The Natural History of Wiltshire Part 9

In the court of my honoured friend Edm. Wyld Esq., at Houghton in Bedfords.h.i.+re, in twenty-four yeares, viz. from 1656 to 1680, the ground increased nine inches, only by rotting gra.s.se upon gra.s.se. 'Tis a rich soile, and reddish; worth xxs. per acre.

The spring after the conflagration at London all the ruines were overgrown with an herbe or two; but especially one with a yellow flower: and on the south side of St. Paul's Church it grew as thick as could be; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it Ericolevis Neapolitana, small bank cresses of Naples; which plant Tho.

Willis told me he knew before but in one place* about the towne; and that was at Battle Bridge by the Pindar of Wakefield, and that in no great quant.i.ty. [The Pindar of Wakefield is still a public-house, under the same sign, in Gray's Inn Road, in the parish of St. Pancras, London.- J. B.]

*It growes abundantly by ye waysides between London and Kensington.- [J. RAY.]

Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, did a.s.sure me to his knowledge that my Lord Chancellor Bacon was wont to compound severall sorts of earths, digged up very deep, to produce severall sorts of plants. This he did in the garden at Yorke House, where he lived when he was Lord Chancellor. (See Sir Ken. Digby, concerning his composition of earth of severall places.)

Edmund Wyld, Esq. R.S.S. hath had a pott of composition in his garden these seven yeares that beares nothing at all, not so much as gra.s.se or mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xx li. he will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously; and the party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earth composition through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no graines of wheat in it He hath also a composition for pease; but that he will not warrant, not having yet tryed it,

Pico's [Peaks.] - In this county are Clay-hill, near Warminster; the Castle-hill at Mere, and Knoll-hill, near Kilmanton, which is half in Wilts, and half in Somersets.h.i.+re; all which seem to have been raised (like great blisters) by earthquakes. [Bishop TANNER adds in a note, "Suthbury hill, neer Collingburn, which I take to be the highest hill hi Wilts.h.i.+re".] That great vertuoso, Mr. Francis Potter, author of the "Interpretation of 666," Rector of Kilmanton, took great delight in this Knoll-hill. It gives an admirable prospect every way; from hence one may see the foss-way between Cyrencester and Glocester, which is fourty miles from this place. You may see the Isle of Wight, Salisbury steeple, the Severne sea, &c. It would be an admirable station for him that shall make a geographical description of Wilts, Somersett, &c.

[The full t.i.tle of the work referred to is a curiosity in literature. It exemplifies forcibly the abstruse and mystical researches in which the literati of the seventeenth century indulged.

"An Interpretation of the Number 666; wherein not only the manner how this Number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated; but it is also shewed that this Number is an exquisite and perfect character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that state of government to which all other notes of Antichrist do agree; with all knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be materially made against it". (Oxford, 1642, 4to.) So general were studies of this nature at the time, that Potter's volume was translated into French, Dutch, and Latin. The author, though somewhat visionary, was a profound mathematician, and invented several ingenious mechanical instruments. In Aubrey's "Lives", appended to the Letters from the Bodleian, 8vo. 1813, will be found an interesting biographical notice of him.-J. B.]

CHAPTER V.

MINERALLS AND FOSSILLS.

[IN its etymological sense the term fossil signifies that which may be dug out of the earth. It is strictly applicable therefore, not only to mineral bodies, and the petrified forms of plants and animals found in the substance of the earth, but even to antiquities and works of art, discovered in a similar situation. The chapter of Aubrey's work now under consideration mentions only mineralogical subjects; whence it would appear that he employed the term "mineralls" instead of "metals", including such mineral substances as were not metals under the general term "fossills".

At present the term fossil is restricted to antediluvian organic remains; which are considered by Aubrey, in Chapter VII. under the name of "Formed Stones".-J. B.]

THIS county cannot boast much of mineralls: it is more celebrated for superficiall treasure.

At Dracot Cerne and at Easton Piers doe appeare at the surface of the earth frequently a kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.d iron oare, which seems to be a vancourier of iron oare, but it is in small quant.i.ty and course.

At Send, vulgarly called Seen, the hill whereon it stands is iron- oare, and the richest that ever I saw. (See Chap. II.)

