550 PHILOSOPHICAL TUANSACTIONS. [ANNO I7OO-I. 



I never saw any oak that liad lain any time in any kind of earth where water 

 soaked into it, that was not turned of that colour : and I have seen many large 

 trees ol black wood taken up, as well as less pieces, and all of it was oak. It 

 looks at first taking up like ebony, and is very ponderous ; but as it dries it 

 splits, grows friable, light, and comes to be good for little. 



Abstract of a Letter from Dr. Jl'allis to Dr. Tyson, concerning Man s feeding on 

 Flesli. Dated Feb. 3, 1699. M° iQg, p. 769. 



Gassendus in one of his epistles espouses it as his opinion, that it is not ori- 

 ginally natural for man to feed on flesh ; though by long usage, at least ever 

 since the flood, we have been accustomed to it, and it is now become familiar 

 to us ; but rather on plants, roots, fruits, grain, &c. And Dr. W. takes it to 

 be the opinion of many divines, that before the flood men did not use to feed 

 on flesh, because of what God says to Noah after the flood, in Gen. ix. 3, 

 " Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green 

 herb have I given you all things;" compared with Gen. i. 29, where God says 

 to Adam, " I have given you every herb bearing seed, and every tree in the 

 which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat;" but with- 

 out any intimation of his feeding on the flesh of animals. Yet the Doctor had 

 some doubt remaining, seeing we lind very early that Abel was a keeper of 

 sheep, as well as Cain a tiller of the ground, both employments seeming equally 

 in order to their food and sustenance ; and their first clothings were the skins 

 of animals. It may perhaps be thought, that these animals were slain for 

 sacrifice, and the sheep fed only for that purpose ; but even tlieir sacrifices 

 seem to have been offered only as a portion, or first-fruits, of things appointed 

 for food ; and that as Cain was not to sacrifice the whole fruit of his tillage, so 

 neither was Abel the whole product of his sheep, but the best, that is the first- 

 lings of his flocks, and the fat thereof, reserving the rest for his own use. And 

 it cannot seem likely, that God would give to Noah after the flood a greater 

 dominion over other animals, than had been given to Adam in Paradise before 

 the fall. The Doctor then considers this permission to Noah, not as contra- 

 distinct from that to Adam, but rather as introductive of the prohibition which 

 presently follows, viz. Though he might eat flesh, even as the green herb, so 

 far as it might be wholesome food, yet " not with the blooil thereof;" that is, 

 not raw flesh ; not carnem crudum, or carnem cum cruore. The Doctor adds 

 also, that the same rule is given to other animals. Gen. i. 30, as is to man, at 

 ver. 29. " I have given them every green herb for meat:" yet there are, we 

 know, many carnivorous animals, without any further permission that we 

 know of. 



