salt-peter,
produced chiefly by the seminal principle of nitre implanted in that
earth." " I shall here annex that memorable relation which I finde
recorded by Hinschoten, and Garcias ab Horto, whereby it may appear
that the seminal principles of precious stones, as of plants, are
lodg'd in the bowels of the mine they grow in. Thus Diamonds are digged
like gold out of mines. Where they digg'd one year the length of a man
into the ground, within three or four years after there are found
Diamonds again in the same place, which grew there. Sometimes they thus
finde diamonds of 400, or 800 grains."
Garcias
confirms this assertion; " Diamonds which ought to be brought to
perfection, in the deepest bowels of the earth, and in a long tract of
time, are almost at the top of the ground ; and in three, or four
years' space, made perfect; for, if you dig this year but the depth of
a cubit, you will finde diamonds ; and after two years dig there you
will finde diamonds again."
Such
generative powers of self-multiplication were attributed to certain
precious stones even by some of the old classical writers. Theophrastus
(1530) has described a belief, which was common when he wrote, as to
the faculty which some stones possess of generating others (though he
did not attach much belief to this notion).
Another
author, of about the same period, tells a strange anecdote to the same
effect; and accounts for this marvellous phenomenon by supposing that
the peculiarly fine atmosphere which must have surrounded the parent
gems facilitated a fresh formation in the new crystals thought to have
been generated. His little story goes, that a noble lady had inherited
two
