A New Light of Alchemy

10To the objection that all seawater is salty while spring water is fresh, know the reason: the water is distilled through earth's pores. Passing many miles through narrow places and sands, it loses its saltiness and becomes sweet. Cisterns were invented after this example. In some places there are also larger, wider pores and passages through which salty water breaks out, giving rise to salt workings and brine springs, as at Halle in Germany. Elsewhere waters are compressed by heat and leave salt in the sands, while water sweats into other pores, as at Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland. Likewise, waters become hot when they pass through sulphurous places that are continually burning; hence hot springs arise. In earth's depths there are places where nature distils and separates sulphurous ore, which is kindled there by the central fire. Water flowing through these burning places is heated more or less according to its nearness or distance. It then breaks out upon earth's surface, retaining a taste of sulphur, just as every broth retains the taste of the meat cooked in it. The same occurs when water passes through mineral places, whether copper-bearing or aluminous, and acquires their taste.