Neither needeth it seem strange, that Ashes, Ivy-Berries, small Fishes, or young Frogs, (which yet may have some other Conveyance,) should be thus transported by tempestuous Winds, considering to what Distance, and in what Quantities the Sea-Waters were carry’d by the Great-Storm, Nov. 26. 1703, of which an ingenious Friend sent me these Accounts from Lewes in Sussex, viz. That a Physician travelling soon after the Storm, to Tisehurst, twenty Miles from the Sea, as he rode along pluck’d some Tops of Hedges, and chewing them, found them Salt: That some Grapes hanging on the Vines at Lewes were so too. That Mr. Williamson Rector of Ripe, found the Twigs in his Gardens Salt the Monday after the Storm; and others observ’d the same a Week after. That the Grass of the Downs about Lewes, was so Salt, that the Sheep would not feed till Hunger compell’d them: And that the Miller of Berwick, (three Miles from the Sea,) attempting with his Man to secure his Mill, were so wash’d with Flashes of Sea-Water, like the Breakings of Waves against the Rocks, that they were almost strangled therewith, and forced to give over their Attempt.
I call’d this Doctrine of equivocal Generation, an Ægyptian Doctrine; because probably it had its Rise in Ægypt, to salve the Hypothesis, of the Production of Men, and other Animals, out of the Earth, by the Help of the Sun’s Heat. To prove which, the Ægyptians, (as Diod. Sicul. saith,) produce this Observation, That about Thebes, when the Earth is moistened by the Nile, by the Intense Heat of the Sun, an innumerable Number of Mice do spring out. From whence he infers, That all Kinds of Animals, might as well at first come likewise out of the Earth. And from these the learned Bishop Stillingfleet thinks other Writers, as Ovid, Mela, Pliny, &c. have, without examining its Truth, taken up the same Hypothesis. V. Stillingfleet’s Orig. Sacr. Part 2. Book 1. Chap. 1.
The before-commended Dr. Harris, from the Observations of Dr. Harvey, Sr. Malpighi, Dr. de Graaf, and Mr. Leewenhoeck, infers three Things concerning Generation as highly probable. 1. That Animals are ex Animalculo. 2. That the Animalcules are originally in femine Marium, & non in Fœminis. 3. That they can never come forward, or be formed into Animals of the respective Kind, without the Ova in Fœminis. His Proofs and Illustrations, see under the Word Generation, in his Lex. Techn. Vol. 2.
[] At certè Natura, si fieri potuisset, maximè optasset suum opificium esse immortale: quod cùm per materiam non liceret (nam quod——ex carne est compositum, incorruptibile esse non potest) subsidium quod potuit ipsi ad immortalitatem est sacricata, sapientis cujusdam urbis conditoris exemplo, &c. Nam mirabilem quondam rationem invenit, quomodo in demortui animalis locum, novum aliud sufficiat. Galen. de Usu. Part. l. 14. c. 22.
[c] Animantia Bruta Obstetricibus non indigent in edendo Partu, cùm inditâ Naturæ vi Umbilicus seipsum occludat. Ol. Rudbeck in Blasii Anat. Felis.
[f] The Ephemeron, as it is an unusual and special Instance of the Brevity of Life; so I take to be a wonderful Instance of the special Care and Providence of God, in the Conservation of the Species of that Animal. For, 1. As an Animal, whose Life is determin’d in about five or six Hours Time, (viz. from about six in the Evening, till about eleven a Clock at Night,) needs no Food; so neither doth the Ephemeron eat, after it is become a Fly. 2. As to its Generation; in those five Hours of its Life, it performs that, and all other necessary Offices of Life: For in the Beginning of its Life, it sheds its Coat; and that being done, and the poor little Animal thereby render’d light and agile, it spends the rest of its short Time in striking over the Waters, and at the same Time the Female droppeth her Egg on the Waters, and the Male his Sperm on them to impregnate them. These Eggs are spread about by the Waters; descend to the Bottom by their own Gravity; and are hatch’d by the Warmth of the Sun, into little Worms, which make themselves Cases in the Clay, and feed on the same without any Need of parental Care. Vid. Ephem. vita, translated by Dr. Tyson from Swammerdam. See also [Book VIII. Chap. 6. Note (r).]
[g] See [Chap. 13. Note (c)], and [Book VIII. Chap. 6.]
[h] The Worms in [Chap. 11. Note (x)], breed in the Holes they gnaw in Stone, as manifest from their Eggs found therein.