About Hedington fields, Whetham, Bromham, Bowdon Parke, &c. are still ploughed-up cindres; sc. the scoria of melted iron, which must have been smelted by the Romans (for the Saxons were no artists), who used only foot-blasts, and so left the best part of the metall behind.

These cinders would be of great use for the fluxing of the iron-oare at Send.

At Redhill, in the parish of..... (I thinke Calne) they digge plenty of ruddle; which is a bolus, and with which they drench their sheep and cattle for ......... and poor people use it with good successe for ...... This is a red sandy hill, tinged by {iron}, and is a soile that bears very good carrets.

Mr. John Power of Kington St. Michael (an emperick) told me heretofore that in Pewsham Forest is vitriol; which information he had from his uncle Mr. .... Perm, who was an ingeniose and learned man in those daies, and a chymist, which was then rare.

At Dracot Cerne is good quant.i.ty of vitriol-oare, which with galles turnes as black as inke.

About the beginning of the raigne of King James the First, Sir Walter Long [of Dracot] digged for silver, a deep pitt, through blew clay, and gott five pounds worth, for sixty pounds charges or more. It was on the west end of the stable: but I doubt there was a cheat put upon him. Here are great indications of iron, and it may be of coale; but what hopes he should have to discover silver does pa.s.se my understanding. There was a great friends.h.i.+p between Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Walter Long, and they were allied: and the pitt was sunk in Sir W. Raleigh's time, so that he must certainly have been consulted with. I have here annexed Sir James Long's letter.

"Mr. Aubrey, I cannot obey your commands concerning my grandfather's sinking of pitts for metalls here at Draycott, there being no person alive hereabouts who was born at that time. What I have heard was so long since, and I then so young, that there is little heed to be taken of what I can say; but in generall I can say that I doe believe here are many metalls and mineralls in these parts; particularly silver- oare of the blew sort, of which there are many stones in the bottome of the river Avon, which are extremely heavy, and have the hardnesse of a file, by reason of the many minerall and metalline veines. I have consulted many bookes treating of minerall matters, and find them suite exactly with the Hungarian blew silver oare. Some sixteen or eighteen yeares ago in digging a well neer my house, many stones very weighty where digged out of the rocks, which also slaked with long lyeing in the weather. I shewed some to Monsieur c.o.c.k, since Baron of Crownstronie in Sweden, who had travelled ten yeares to all the mines in North Europe, and was recommended to me by a London merchant, in his journey to Mindip, and staied with me here about three weekes. He told me the grains in that oare seemed to be gold rather than copper; they resembled small pinnes heads. Wee pounded some of it, and tried to melt the dust unwashed in a crucible; but the sulphur carried the metall away, if there was any, as he said. He has been in England since, by the name of Baron Crownstrome, to treat from his master the King of Sweden, over whose mines he is superintendant, as his father was before him. The vitriol-oare we find here is like suckwood, which being layd in a dry place slakes itself into graine of blew vitriol, calcines red, and with a small quant.i.tie of galles makes our water very black inke. It is acid tasted as other vitriol, and apt to raise a flux in the mouth. Sir, yours, &c.

August 12, 1689. J. L".

"In the parish of Great Badminton, in a field called Twelve Acres, the husbandmen doe often times plough up and find iron bulletts, as big as pistoll bulletts; sometimes almost as big as muskett bulletts". Dr.

Childrey's Britannia Baconica, p. 80. ["Britannia Baconica, or the Natural Rarities of England, Scotland, and Wales, historically related, according to the precepts of Lord Bacon". By Joshua Childrey, D.D. 1661. 8.]

These bulletts are Dr. Th. Willises aperitive pills; sc. he putts a barre of iron into the smith's forge, and gives it a sparkling heat; then thrusts it against a roll of brimstone, and the barre will melt down into these bulletts; of which he made his aperitive pills. In this region is a great deale of iron, and the Bath waters give sufficient evidence that there is store of sulphur; so that heretofore when the earthquakes were hereabouts, store of such bulletts must necessarily be made and vomited up. [Dr. Willis was one of the most eminent physicians of his age, and author of numerous Latin works on medical subjects. The above extract is a curious ill.u.s.tration of the state of professional knowledge at the time. - J. B.]

