Archelogia philosophica nova, or, New principles of philosophy containing philosophy in general, metaphysicks or ontology, dynamilogy or a discourse of power, religio philosophi or natural theology, physicks or natural philosophy / by Gideon Harvey ...

CHAP. II. Containing Problemes relating to Water.

• 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water?
• 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region?
• 3. How Glass is made.
• 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yields to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder.
• 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is.
• 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire.

I. VVHy is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water?

Answ. Because the water doth suddenly pierce into the Pores of iron, being now open, and violently expel the fire and air, (both which, as we have shewed in B. 1. Part 2. are the sole Causes of the softness of a body,) and being expelled, leave the same indurated by the weighty Elements pressing more forcibly and harder to their Center.

II. Whence is it, that there fals a kind of small Rain every day from 11 or 12 of the Clock to 2 or 3 in the Afternoon, under the AEquinoctial Region?

Answ. The Sun at his Rising and Descending, doth through his oblique Rayes excite a multitude of small vapours, which through the privative coldness of the air in the night are concrea∣sed into small clouds, but reduced into drops of rain through the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims when he is perpendicularly immi∣nent upon them.

III. How is Glass made?

Answ. The matter of ordinary Glass is generally known to be Ashes, or Chalck burnt out of stones, or both.

The Venice Glasses, differing from others in clearness and tran∣sparency, are made out of chalck burnt out of stones, which they fetch from Pavia by the River Ficinum, and the ashes of the weed Kall, growing in the deserts of Arabia between Alexandria and Rossetta, which the Arabians make use of for fuell. In the first Book, second Part, I have told you, how a body was reduced into ashes through the expulsion of its thinner glutinous moisture by the vibrating fiery minims. The same fire being intended doth through its greater violence enter, mollifie, diduct, and thence melt and equallize the courser thick remaining glutinous moisture by its own presence together with the air, which it imports along with it, whereby the Terrestial minims, that were before clot∣ted, are exactly and equally spread throughout the foresaid thick glutinous moisture. The fire and air being only admitted from without, & not incorporated with the said bodies through want of a matrix, & because they being in that extream overpowring quantity, that they may as easily free themselves from the said body, as they entered, are expelled again as soon as they are exposed to the cold ambient air, and so desert the body, leaving it glib, smooth, conti∣nuously hard, friable, rigid, and transparent. So that it appears hence, that Glass is nothing but water reduced nearer to its abso∣lute

nature, (which we have shewed is hard and clear,) by freeing it from the thin glutinous moisture (or air and fire incorporated with a small proportion of water) through barning its first subject into ashes, and afterwards by uniting, diducting, and equallizing its own parts contained in the ashes. By the forementioned thick or course glutinous moisture I intend a mixture of much water in∣corporated with a little earth, and least air and fire. That Glass is water nearer reduced to its absolute nature I shall prove by its pro∣perties.

1. That glib smoothness of Glass depends upon the continuity of the parts of water, necessarily accompanied by a glib smooth∣ness, because it doth not consist of any contiguous rough minims.

2. It is continuously hard, because water of her absolute nature is continuously hard.

3. It is friable, because the water is throughout divided by the minims of earth, which render it so brittle and rigid; whereas were it all water, it would be harder than any stone: It is transparent, because it is but little condensed by earth, whose condensation renders all bodies obscure.

2. Because it is luminous, that is, apt to receive the lumen from any lucid body, as being throughout porous, through which it is rendred capable of harbouring the obtended air.

Glass is distinguisht from Crystallin hardness and transparency, because this latter appropriates more of water in her absolute state, and less of earth.

IV. Whence is it, that so great a mole as a Ship yields so readily in turning or winding to so small a thing as a Rudder? This Pro∣blem will make plain, that an impulse is intended by a medium, or deferens.

A Ship swimming in the water, and being impelled by the wind or a board-hook, raiseth the water into a tumour before at her bowes, which is violently impelled, what by the air lifted up by the tumour, what by her own bent to recover that place behind at the stern, whence it was first propelled, (and where you shall al∣waies observe a hollowness in the water, proportionable to her rising before,) and therefore, as you may see, runs swiftly about both the sides, and meeting in both the streams abaft doth propel the Ship forward by a reflection; and this you may also perceive in

taking notice of that most eager meeting of the streams of water from both sides behind at the Rudder, which being removed to either side, viz. To Star-boord, or Lar-boord side, directs the Ship towards the sides; because the force of the water in returning doth beat hard against that side of the Rudder, which is obverted to her, as resisting most and collecting her force is shoved towards the opposite side of the Stern, whereby her head comes too to the other side; whence we may plainly observe, that a Ship doth not begin to turn before, but alwaies abaft. This I prove, A Ship hitting her breech against the ground at Sea usually striketh abaft, because she draweth more water there than before; now the shoving of the Helm to the other side brings her off immediately, and brings her head too; which is a certain sign, that a Ship is moved from abaft, and begins first to turn there. If it is so, it is beyond doubting, that the force of the water is forcible behind beyond imagination, and thence adding that intention to the impulse.

V. What is the cause of the swimming of a Board or Ship up∣on the water?

Because the water being continuously thick coheres together and will not suffer her self to be divided, whereby they happen to be lift∣ed up by the water.

VI. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire?

No, For although a slame is extinguisht by them, yet that hin∣ders not, but that fire may be contained within them in particles, and close shut up between their pores; This appears in Crystal, which being smartly struck by another hard body, doth emit sparks of slaming fire from it, like unto a Flint. So neither is Ice it self bare within its pores of some small particles of fire.