Varieties: or, A surveigh of rare and excellent matters necessary and delectable for all sorts of persons. Wherein the principall heads of diverse sciences are illustrated, rare secrets of naturall things unfoulded, &c. Digested into five bookes, whose severall chapters with their contents are to be seene in the table after the epistle dedicatory. By David Person, of Loghlands in Scotland, Gentleman.

Sect. 10.

Of fishes, and their generation: How fowles are gene∣rated in the waters. If gold can be made potable; and of the matter of precious stones.

Question. BVt you have not as yet sufficiently en∣ough satisfied my minde of that scruple, wherewith it was perplexed: for I was saying that if things on the earth were propagated by their likes, as by the authority of Aristotle I did instance, and al∣most unto that the Lyrick Poet Horace applaudeth while he saith, although not to this purpose wholly, fortes creantur fortibus, and againe, Nec imbellem fe∣roces progenerant aquilae columbam;* 1.1 then how can fi∣shes be said to live, and have their substance of, and by the Sea? For if the Maxime both of Philosophie and medicine hold good, that we exist and have our being of those things wherof we are nourished; surely fishes existing of a more grosse and more materiall sub∣stance than water is, cannot be said to live by the Sea; much lesse Fowles, seeing their flesh is more terrestri∣all, and for that cause they build and bring forth their young ones upon the Land; whereas otherwayes it

should seeme that they live and have their essence, and existence from the Sea: for in Genesis we reade, that the Great Creator commanded the waters to pro∣duce swimming, creeping, and flying creatures upon the Earth?

Answ. With Aristotle whom you object to mee, you must consider, that in the fire and ayre no Crea∣ture is framed: For so in the 4^th. Booke of his Mete∣ors he holdeth: from them two indeed he admitteth vertue and power to bee derived to those which are created upon the Earth,* 1.2 and in the Waters; true it is, that Fowles being volatile Creatures, their generati∣on should have fallen by lot in the Ayre; but in re∣spect that none can be well procreated there, the next Element became their bringer forth; as neerest in na∣ture to the Ayre, and as being little lesse than a con∣densed Ayre, from which these Foules might soone flye up: so that all things here below being made up of a dry, and then of a thickned moist mat∣ter, which are the Earth and Waters; no marvell, that properly of them all things are procreated: how∣beit they may be said to have their temperament and vertues from the superior two, fire and ayre: and where it may be objected how the matter of Fishes should be so firme and solid, they being nourished by the thin, waterish, and slimy substance of the waters; it must be considered that the Seas and waters are not so exempted of some mixture of earth in them, out that even as the Earth some way participateth of them,* 1.3 so they impart partly to it their moistnesse a∣gaine; of which mixture both Fowles and Fishes doe live.

Quest. What is your opinion concerning the po∣tablenesse of Gold, after which, our Chymists, and Extractors of quintessences, Calcinators, and Pulve∣rizers of Metals make such search and labour; where∣by Gold made drinkable (as they undertake) our youth neere spent may be renewed againe, all diseases cured, and the drinker thereof to live for many Ages?

Answ. Although Gold of all Metals be the King,* 1.4 as the Sun amongst the Planets, and that it is the sof∣test of all, and most volatile, so the easiest to bee ex∣tended and wrought upon; in so much, that one Ounce of it is able to cover many Ounces, and Pounds of Silver: yea, although of all Metals it abideth the tri∣all of the fire best, and loseth nothing by it, as Arist. in the 3. Booke of his Meteors, cap. 6. observeth; yet that it may be made potable I doubt much of it, and am a Galenist in that point, and that for these two no∣table reasons which Iulius Scaliger setteth downe in his 272. Exercitation.

First, because there must bee some resemblance betwixt the body nourished and the thing that nouri∣sheth; which no more holdeth betwixt our bodies and gold, than betwixt a living and a dead thing.

Secondly, because nothing is able to nourish us, which the heate of our stomack is not able to digest: But such is Gold, and therefore, &c. Alwayes of the worth and vertue of Gold, reade Plinius, lib. 1. &c. 3. cap•• 1.

Quest. Now what is the matter of precious-Stones;* 1.5 earth it cannot be; for it is heavie, dull, and blackish coloured; they are glitteringly transparent like Stars: water it is not, for even Crystalline Ice will dissolve,

whereas they for hardnesse are almost indissoluble: yet Cleopatra is said to have liquefide a Pearle to An∣thonie.

Answ. They are of most purified earth, not with∣out some mixture of moistnesse, but such as are both mavellously by the force of the Sun subtilized, tem∣pered, and concocted.

Notes

• * 1.1

  How fishes can be said to live by the Sea see∣ing their flesh is more firme then the wa∣ter whereof they are gene∣••••ted.
• * 1.2

  How fowles are brought forth in waters
• * 1.3

  The cause of the firme flesh of fishes.
• * 1.4

  That Gold cannot bee made potable.
• * 1.5

  The matter of precious stones