it, then if you turn your back to the Sun and take a Pen or some such slender Body, and hold it over-thwart betwixt the Sun and the Liquor, you may perceive that the Shadow projected by the Pen upon the Liquor, will not all of it be a vulgar and Dark, but in part a curiously Colour’d shadow, that edge of it, which is next the Body that makes it, being almost of a lively Golden Colour, and the remoter verge of a Caeruleous one.

  [16] Nicolaus Monardes lib simplic. ex India allatis, cap. 27.

These and other Phaenomena, which I have observ’d in this delightfull Experiment, divers of my friends have look’d upon not without some wonder, and I remember an excellent Oculist finding by accident in a friends Chamber a fine Vial full of this Liquor, which I had given that friend, and having never heard any thing of the Experiment, nor having any Body near him that could tell him what this strange Liquor might be, was a great while apprehensive, as he presently after told me, that some strange new distemper was invading his Eyes.  And I confess that the unusualness of the Phaenomena made me very sollicitous to find out the Cause of this Experiment, and though I am far from pretending to have found it, yet my enquiries have, I suppose, enabled me to give such hints, as may lead your greater sagacity to the discovery of the Cause of this wonder.  And first finding that this Tincture, if it were too copious in the water, Kept the Colours from being so lively, and their Change from being so discernable, and finding also that the Impregnating Virtue of this Wood did by its being frequently Infus’d in New Water by degrees Decay, I Conjectur’d that the Tincture afforded by the Wood must proceed from some Subtiler parts of it drawn forth by the Water, which swimming too and fro in it did so Modifie the Light, as to exhibit such and such Colours; and because these Subtile parts were so easily Soluble even in Cold water, I concluded that they must abound with Salts, and perhaps contain much of the Essential Salt, as the Chymists call it, of the Wood.  And to try whether these Subtile parts were Volatile enough to be Distill’d, without the Dissolution of their Texture, I carefully Distill’d some of the Tincted Liquor in very low Vessels, and the gentle heat of a Lamp Furnace; but found all that came over to be as Limpid and Colourless as Rock-water, and the Liquor remaining in the Vessel to be so deeply Caeruleous, that it requir’d to be oppos’d to a very strong Light to appear of any other Colour.  I took likewise a Vial with Spirit of Wine, and a little Salt of Harts-horn, and found that there was a certain proportion to be met with betwixt the Liquor and the Salt, which made the Mixture fit to exhibit some little Variety of Colours not Observable in ordinary Liquors, as it was variously directed in reference to the Light and the Eye, but this Change of Colour was very far short from that which we had admir’d in our Tincture.  But