Copperas. - Thunder-stones, as the vulgar call them, are a pyrites; their fibres doe all tend to the centre. They are found at Broad Chalke frequently, and particularly in the earth pitts belonging to the parsonage shares, below Bury Hill, next Knighton hedge; but wee are too fare from a navigable river to make profit by them; but at the Isle of Wight they are gathered .from the chalkie rocks, and carried by boates to Deptford, to make copperas; where they doe first expose them to the aire

and raine, which makes them slake, and fall to pieces from the centre, and shoot out a pale blewish salt; and then they boile the salt with pieces of old rusty iron.

In the chalkie rocks at Lavington is umber, which painters have used, and Dr. Chr. Meret hath inserted it in his Pinax. ["Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum, continens Vegetabilia, Animalia, et Fossilia in hac Insula reperta". By Christopher Merret, M.D., 1666, 12mo.]

In the parish of Steeple Ashton, at West Ashton, in the grounds of Mr.

Tho. Beech, is found plenty of a very ponderous marchasite, of which Prince Rupert made tryall, but without effect. It flieth away in sulphur, and the fumes are extreme unwholsom: it is full of (as it were) bra.s.se, and strikes fire very well. It is mund.i.c.k, or mock-oare.

The Earle of Pembroke hath a way to a.n.a.lyse it: not by fire, but by corroding waters.

Anno Domini, 1685, in Chilmark, was found by digging of a well a blewish oare, with bra.s.se-like veines in it; it runnes two foot thick.

I had this oare tryed, and it flew away in sulphur, like that of Steeple Ashton.

On Flamstone downe (in the parish of Bishopston) neer the Race-way a quarrie of sparre exerts itselfe to the surface of the turfe. It is the finest sparre that ever I beheld. I have made as good gla.s.se of this sparre as the Venice gla.s.se. It is of a bright colour with a very little tincture of yellow; transparent; and runnes in stirias, like nitre; it is extraordinary hard till it is broken, and then it breakes into very minute pieces.

We have no mines of lead; nor can I well suspect where we should find any: but not far off in Glocesters.h.i.+re, at Sodbury, there is. Capt.

Ralph Greatorex, the mathematical instrument maker, sayes that it is good lead, and that it was a Roman lead-worke.

Tis some satisfaction to know where a minerall is not. Iron or coale is not to be look't for in a chalky country. As yet we have not discovered any coale in this county; but are supplied with it from Glocesters.h.i.+re adjoyning, where the forest of Kingswood (near Bristowe) aboundeth most with coale of any place in the west of England: all that tract under ground full of this fossill. It is very observable that here are the most holly trees of any place in the west. It seemes to me that the holly tree delights in the effluvium of this fossil, which may serve as a guide to find it. I was curious to be satisfied whether holly trees were also common about the collieries at Newcastle, and Dr.. .. . , Deane of Durham, affirmes they are.

These indications induce me to thinke it probable that coale may be found in Dracot Parke. The Earledomes, near Downton, (woods so called belonging to the Earledome of Pembroke,) for the same reason, not unlike ground for coale.

They have tryed for coale at Alderbery Common, but was baffled in it.

(I have heard it credibly reported that coale has been found in Urchfont parish, about fifty or sixty yeares since; but upon account of the scarcity of workmen, depth of the coale, and the then plenty of firing out of ye great wood called Crookwood, it did not quit the cost, and so the mines were stop'd up. There hath been great talk several times of searching after coale here again. Crookwood, once full of st.u.r.dy oakes, is now destroyed, and all sort of fuel very dear in all the circ.u.mjacent country. It lies very commodious, being situate about the middle of the whole county; three miles from the populous town of the Devises, two miles from Lavington, &c.-BISHOP TANNER.)

[Several abortive attempts have been made at different periods to find coal on Malmesbury Common.-J. B.]

CHAPTER VI.

STONES.

I WILL begin with freestone (lapis arenarius), as the best kind of stone that this country doth afford.

The quarre at Haselbury [near Box] was most eminent for freestone in the western parts, before the discovery of the Portland quarrie, which was but about anno 1600. The church of Portland, which stands by the sea side upon the quarrie, (which lies not very deep, sc. ten foot), is of Cane stone, from Normandie. Malmesbury Abbey and the other Wilts.h.i.+re religious houses are of Haselbury stone. The old tradition is that St. Adelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, riding over the ground at Haselbury, did throw down his glove, and bad them dig there, and they should find great treasure, meaning the quarre.