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MEMORIALS OF RAT : 



August the 20th, I lodged at Buxton or Buckstone, 

 and that night entered Pool's Hole, which is about half a 

 mile distant from thence. The bottom of this hole is all 

 very uneven and slippery, and somewhat dangerous to 

 walk in ; the water therein dropping from the top, petri- 

 fies into a white crumbling stone, somewhat like alabaster, 

 and wherever there is a drop of water distilling constantly 

 from the top, there is under it a pillar of stone, which, 

 by degrees, rises higher and higher, and will at last, 

 doubtless, come to touch the very top. One of these 

 pillars, more large and remarkable than the rest, they call 

 the font, for its likeness ; for they have all of them a 

 cavity in the head, containing a good quantity of water, 

 into which the drops fall. The water entire petrifies not, 

 but there be in it atoms of stone dissolved and swimming, 

 as do the parts of a metal dissolved in a convenient men- 

 struum ; with these, whether the water being overcharged 

 doth precipitate or let go some, or whether by adhesion 

 or similary attraction some of them leave the water, and 

 stick to others till at last they compound a great mass ? 

 For as common or rain water falling upon a stone doth 

 continually carry away some insensible ramenta or atoms 

 of it, which probably are sustained by the water as by a 

 convenient menstruum, so here the water being more than 

 sated or impregnated with lapideous atoms falling upon 

 a stone doth continually let some go, which, being of the 

 same nature, adhere to the stone and augment its bulk. 

 In the rude rock there be some stones which imitate a 

 bacon flitch, some a lion, &c., which they call by those 

 names. There is in it a place which they call the Queen's 

 pillar, because Mary, Queen of Scots, went in so far ; 

 beyond which it is not easy to go without climbing on 

 your hands and knees. Sometimes, in a rainy winter, 

 this cave at the bottom is full of water, which gusheth 

 out in great plenty at the mouth of it. At Buxton I 

 saw and felt the water in the hot-well, which is nothing 

 near so hot as the waters at Bath. Hereabout are very 

 many hot springs, and some cold ones near them, but not 



