Edmund Wyld, Esq. R.S.S. hath had a pott of composition in his garden these seven yeares that beares nothing at all, not so much as grasse or mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xx li. he will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously; and the party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earth composition through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no graines of wheat in it He hath also a composition for pease; but that he will not warrant, not having yet tryed it, ___________________________________
Pico's [Peaks.] - In this county are Clay-hill, near Warminster; the Castle-hill at Mere, and Knoll-hill, near Kilmanton, which is half in Wilts, and half in Somersetshire; all which seem to have been raised (like great blisters) by earthquakes. [Bishop TANNER adds in a note, "Suthbury hill, neer Collingburn, which I take to be the highest hill hi Wiltshire".] That great vertuoso, Mr. Francis Potter, author of the "Interpretation of 666,"† Rector of Kilmanton, took great delight in this Knoll-hill. It gives an admirable prospect every way; from hence one may see the foss-way between Cyrencester and Glocester, which is fourty miles from this place. You may see the Isle of Wight, Salisbury steeple, the Severne sea, &c. It would be an admirable station for him that shall make a geographical description of Wilts, Somersett, &c.
†[The full title of the work referred to is a curiosity in literature. It exemplifies forcibly the abstruse and mystical researches in which the literati of the seventeenth century indulged.
"An Interpretation of the Number 666; wherein not only the manner how this Number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated; but it is also shewed that this Number is an exquisite and perfect character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that state of government to which all other notes of Antichrist do agree; with all knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be materially made against it". (Oxford, 1642, 4to.) So general were studies of this nature at the time, that Potter's volume was translated into French, Dutch, and Latin. The author, though somewhat visionary, was a profound mathematician, and invented several ingenious mechanical instruments. In Aubrey's "Lives", appended to the Letters from the Bodleian, 8vo. 1813, will be found an interesting biographical notice of him.-J. B.]
CHAPTER V. MINERALLS AND FOSSILLS.
[IN its etymological sense the term fossil signifies that which may be dug out of the earth. It is strictly applicable therefore, not only to mineral bodies, and the petrified forms of plants and animals found in the substance of the earth, but even to antiquities and works of art, discovered in a similar situation. The chapter of Aubrey's work now under consideration mentions only mineralogical subjects; whence it would appear that he employed the term "mineralls" instead of "metals", including such mineral substances as were not metals under the general term "fossills".
At present the term fossil is restricted to antediluvian organic remains; which are considered by Aubrey, in Chapter VII. under the name of "Formed Stones".-J. B.]
THIS county cannot boast much of mineralls: it is more celebrated for superficiall treasure.
At Dracot Cerne and at Easton Piers doe appeare at the surface of the earth frequently a kind of bastard iron oare, which seems to be a vancourier of iron oare, but it is in small quantity and course.
At Send, vulgarly called Seen, the hill whereon it stands is iron- oare, and the richest that ever I saw. (See Chap. II.)