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5

of union.  There are certain bodys to wch water will not at all or very difficultly stick as to grease, the leave of coleworts not handled, the feathers of swans and ducks, and it will there put it self into small bouls, or if it is there in a great quantity it will be round in the end if kept remaining level.  Mercury fastens either to glass, wood or stone, and hence they have given it the name of quicksilver, for when it is in a small quantity it runs upon those matters by the weight till it meets with a small hole wch retains it, but it easily fastens to tin, gold, and some other metals, and also is imbibed in the intervals of the parts and composeth but one body with them, and this is what the chimists call amalgamate.

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The Second Discours of The origine of fountains

The aqueous vapours wch rise out of seas, rivers, and moist earths being arrived to the midle region of the air, and haveing there formed clouds grow cold, and are not able to mount higher, because they meet with an air less condensed than that wch is near the earth, and that air being less heavy they canot sustaine themselves.  These vapours being agitated by winds meet one another and stick together and of many small drops they make sufficiently thick ones wch beginning to weigh more than the air wch is below and descending by little and little they meet with other small drops from whence they grow bigger sucessively, and by that means in the and come down drops of rain.  Those wch come from very high clouds are the more gross because they have more space to grow great in; and Aristotle is deceived when he holds the contrary:  the reason that he give is that if one cast a pail of water out at high window it will divide itself into more small drops than if one had not cast it from so high a place; but this comparision is deceitfull, for it is very true that a drop of water, as of an inch thick falling violently doth easily separate by the shock of the air into two or three parts, especially if there is a great wind, and so the grossed drops are not above three lines large and when two or three of these drops joyn together they presently after seperate but they canot arrive to the thickness of three lines diameter but by joyning many of them together; and one sees sometimes when the mists thicken very small drops of rain wch canot be discerned but when there is some blak object behind them.

Since that the rain is in its beginning very small, it is evident that to grow gross it must fall from a great hight; and it is for the reason that the rains in the winter are ordinaryly small because that the clouds are then but low.  I have observed that the air being covered with thick clouds and it raining thick with great drops at the very foot of a very high mountain, the drops were smaller as I went up the mountain and when I was almost at the top the rain was very small; I was then in a mist wch appeared to me to be a cloud when I was at the foot of the mountain.

One onely cloud pushed forwards by the violence of winds may rain successively though a lower space than 50 leagues, this one may remarking often-times by the havock wch hail makes that is formed out of one only cloud.

The rain being fallen penetrates into the earth by the small chanels wch is there finds, whence it is that when we dig a small depth into the earth we ordinarily meet with thes small channels, (whereby the water being assembled at the bottom of yen) when digged make well water, but the rain water wch falls upon hills and mountains having penetrated the surface of the earth, especially when it light and mixed with flint stones and the rootes of trees, it meets oftentimes with slippy earth, or continued rocks along wch it runs not being able to penetrate them till being at the foot of the mountain or a considerable distance from the top, it comes into the air and formes fountains, this naturall effect is easy to be proved, for first rain water falls all the year in a sufficient quantity to maintain fountains and rivers, as you may see by the following calculation, secondly you may observe that fountains do always incourage or diminish as it rains or doth not rain, and if there hath passed two or three months together without any considerable raine, they 

Transcription Notes:
mandc: question whether transcribing "ye" as "the" is preferred. It is archaic script and should be transcribed as written/seen?