16 A DISCOURSE 



transparent and gemmy ; few of them sharp or angular, but roundish, and 

 mixed with particles of a mineral hue, which being well dried, and bruised 

 on a hard serpentine stone, and mullar of the same, was, with little labour, 

 reduced to an impalpable whitish sand, untransparent, as it happens in 

 the bruising of most bodies, though never so diaphanous before. 



Yellow sand had the appearance of amber ; but, when bruised, it be- 

 came a paler, untransparent sand. 



Fat, rich earth, full of black spots, without much discolouring the 

 water, (as hardly did any of the sands,) being dried, was reduced to a 

 delicate sandy dust, with very little brightness. 



Marsh-earth contained a considerable quantity of sand, the rest re- 

 sembled the fat earth. 



The under-pasture mould had likewise a sandy mixture, and what 

 passed with the water after evaporation, seemed to be an impalpable 

 and very fine, untransparent sand. 



Clay consisted of most exceedingly smooth and round sands of several 

 opacous colours. 



Potters' earth, of different sorts, ground small, became like sand, of a 

 3'^ellowish gray and other colours, exceedingly polite and smooth. 



May thus be known : of twigs a basket twine. 



Like that from whence is strain'd the recent wine; 



This with the soil and crystal water fill, ^ 



Then squeeze the mass, while thro' the twigs distil •> 



The big round drops in many a trickling rill ; ; 



Soon shall its nature from its taste appear. 



And the wry mouth the bitter juice declare. 



We learn from hence a fat and viscid land ; 



It sticks like pitch uncrumbled to the hand : 



The moister mould a rank luxuriance feeds. 



Of lengthen'd grass, and tall promiscuous weeds ; 



O may be mine no over-fertile plain. 



That shoots too strongly forth its early grain ! 



The light and heavy in the balance try. 



The black and other colours strike the eye ; 



Not so the cold ; lo ! there dark ivy spreads. 



Or yews or pitch-trees lift their gloomy beads. warton'. 



