water, there is a gentleman at this time in the City, of no ſmall worth that ſaith he had fair water ſtanding in a glaſſe divers years, and at laſt a plant ſprang out of it. Alſo if you put ſome plants, as water-mint, &c. into a glaſſe of fair water, it will germinate, and ſhoot out into a great length, and alſo take root in the water, which root will in a ſhort time be ſo increaſed, and extended, as to fill up the glaſſe: but you must remember that you put fresh water into the glaſſe once in two or three dayes. Hereunto alſo, may be added the experiment of Helment concerning the growth of a a tree; For (ſaith he) I took 2 hundred pound weight of earth dryed in an oven, and put it into a veſſell, in which I ſet a willow-tree which weighed five pound, which by the addition of water to the earth did in five years time grow to ſuch a bigneſſe, as that it weighed 169 pound, at which time I alſo dryed and weighed the earth, and within two ounces it retained its former weight. Beſides, the ancients have obſerved that ſome hearbs have grown out of ſnow being putrefied: and doe not we ſee that all vegetables are nourished, and increaſed with an inſipid water, for what elſe is their juice? If you cut a vine in the month of March, it will drop diverſe gallons of inſipid water, which water if it had remained in the trunk of the vine would in a little time have been digeſted into leaves, ſtalkes and grapes, which grapes alſo by a further maturation would have yeelded a Wine, out of which you might have extracted a burning Spirit: Now I ſay although this inſipid water be by the ſpecificall ſulphur and ſalt of the vine fixed into the ſtalks, leaves, and grapes of the vine, yet theſe give it not a corporificative matter, for that it had before, and an aptitude and potentiality to become what afterwards it proves to be: for indeed ſtalks, leaves, and grapes were potentially in it before, all which now it becomes to be actually, by vertue of the fun, and of the aforeſaid ſulphur and ſalt, whereof the two latter were originally in the ſmall ſeed, and therefore as I ſaid could not adde any bulk to them.
Moreover doe not we ſee that when things are burnt and
