the same Tenor. 'Tis obvious to every one, how easily and suddenly Humidity, or the Corpuscles of Water sustained in the Air, pervade and insinuate themselves into Cords, however tightly twisted, into Leather, Parchment, Vegetable Bodies, Wood, and the like. This it is that fits them for Hygrometers; and to measure and determine the different quantities of Moisture in the Air, in different Places and Seasons. How freely Water passes and carries with it Terrestrial Matter, through Filtres, Colatures, Distillations, &c. hath been intimated already.
- Water is not capable of performing this Office to Plants, unless assisted by a due Quantity of Heat; and this must concur, or Vegetation will not succeed. The Plants that were set in the Glasses Q, R, S, &c. in October, and the following colder Months, had not near the quantity of Water sent up into them, or so great an additional Encrease by much, as those that were set in June, July, and the hotter. 'Tis plain Water has no power of moving it self; or rising to the vast height it does in the more tall and lofty Plants. So far from this, that it does not appear from any Discovery yet made, that even its own Fluidity consists in the intestine Motion of its Parts; whatever some, otherwise very learned and knowing, Persons may have thought. There is no need of any thing more, for solving all the Phænomena of Fluidity, than such a Figure and Disposition of the Parts, as Water has. Corpuscles of that make, and that are all absolutely Spherical, must stand so very tickle and nicely upon each other, as to be susceptible of every Impression; and though not perpetually in Motion, yet must be ever ready and liable to be put into it, by any the slightest Force imaginable. It is true, the Parts of Fire or Heat are not capable of moving themselves any more than those of Water; but they are more subtil, light, and active, than those are, and so more easily put