so do they also as strangely delude our curiosity by In∣crement and Augmentation. Touching which Addi∣tionals, as we perceive not how we our selves decay, become lean, and consume; so neither do we discover how we grow tall and burnish; nor how trees shoot up to that monstrous height and bulk; and particularly, that as the corrosive salness of the Ocean frets away the very rocks in some places; so in other again, the stones and quaries themselves do manifestly increase: as may be seen in a certain Well in Somersetshire called Ochy-holle, the petriying Well at Knaresborow near York,Vide He∣vernium. H. ab He∣res. Dr Jor∣dan. Ma∣ginum. Boetium. &c. in many parts of Derby-shire, and as I my self have beheld in the Cave Goutiere near Tours in France, from which rock I brought away many morsels which the water had aug∣mented, superinducing a viscid calculous humor, or mat∣ter like scales, or new coas upon them, through the uncessant trickling of a cold spring, very ar in the bowels of the earth, to which we were lighted by torches. Not to omit those stately pillars of the high Altar in St. Chrysogono's Church at Trastevere in Rome, which seeming to have been formed of the purest orien∣tal alabaster, the Friers assured us were made of con∣jealed water, accidentally found in an old Aquaeduct, amongst whose ruines they were digging. I could rea∣dily produce other instances of this nature. But that Rocks and Stones themselves grow, and daily increase, I think no Philosopher can doubt. Those extravagant shells, and pretty curiosities which we finde in the very trails of some of them broken, do (methinks) evi∣dently discover that they were sometimes inclosed in a softer and less copious matter.Now the cause of this Petrifying property, is a stony∣juice; for the water which contains the Seeds of so many things, that of stones doth especially coagulate therein, producing those wonderful varieties which we daily en∣counter: some diaphanous and transparent, other dull and opake, according to the purity or impurity of that lapidescent humor (and the vapors) which happns to sub∣side in their Matrixes and Cavities wherein they are hard∣ned by the Sun and the Ayr: And hence it is, that they have observed the reason why divers Insects, Leaves, Straws, and the like, are so frequently found even in the very bodies of stones: an admirable collection where∣of is shewed (amongst other Rarities) by Signor Rugini an Illustris. of Venice. Thus it chances that many Plants,0