Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 004.djvu/256

 there is a faint and slow Petrifying Spirit in Ookey Rock near Wells, and, as I hear, in some other Rocky Vaults in England, and elsewhere? Or do we yet know, what will more easily and speedily, and what more difficultly, be turned into a Stone? Or what the differing effects may be from the several kinds of Materials? Whether Bones, or Horns, or Album Græcum, &c. may not here be turned into Ostea-Colla, or to a better Improvement? And they, that have the command of Petrifying waters, may make such and many other tryals for considerable Discoveries in Philosophy. I know a Rock in England, which hath a Hole so deep, that the Neighbours do report and generally believe, that it is bottomless; And a stone may be heard to dash from side to side a pretty long time. Some Philosophical uses may be made of such deep holes. And the ground, which bears the fair stones, called Astroites, about Belvoir-Cstle in Lincoln-shire, and that which bears the little Diamonds near Bristol, and where the stones of peculiar as of Helmets, Scalops, Cockles, &c are found frequent on the surface, digg'd up in heaps, in such places the ground may be tryed, both raysed in Hillocks and sunk into Vaults.

4. I have by experience found, that there are some Vaults of no great depth, not at most above 4 or 5 feet, that will speedily dissolve stones, and release from the stony Ligature. Of this I reserve for you a further accompt; For I am already tedious, and this would involve into many Circumstances hardly Credible; whereof one is this, that being exposed to some assaults from the keenest Northwinds, it never yielded to the freezing of any thing placed there in the hardest Frosts of this year, or of the years 1663 and 1665: as if the Petrifying Spirit had some affinity with a long lasting Infrigidation, since that which unfoldeth the Petrifying Ligature, by the same property resisteth Frost also. So one would imagine: But by common Experience we know, that Frosts with Snow and Rain will dissolve many kinds of stone, and a very rich Marle, which for one, two, and sometimes more winters holds out against all weather, and looks all over very like greety stone. Chalk is a pregnant Compost for some Lands; the Frost and Snow will dissolve it, and make it run into good manure, when the Summer-heat with all the Summer-rain cannot dissolve it.