Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 003.djvu/76



can hardly be described, how those substances, formerly specified to you, viz. Sweet-Meats, Sugar of Roses, &c. were dissolved by the Steams of the Sea; those and such like Compositions not only giving again, but being in the substantial parts so penetrated, that I did then call to mind, what M.  Garenciers observes of Sugar, how it intenerates the flesh, and disposeth to tabidness English Ladies upon alteration of weather, when the Sugar, as Salts in moist weather, becomes fluid in the body, and produceth effects not discernable at other times. I doubt not but the Saline Atomes in the Sea, and in Liquors, flote in little composures, till a principle of another nature occasions their solution. And thus we see in Diseases, that it is not the bare alteration of weather, but some peculiar mixtures in the Air, that incline to, or increase Consumptions and Coughs; since oftentimes the greatest Raines are less fatal to such bodies, as hazy weather tenders dangerously indisposed. All the alteration, our Sweet-Meats, and Lozenges, and Gamons of Bacon underwent, must be attributed to some peculiar principle in the Air: For, in all our Voyage to the Barbadoes we had not one Shower, that I remember. And if any will have the Air moist, while a constant Levant (that is, a drying) Wind fills our Sailes, at least during the long reach, how comes it to pass, that so much heat joyn'd with moisture doth not occasion putrid Feavers? And why in all that journey, and after in Jamaica, when the Glasses for many weekes flood open and uncover”d, did not the Lixiviate Salts of Wormwood and Ash contract any moisture? I am sure, I never set any Salts in the Sun or near a Fire, during my stay there, to preserve them, or to restore them to their coagulated forme. Nor will other Sea-Salts there loose much, if not kept dry by a Fire; no, nor lying on the ground. For, I have seen it kept so; yet if it immediately touch the ground, some of it will moisten away. But I have seen Tortoises dry-salted, and lie on the ground Rh