Page:A description of Greenland.djvu/131

Rh thers (in Conideration of o many Authors of Credit, who affirm that they have been to this trange and wonderful Generation) have taken great Pains to demontrate the Caues and Probability of it phyically and philoophically, amongt whom is the learned Father Kirkerus in his Mundus Subterraneus; where he maintains, that the Semen of this extraordinary Generation is neither contained in thoe old Pieces of Wood, that drive in the Sea, nor in the Mucles originally; for a Piece of Wood cannot produce a living Animal, this exceeding the Virtue Nature has endowed it with; much les the Summer Froth of the Sea, which adheres to the rotten Piece of Wood, and may produce Shells or Mucles. Then he forms the Quetion, from whence comes this Semen or Seed, which produces uch a trange Fruit, as a living Bird? Which Quetion he trives thus to reolve; that, whereas he has been informed by certain 's Journals or Voyages into the Northern Seas, that this ort of Birds, peculiar to that Climate, make their Net and lay their Eggs upon the Ice; when the Ice by the Heat of the Sun thaws and breaks aunder, this innumerable Quantity of Eggs are likewie mah'd and cruh'd to Pieces, and beaten about the Waves; and that if that Part of the Egg which contains the Seed, encounters any ubject Matter proper to foment and brood it, and is received in it loco matricis, aited by the Temperament of the Air, Bird, which the call Alkes, which in the Winter Seaon contributes much to the Maintenance of the Green- landers.