144 Qf ^Sulphur 



lodged itfelf in certain cavities and matrices, and 

 there concodted, penetrated, and elaborated the 

 matters it met with, and Jaftly, hardened them into 

 fuch lumps, balls, kidneys, and nuts, as we find. 



To come to the truth of the matter as near as 

 may be, if not to a pofitive demonftration, yet a 

 high probability, let us confider thofe bodies called 

 drufe and /inter. 



Upon both thefe we, among other ores, find 

 pyrites, not in a flux or run ftate, but as fo many 

 (mall irones or cryftaJs, in figure like the following 

 faks ; viz. ta^tarus vitriolatus, arcanum duplicatum, 

 common fait, &c„ which thus ufually moot from 

 their feveral waters. Thefe cubical and varioufly 

 angular pyrites-corpufdes fit fo loofe upon the rock 

 and tacks of the drufe, as to make it evident, they 

 did not fprout out of the fubjacent rock itfelf, but 

 were Iprinkltd or Town thereon : and really the cafe 

 is fo i namely, that they are damp wile fprinkled 

 upon thefe bodies, as I have fhewn above, chap* 

 tcr V. 



The quell ion therefore is, whether thofe parts of 

 the pyrites, we afterwards difcover upon reioiving it, 

 tx'.ixed m the mineral damps in a determined, for- 

 mal, acfuil ftate *, or, whether they were not fir ft 

 formed and produced in the courfe of forming the 

 ere itfelf? A queif.ion of fome importance, as it 

 no v/Hys follows, that becaufe upon analyiis, we 

 find i\\t pyrites principally to confift of fuiphur and 

 iron ; that therefore it is alio necefTarily produced 

 from the fame materials ; nor that, as many might 

 be apt erroneoufiy to imagine, the 'fuiphur is the 

 metalLfing principle ♦, things that lodge near, and in 

 each other, are not always to be taken for the 



natural 



