run, does he know how many more might
have been gotten out of larger apertures, at the insertion of every
branch, and foot in the principal roots during the whole season? But I
conceive I have good authority for my assertion, out of the author cited
in the margin, whose words are these: _Si mense Martio perforaveris
betulam, &c. exstillabit aqua limpida, clara, & pura, obscurum arboris
saporem & odorem referens, quae spatio 12 aut 14 dierum, praeponderabit
arbori cum ramis & radicibus, &c._ His exceptions about the beginning of
March are very insignificant; since I undertake not punctuality of time;
and his own pretended experience shew'd him, that in hard weather it did
not run till the expiration of the month, or beginning of April; and
another time on the tenth of February; and usually he says, about the
twenty-fourth day, &c. at such uncertainty: What immane difference then
is there between the twenty-fourth of Feb. and commencement of March?
Besides, these anomolous bleedings, (even of the same tree) happen early
or later, according to the temper of the air and weather. In the mean
time, evident it is, that we know of no tree which does more copiously
attract, be it that so much celebrated spirit of the world, (as they
call it) in form of water (as some) or a certain specifique liquor
richly impregnated with this balsamical property: That there is such a
_magnes_ in this simple tree, as does manifestly draw to it self some
occult and wonderful virtue, is notorious; nor is it conceivable,
indeed, the difference between the efficacy of that liquor which distils
from the bole, or parts of the tree nearer to the root (where Sir Hugh
would celebrate the incision) and that which weeps out from the more
sublime branches, more impregnated with this astral vertue, as not so
near the root, which seems to attract rather a cruder, and more common
water, through fewer strainers, and neither so pure, and aerial as in
those refined percolations, the nature of the places where these trees
delight to grow (for the most part lofty, dry, and barren) consider'd.
But I refer these disquisitions to the learned; especially, as mentioned
by that incomparable philosopher, and my most noble friend, the
Honourable Mr. Boyle, in his second part of the _Usefulness of Natural
Philosophy_, Sect. 1. Essay 3_d._ where he speaks of the _manna del
corpo_, or trunk-manna, as well as of that liquor from the bough; also
of the _sura_ which the coco-tree