a Terrestrial Powder; and the whole Bodie of Salt-Petre may be turn’d into Earth: Which last he elsewhere sayes is Done by the Odour only of a certain Sulphureous Fire. And in another place He mentions one way of doing this, which I cannot give you an Account of; because the Materialls I had prepar’d for Trying it, were by a Servants mistake unhappily thrown away.
And these Last Arguments may be confirm’d by the Experiment I have often had occasion to mention concerning the Mint I produc’d out of Water. And partly by an Observation of Rondeletius concerning the Growth of Animals also, Nourish’d but by Water, which I remember’d not to mention, when I discours’d to you about the Production of things out of Water. This Diligent Writer then in his instructive book of fishes,Lib. 1. cap. 2. affirmes That his Wife kept a fish in a Glass of water without any other Food for three years; in which space it was constantly augmented, till at last it could not come out of the Place at which it was put in, and at length was too big for the glass it self though that were of a large capacity. And because there is no just reason to doubt, that this Fish, if Distill’d, would have yielded the like differing substances with other Animals: