Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 003.djvu/160

 and boiled it in water, till it had altogether put off its salin taste, and that then he would have found, it would not have imbibed salt anew, any more than any other body calcin'd. 'Tis true, saith he, seeing the Air is full of salin steames, it cannot be otherwise, but that that cadaver of salt, having admitted the impression of the corpuscles flying in the Air, will taste saltish upon the Tongue, as all other bodies, that have past the fire; will do the like.

He relateth further, that two yeares agoe, when he was at Rome, in Clivo Scauri, there was digg'd out a whole house, which for above 10 Ages had been buried, from under the roots of herbes in a Garden of a Cittizen, a House of a very handsome structure, of Corinthian-work; and that there he met himself, among the rudera, very many vasa lacrymalia of Glass, which by length of time were become laminated into divers leaves, beautifyed with pavonaceous colous: the places like to Muscovy-Glass, fissil into leaves.

He maketh also mention of a vegetable seed, very common in the Fields of Denmark, which having been once heated red-hot, and then taken out and put in a cool place, would remaine hot and burning for fifty Houres together.

He describes also the method, which a certain Abbot, call'd Boncaudius, used to obtain a perpetual Heat; which was, that he thrust into the Earth a Pike oi about 20 foot long, and having thereby made a deep hole, (which was to be secured from the falling in of other matter) he poured into it ten pounds of Mercury, which by its ponderosity and the yielding of the subjacent soft Earth (for if that were hard and stony, or had springs of water, the effect was not like to follow) would continually sink lower and lower, and in some Moneths time insinuate it self into the lowermost parts of the Earth, and there meet with the Chambers of the subterraneous Heat; which issuing forth through that hole uncessantly, would moderately warm and cherish whatever should be placed over it; and so furnish us with a perpetual spring of warmth. Which device seems to our Author to be countenanced by what Acosta relateth Hist. Ind. l. 3. c. 19. viz. That in Guancavelica in Rh