At the gate at Wotton Common, near Cumnor in Berkshire, is a spring which I have great reason to believe is such another: and also at the foot of Shotover-hill, near the upping-stock, I am confident by the clay, is such another spring. Deo gratias. ___________________________________
Quæres for the Tryall of Minerall Waters; by the Honourable Sir
William Petty, Kt.:-
1. How much heavier 'tis than brandy ? 2. How much common water will extinguish its tast ? 3. What quantity of salt upon its evaporation ? 4. How much sugar, allum, vitriol, nitre, will dissolve in a pint of it ? 5. Whether any animalcule will breed in it, and in how long time ? 6. Whether fish, viz. trout, eeles, &c. will live in it, and how long? 7. Whether 'twill hinder or promote the curdling of milk, and fermentation ? 8. Whether soape will mingle with it ? 9. Whether 'twill extract the dissolvable parts of herbes, rootes, seedes, &c. more or less than other waters; (i. e.) whether it be a more powerful menstruum ? 10. How galles will change its colour ? 11. How 'twill change the colour of syrup of violets ? 12. How it differs from other waters in receiving colours, cochineel, saffron, violets &c.? 13. How it boyles dry pease? 14. How it colours fresh beefe, or other flesh in boyling ? 15. How it washes hands, beards, linnen, SEC. ? 16. How it extracts mault in brewing ? 17. How it quenches thirst, with meat or otherwise ?
8. Whether it purges; in what quantity, time, and with what symptomes? 19. Whether it promotes urine, sweat, or sleep ? 20. In what time it passeth, and how afterwards ? 21. Whether it sharpens or flattens the appetite to meate ? 22. Whether it vomits, causes coughs, &c. ? 23. Whether it swell the belly, legges; and how, in what time, and quantity &c. ? 24. How it affects sucking children, and (if tryed) foetus in the wombe ? 25. Whether it damps or excites venerie ? 26. How blood lett whilest the waters are dranke lookes, and how it changes ? 27. In what degrees it purges, in different degrees of evaporation, and brewed ? 28. Whether it breakes away by eructation and downwards ? 29. Whether it kills the asparagus in the urine? 30. What quantity may be taken of it in prime ? 31. Whether a sprig of mint or willow growes equally as out of other waters? 32. In what time they putrify and stink ?
CHAPTER III. RIVERS.
[THE following extracts include the whole of this chapter, with the exception of a few extraneous passages.-J. B.]
I SHALL begin with the river of Wyley-bourn, which gives name to Wilton, the shire town. The mappe-makers write it Wyley fulvous, and joiner a British and a Saxon word together: but that is a received error. I doe believe that the ancient and true name was Twy, as the river Twy in Herefordshire, which signifies vagary: and so this river Wye, which is fed with the Deverill springs, in its mandrels winding, watering the meadows, gives the name to the village called Wyley, as also Wilton (Wyley-ton); where, meeting with the upper Avon and the river Adder, it runnes to Downtown and Fording bridge, visiting the New Forest, and disembogues into the sea at Christ Church in Hampshire. On Monday morning, the 20th of September, [1669] was begun a well intended designe for cutting the river [Avon] below Salisbury to make it navigable to carry boats of burthen to and from Christ Church. This work was principally encouraged by the Right Reverend Father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, his Lordship digging the first spit of earth, and driving the first wheeled barrow. Col. John Wyndham was also a generous benefactor and encourager of this undertaking. He gave to this designe an hundred pounds. He tells me that the Bishop of Salisbury gave, he thinks, an hundred and fifty pounds: he is sure a hundred was the least. The engineer was one Mr. Far trey, but it seems not his craft's-master; for through want of skill all this charge and paines came to nothing: but An° Done 16. . .it was more auspiciously undertaken and perfected; and now boats passe between Salisbury and Christ Church, and carry wood and corne from the New Forest, the cartage whereof was very dearer; but as yet they want a haven at Christ Church, which will require time and charge.
[Of the numerous rivers in Wiltshire only a few are navigable, and those only for a short distance in the county. This is the consequence of its inland position and comparative elevation; whence it results that the principal streams have little more than their sources within its limits. The project of rendering the Avon navigable from Salisbury to Christ Church appears to have been first promulgated by John Taylor, the Water Poet, who, in 1625, made an excursion in his own sherry, with five companions, from London to Christ Church, and thence up the Avon to Salisbury. He published an account of his voyage, under the title of " A Discovery by sea, from London to Salisbury." Francis Mathew also suggested the improvement of the navigation of the river in 1655; and an Act of Parliament for that purpose was obtained in 1664. Bishop Ward was translated to the see of Salisbury in 1667, but the commencement of the works, as described by Aubrey, was probably delayed till 1669, in August of which year the Mayor of Salisbury and others were constituted a Committee "to consult and treat with such persons as will undertake to render the Avon navigable." Two other pamphlets urging the importance of the project were published in 1672 and 1675 (see Gough's Topography, vol. ii. p. 366); and in 1687 a series of regulations was compiled "for the good and orderly government and usage of the New Haven and Pier now made near Christchurch, and of the passages made navigable from thence to the city of New Sarum." (See Hatcher's History of Salisbury, pp. 460, 497.) The works thus made were afterwards destroyed by a flood, and remained in ruins till 1771. Some repairs were then executed, but they were inefficient; and the navigation is now given up, except at the mouth of the river; and even there the bar of Christchurch is an insurmountable obstacle except at spring tides.-(Penny Cyclopædia, art. Wiltshire.) As the Bishop dug the first spitt, or spadeful of earth, and drove the first wheelbarrow, that necessary process was no doubt made a matter of much ceremony. The laying the "first stone" of an important building has always been an event duly celebrated; and the practice of some distinguished individual "digging the first spitt" of earth has lately been revived with much pomp and parade, in connection with the great railway undertakings of the present age.- J. B.] ___________________________________
The river Adder riseth about Motcomb, neer Shaftesbury. In the Legeir booke of Wilton Abbey it is wrott Noþþre, "a Nodderi fluvii ripa", (hodie Adder-bourn, Naþþre}, "serpens, anguis", Saxonicè, Addar, in Welsh, signifies a bird.*) This river runnes through the magnificent garden of the Earle of Pembroke at Wilton, and so beyond to Christ Church. It hath in it a rare fish, called an umber, which are sent from Salisbury to London. They are about the bignesse of a trowt, but preferred before a trowt This kind of fish is in no other river in England, except the river Humber in Yorkeshire. [The umber is perhaps more generally known as the grayling. See Chap. XL Fishes.-J. B.]
* [Adar is the plural of Aderyn, a bird, and therefore signifies birds.-J. B.] ___________________________________