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bly prove what the materials are, yet the effects speak tnem to be somewhat 
analogous to those of gunpowder, ox pulvit fulminant, auntm fulminant* or 
lightning, which, though they seem very differing in many particulars, yet 
when X come to shew the causes and reasons of those effects, I shall mani¬ 
fest, that it is but one operation in nature, and that which causes the effect 
in one causes the effect in all the rest; and the outward appearances of the 
differing materials, and the different way of operating, are nothing but the 
habits, and dresses, and visors of the actors, and the differing modes and 
postures by which they act their several parts, which, when they have done, 
they are at an end, and have exerted their whole power, and there must be 
a new set of actors to do the same thing again; the oil of the lamp will be 
turned all into flame, but you must have fresh oil, if you will have the flame 
continued. So the materials that make the subterraneous flame of fire, or 
expansion, call it by which name you please, is consumed and converted to 
another substance, not fit to produce any more the same effect; and if the 
conflagration be so great as to consume all the present store, you might 
safely conclude that place would no more be troubled with such effects; but 
if there be remainders, either already fit and prepared, but sheltered from 
ascension by other interposing incombustible materials ; or that there be 
other parts not thoroughly ripe, and sufficiently prepared for such ascension, 
concurrence of after causes may repeat the same effects, and that totiet quoliet 
till all the mine be exhausted, which I look upon as a thing not only possible, 
but probable, nay, necessary, for that I find it to be the general method of 
nature, which is always going forward, and continually making a progress of 
changing all things from the state in which it finds them at the present; all 
things as they proceed to their perfection, so they proceed also to their dis¬ 
solution and corruption, as to their proceeding estate ; and where nature re¬ 
peats the process, it is always on a new individual. 
“ It is very remarkable that the Isle of Modunda, which it seems is all an 
uninhabited rock, was split, and a part of it tumbled down and sunk into the 
sea ; upon which occasion it seems it made a prodigious noise as of many 
cannon, and sending up at the same time a great cloud of dust, as they term 
it, which, m probability, was also mingled with smoke, which puts me in 
* Gold is not attacked by the sulphuric acid, and is 
attacked with most energy by the nitro-muriatic acid. 
very slightly acted on by the nitric acid; but is 
or aqua regia, as it is called, and the oxy-rnu- 
