nettles burnt to ashes, and set the lye abroad all night in a winter evening; in the morning he found it all frozen; but with this wonder attending it; that the nettles themselves, with their forme and figure, were so lively and so perfectly represented on the ice, that the living nettles were not more. This gentleman, being as it were ravished at the sight, sent for the said Counceller, to be a witnesse of this secret, the rarity whereof he exprest in these verses:
Secret, dont on comprend, que, quoy que le corps meurs
Les formes font pourtant aux cendres leur demeure.
"But now this secret is not so rare, for M. de Claves, owe of the most excellent chymists of our times, shewes the experiment every day.
"From hence we may draw this conclusion, that the ghosts of dead men which are often seen to appeare in churchyards, are naturall effects, being only the formes of the bodies, which are buried in those places; or their outward shapes, or fi-
