The mariners magazine, or, Sturmy's mathematical and practical arts containing the description and use of the scale of scales, it being a mathematical ruler, that resolves most mathematical conclusions, and likewise the making and use of the crostaff, quadrant, and the quadrat, nocturnals, and other most useful instruments for all artists and navigators : the art of navigation, resolved geometrically, instrumentally, and by calculation, and by that late excellent invention of logarithms, in the three principal kinds of sailing : with new tables of the longitude and latitude of the most eminent places ... : together with a discourse of the practick part of navigation ..., a new way of surveying land ..., the art of gauging all sorts of vessels ..., the art of dialling by a gnomical scale ... : whereunto is annexed, an abridgment of the penalties and forfeitures, by acts of parliaments appointed, relating to the customs and navigation : also a compendium of fortification, both geometrically and instrumentally / by Capt. Samuel Sturmy.

SECT. II. Who were the Inventors of Gun-powder, and some Principles of Philoso∣phy fit to be known.

SOme Italians have writ that Archimides the Philosopher was the first Inventor of Guns and Gun-powder: or whether this be truth or not, Learned Men are of divers minds; Munster, and Gilbert Cognot have written, that Guns were devised first in the year 1370 by a Monk, whom Munster calls Bertholdus; sithen our Country man Dr. Dee in his Mathematical Preface, and Discourse of Menader saith, that an English-man was first Inventor of Gun-powder in another Country, and they first made use of it from him; also our English Chronicles do report, that in the year 1380 a Monk did accidentally let fall a spark of Fire upon Brimstone and Saltpeter beaten to Powder in a Morter cove∣red with a Slat-stone, he seeing this mixture blow off the Stone from the Morter, did thereupon devise a kind of Powder, and taught the Venetians how to use the same in Pipes of Iron against the Ganvates.

Every Simple Body is either Bright and Light, or else Gross and Dark, and Ponde∣rous, and according to the variety and difference, it is always naturally carryed towards some one or other part; the World hath height as upwards, or depth as downwards; and the depth dependeth upon the Influence of the height.

All pure and rare bodies ascend, as the Fire more than the Air; but the thick and gross bodies descend, as the Earth more than the Water.

Nothing worketh naturally, but in that which is contrary to it, and more feeble; the form working, is aided by the Qualities; and the matter suffering, which suf∣fereth by the Quantity.

Nature is extremely curious, as well of her perfection, as her conservation; and then when all things conspire, as well the Action that cometh from the Agent, as the Passion from the Patient, hath proportion.

Accident hath its variety from the Subject, and goeth not from one thing unto ano∣ther.

Every Corporal thing reposeth in its natural place: Motion may be made any where within the Orb of the Moon. Nature admitteth no Empress.

A body rarifying it self, the place thereof increaseth as the body increaseth, the resistance of the moved proportion to the Mover, furthereth the motion; the longer the Chace of a Piece, the louder the Report; also the force of the stroke dependeth on the swiftness of the Course.