and these very strong and fragrant of the Odour of the Mint: but the Heat of my Chamber, as I suppose, kill’d the Plant when it was grown to have a pretty thick Stalk, which with the various and ramified Roots, which it shot into the Water as if it had been Earth, presented in its Transparent Flower-pot a Spectacle not unpleasant to behold. The like I try’d with sweet Marjoram, and I found the Experiment succeed also, though somewhat more slowly, with Balme and Peniroyal, to name now no other Plants. And one of these Vegetables, cherish’d only by Water, having obtain’d a competent Growth, I did, for Tryals sake, cause to be Distill’d in a small Retort, and thereby obtain’d some Phlegme, a little Empyreumaticall Spirit, a small Quantity of adust Oyl, and a Caput mortuum; which appearing to be a Coal concluded it to consist of Salt and Earth: but the Quantity of it was so small that I forbore to Calcine it. The Water I us’d to nourish this Plant was not shifted nor renewed; and I chose Spring-water rather than Rain-water, because the latter is more discernably a kinde of πανσπερμια, which, though it be granted to be freed from grosser Mixtures, seems yet to Contain in it, besides the Steams of several Bodies wandering in the Air, which may be suppos’d to impregnate it, a certain Spirituous Substance, which may be Extracted out of it, and is by some mistaken for the Spirit of the World Corporify’d, upon what Grounds, and with what Probability, I may elsewhere perchance, but must not now, Discourse to you.
But perhaps I might have sav’d a great part of my Labour. For I finde that Helmont (an Author more considerable for his Experiments than many Learned men are pleas’d to think him) having had an Opportunity to prosecute an Experiment much of the same nature with those I have been now speaking of, for five Years together, obtain’d at the end of that time so notable a Quantity of Transmuted Water, that I should scarce Think it fit to have his Experiment, and Mine Mention’d together, were it not that the Length of Time Requisite to this may deterr the Curiosity of some, and exceed the leasure of Others; and partly, that so Paradoxical