shun as much as might be their Environing Enemy, they had there preserv’d themselves unfrozen in the Form of a high colour’d Liquor, the Aqueous and Spirituous parts having been so sleightly (Blended rather than) United in the Decoction, that they were easily Separable by such a Degree of Cold as would not have been able to have Divorc’d the Parts of Urine or Wine, which by Fermentation or Digestion are wont, as Tryal has inform’d me, to be more intimately associated each with other. But I have already intimated, Eleutherius, that I shall not Insist on this Experiment, not only because, having made it but once I may possibly have been mistaken in it; but also (and that principally) because of that much more full and eminent Experiment of the Separative Virtue of extream Cold, that was made, against their Wills, by the foremention’d Dutch men that Winter’d in Nova Zembla; the Relation of whose Voyage being a very scarce Book, it will not be amiss to give you that Memorable part of it which concerns our present Theme, as I caus’d the Passage to be extracted out of the Englished Voyage it self.
“Gerard de Veer, John Cornelyson and Others, sent out of Amsterdam, Anno Dom. 1596. being forc’d by unseasonable Weather to Winter in Nova Zembla, neer Ice-Haven; on the thirteenth of October, Three of us (sayes the Relation) went aboard the Ship, and laded a Sled with Beer; but when we had laden it, thinking to go to our House with it, suddenly there arose such a Winde, and so great a Storm and Cold, that we were forc’d to go into the Ship again, because we were not able to stay without; and we could not get the Beer into the Ship again, but were forc’d to let it stand without upon the Sled: the Fourteenth, as we came out of the Ship, we found the Barrel of Beer standing upon the Sled, but it was fast frozen at the Heads; yet by reason of the great Cold, the Beer that purg’d out froze as hard upon the Side of the Barrel, as if it had been glu’d thereon: and in that sort we drew it to our House, and set the Barrel an end, and drank it up; but first we were forc’d to melt the Beer, for there was scarce any unfrozen Beer in the barrel; but in that thick Yiest that was unfrozen lay