OF EARTH. 



21 



where they have been sedulously gathered off, by many (not improbably) 

 thought to proceed from worm-casts, hardened by the air, and a certain 

 lapidescent succus or spirit which it meets with ; and this, for happening 

 most on downs very much exposed, (yet undisturbed,) is the more proba- 

 ble ; as, on the other side, it establishes our conjecture of the purest 

 moulds being capable of such a change ; that which is thus cast up by 

 the worms being so exceedingly elaborated and refined. Nor perhaps 

 are all those innumerable perforations, especially through the hardest sur- 

 faces, the labour of worms alone, but the effect of some nitrous spirit that 

 spews out those moleculse. In the mean time, let no man be over confi- 

 dent that because some earths are soft, fat, and slippery, they may not 

 possibly consist of sands, (of which there are so many kinds,) since it is 

 evident that even all fossil bodies, which can be reduced and brought to 

 sands, may, by contrition of the particles, be rendered so minute, as to 

 emulate the finest earths we have enumerated ; the compactness and ac- 

 cidental mixtures resulting, as we affirm, from things extrinsical, not ex- 

 cluding exhalations, passage of liquors, and several juices to them, or 

 conveyed by subterraneous steams and influences, be the stones or rock, 

 giareous, metallic, testaceous, salts, or any other concretes whatsoever. 

 And what if we should indeed suspect all earth to be arrant salt, nay 

 glass ; and that glass, how hard soever, the offspring and child of water, 

 the most fluid, crystalline, sincere, and void of all other qualities ? It is 

 not impossible, I think, but by the different texture of its parts, even 

 that liquid element may be brought to the consistence of a most different 

 body to what it appears. We know that water (besides that it was the 

 first immense body which invested the chaos) was by some thought to be 

 the mother of earth ^, (nay, the principia soluta of all mixts whatsoever) 

 and that the bottom of the sea was made by a perpetual hypostasis or sub- 

 sidence, which precipitated from every part of it to the centre. I do not 

 stand to justify these speculations, but to illustrate what I am about, name- 

 ly, that water is apt enough to be condensed and made hard ; and crude 



^ This was the opinion of Thales, the Milesian, who taught that all things originated from 

 water. Milton, where he describes the formation of the earth, makes a beautiful allusion to 

 this doctrine : 



On the wat'ry calm 



His brooding wings the sp'rit of God outspread. 

 And vital virtue infus'd, and vital warmth 



Throughout the fluid mass. taradise lost. 



