SECT. IT. 
Natural. 
SECT. III. 
Factitious 
laud. 
72 NATURAL HISTORY 
every fide, and the hands generally diffe-ent from one another : but 
before we come to examine the hands in- Cornwall, their varieties, 
and the ufes they are put to there, home particulars relating to hand 
in general, it’s origin, fhape, and places where we find it, will 
deferve our enquiry. 
By fand we mean a loofe incoherent congeries of pebbles, of 
no certain uniform fize or figure ; tranfparent more or lefs, of va- 
rious colours, ufually turning red in common fire, and in flrono- 
fire reducible into glafs. 
I lhall confider hands either as natural or factious. By natural 
fands I mean thofe, which have been in the fame, or nearly the 
fame ftate from the creation, diffufed through all parts of the earth. 
Sand viewed in a microlcope is no more than a parcel of little Hones, 
doubtlefs therefore they mull have begun to exift, and been formed 
by the fame laws that Hones were formed by ; now Hones were 
formed at firfl into hard folid maffes, in proportion to the quan- 
tity of fimilar materials and proper cement, and as they were divi- 
ded more or lefs by dilfimilar adjacent bodies ; where there was a 
great quantity or lapideous particles and few heterogeneous mixtures, 
there Hrata, rocks, and large Hones were formed ; but where the 
lapideous particles were more fcattered and difunited by the interven- 
tion of other bodies, there finall rubble, Hones, gravel, gritts, and 
the fmalleH and mofi numerous of all Hones, fand, did coalefce 
into thofe minute glebes which we at prelent find them in. This 
probably was the procefs in every part of the earth ; fo that fand is 
one of the primceval bodies, concreted at the fame time with Hones 
upon the higheH mountains, as well as in the valleys, and at the 
bottom of the fea, as well as upon dry land. Without queflion, 
thefe minute portions of Hone, which we call fand, were at firH of 
as different textures, hardnefs and foftnels, as the refl of Hones, and 
from the fame caufe ; but thofe of a foft and tender fubflance, be- 
came, in procefs of time, refolved into their earths, whilH thofe 
of a firmer Hrudure, fuch as fpar, flint, and cryflal, fubfifl to this 
very day, and are the prefent fands and gritts. 
Befides this natural land, there is alio a factitious one, which owes 
its origin to the fretting of river or fea-water ; for water, always in 
motion, preys upon the Hones, and grinds them by degrees into 
that Hony powder which we call fand : hence it is that the fand of 
a particular Ihore, cove, or bay, has generally the lame colour, and 
in a microlcope the lame HruCture as the rocks and Hones of the ad- 
jacent cliffs, and the Hrata under the fea, upon which the waves are 
perpetually working, and driving in to the fhore what they dalh off 
