The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

INQUISITION OF THE CONVERSIONS OF BODIES.
TRANSLATED BY A. BLAIR, ESQ., 1830.
Inquisition of the Conversions, Transmutations, Water, as there is reason to think, is changed.lil6tiplications, and Productions of Bodies. into crystal; which may be seen in many caverns,
where the crystal hangs in drops.
EARTH, by fire, is converted into bricks, which You may have an experiment of wood, or
are of the nature of stones, and which we use for the stalks of plants, buried in quicksilver, whebuilding, like stones. So with tiles. ther they will harden, and, as it were, petrify,
Naphtha, which was that bituminous cement, or no.
wherewith the walls of Babylon were built, by Report has much prevailed of a stone bred in
time acquires exceedingly great hardness and the head of an old and great toad.
firmness, equal to stone. It is related that a certain nobleman, digging
In clayey lands, where are pebbles and gravel, in the bed of his pool, found an egg turned into
you shall find huge stones, concreted of pebbles stone, the white and yolk retaining their proper
and gravel, with stony matter interposed, as hard, colour; but the shell brightly sparkling, like a
or truly harder, than the pebbles themselves. diamond exquisitely cut in faces.
There are certain springs of water, wherein if Make experiment of some bodies, let down
you immerse wood, it shall be turned into the na- near to the bottom of a well, as wood, or other
ture of stone; so as that the part sunk in the softer substances; but let them not touch the
water shall become stone, the part above the water, lest they rot.
water shall remain wood. They say that the white of an egg, through
The viscous matter about the kidneys and long insolation, or exposure in the sunbeams, has
bladder, in the human body, is converted into a contracted the hardness of a stone.
pebble or stony matter. A stone, also, is often Mud, in water, is converted in the shells of
found in the gall-bladder; and sometimes, but fishes, as in muscles,-(the fish) which are found
this is most rare, in the vena porta. in pools of fresh water, that flow not, and are
Quaere, how much time is required, that the covered with moss. But the substance of those
matter of earth, in stone-quarries, may be con- shells is exceedingly delicate, clear, and glisverted into the stony nature? tening.
THE MASCULINE BIRTH OF TIME;
OR, THE
GREAT INSTAURATION OF MAN'S DOMINION OVER THE UNIVERSE
To God the Father, God the Word, God the passages of sense, and the kindling of greater
Holy Ghost, I address my most humbled and natural light, any infidelity or darkness may
ardent prayers, that, mindful of the miseries of arise in our minds towards the mysteries of God;
man, and of this pilgrimage of life, of which the but rather that, by the understanding cleansed
days are few and evil, they would open up yet and purified from fantastic and vain ideas, yet
new sources of refreshment from the fountains of wholly submissive and subjected to the divine
good, for the alleviation of our sorrows; and, also, oracles, those things which are of faith may be
that things divine may not in this be prejudiced rendered to faith.
by things human, nor from the opening up of the W. G. G.
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