l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683-4. 



bivalves, and turbinated. The descriptions of the different shells are illustrated 

 by engravings. 



Three Papers of Dr. Martin Lister, \st on the Nature of Earthquakes. 



N° 157, P- 512. 



The breath of the pyrites, as I have before shown, is sulphur, and it naturally 

 takes fire of itself. The material cause of thunder and lightning, and of earth- 

 quakes, is one and the same, viz. the inflammable breath of the pyrites: the 

 difference is, that one is fired in the air, the other under ground. For, what 

 is burned with lightning, smells of very brimstone ; and of earthquakes, the 

 sulphurous stink of waters smelt before, and of the very air itself after them. 

 They also agree in the manner of the noise, which is to be carried on, as in a 

 train fired; the one rolling and rattling through the air, taking fire, as the 

 vapours chance to drive ; as the other fired under ground, in like manner moves 

 with desultory noise. That the earth is more or less hollow, is made probable 

 by what is found every where in the mountains, viz. Natural cavities or cham- 

 bers, which the miners of the north call self-opens. These they frequently 

 meet with, some very great, and others less, running in small sinuses. Many 

 of them open to the day, discovering themselves without digging, as Pool's 

 Hole, and Oaky Hole. Again, the great and small streams, which arise from 

 under mountains, evince their hollowness. And that these subterraneous cavi- 

 ties are at certain times and in certain seasons full of inflamrnable vapours, the 

 damps in mines sufEciently witness; which fired, act just as iu an earthquake, 

 save in a less degree. 



Now that the pyrites alone, of all the known minerals, yields this inflam- 

 mable vapour, I think it highly probable, for these reasons. 1 . Because no 

 mineral or ore whatever is sulphurous, but as it is wholly or in part a pyrites : 

 and most of the English fossils which contain brimstone, are also found to hold 

 iron. 2. Because there is but one species of brimstone that I know of, at 

 least here in England : and since the pyrites naturally and only yields it, it is 

 but reasonable wherever brimstone is found, though in the air, or under ground 

 in vapour, to think that that also proceeds from it. For the sulphur vivum or 

 natural brimstone, which is found in and about the burning mountains, is cer- 

 tainly the effect of sublimation ; and those great quantities of it said to be found 

 about the skirts of the volcanos, is only an argument of the long duration and 

 vehemency of tliose fires. And though sulphur vivum, or rough brimstone, as 



simple and still more accurate contrivances of modern philosopiiers ; of which a description will be 

 given in some of the future volumes of this Abridgment. 



