy, and most safe way, 

 of having sweet water from the sea, and which may be of greater use than per- 

 haps some are apt at the first to fancy, even to supply the necessity of na- 

 vigators. || 



An Account of the Increase of freight in Oil of Vitriol exposed to t/ie Air, 



By W. G. N° 156, p. 496. 



Since Mr. Boyle has made the air a subject of his observations, the learned 

 world is sufiiciently taught what share it has in producing effects unknown be- 

 fore; and if, from the hint thus obtained, we reflect on the infinite variety of 

 steams constantly emitted from all sorts of bodies into the atmosphere, which 

 are there dissolved as it were in a common menstruum, we have reason to ex- 

 pect therein particles enough of all shapes, sizes, and motions, fit and proper to 

 alter the texture, diminish or increase the bulk and weight, of almost any body 

 exposed to its action. 



• De Font. Med. Angl. — Orig. 



f By the breath of plants is here meant the humidity ejthaled from them, 

 % De Font. Med. Angl. — Orig. 



U Respecting the methods of obtaining sweet water from sea- water, the reader is referred to vol. i, 

 p. 549 of this Abridgment, 



C2 



