The VULCANO’S
OR,
Mountains vomiting Fire, famous in the World;
with their Remarkables.
CHAP. I.
Of Subterraneous Abysses, and Conservatories, or Store-houses of Fire; the Original
Cause and Source of all fiery Eruptions, and Vulcanos.
That there are Subterraneous Conservatories, and Treasuries of Fire (even as well, as there are of Water, and Air, &c.) and vast Abysses, and bottomless Gulphs in the Bowels and very Entrals of the Earth, stored therewith, no sober Philosopher can deny; If he do but consider the prodigious Vulcano’s, or fire-belching Mountains; the eruptions of sulphurous fires not only out of the Earth, but also out of the very Sea; the multitude and variety of hot Baths everywhere occurring. And that they have their sourse and birth place, not in the Air, not in the Water; nay, nor as the Vulgar perswade themselves, not at the bottom of the Mountains; but in the very in most privy-Chambers, and retiring places of the Earth; is as reasonable to think; And there Vulcan, as it were, to have his Elaboratories, Shops, and Forges in the profoundest Bowels of Nature.
For how else could there be every where such a quantity of Minerals, brimstone, and sulphurous unctuous matters, without any fire and subterraneous burnings of fire engendring, and all concocting nature; which by no means can be conceived to be enkindled, from the conflicts of air and moisture, in those most dark and deep Regions of the Earth, so remote from all influence of the Sun.
Therefore subterraneous fire was necessary in the internal Oeconomy, or constitution of, as it were, the organiz’d parts of the earth, and distribution of Life and heat, as we may so say, to all the exteriour members. Plato acknowledges hidden treasuries of ever flowing flames, and most huge Rivers of fires, as well as of waters. Yea and Aristotle himself affirms most ample sourses, as of water, so of spirit and fire. Also Pliny, Vitruvius, Cicero, have noted this Arcanum of nature; for in the bowels of the earth, are observed hidden operations of heat; and the greatest parts of the world are upheld and sustained by heat underneath. We see fire struck forth from the conflict and attrition of stones; and the reeking earth to smoke upon every new digging, especially if deep; And also hot and warm waters drawn out of Wells continually, and that chiefly in winter; for that a great force of heat is contain’d and pent up within the Caverns of the earth. All the Poetick Fables of Vulcan, Vesta, the Cyclops, seem to allude to this subterraneous fire.
This is the sense of Lucretius singing thus;
--- _____The Earth contains with its Womb,
First Seeds, whence th’ Sea, and flowing Rivers come
In constant course: Sources of Fire it has,
For burning Soyls we see in many a place.
But above all, Aetna’s impetuous Cell,
Rages wit flames from th’lowest pit of Hell.
And Manilius,
But with all parts the Fires mingled are,
Quick Lightning, in the teeming Clouds of th’Air
They gender; Pierce the Earth; whence Aetna’s Mountains,
Dare Heaven: Also make Baths hot, in Fountains.
To this end the whole Earth is Cavernous, and the Terrene Globe contains fast spaces within its own bowels, arched Caves and Vaults, immense Tracts, and impenetrable Abysses. For, as Seneca relates of the Fields of Puteolum, There ware vast Caves, hugh Recesses, and vacuities; Stones of Mountains hanging here and there; Also cragged Gapings without bottom, which have often receiv’d them, as they fell in, and buried the mighty Ruine in the deep. For the whole Earth is not solid; but every where gaping, and hollow’d with empty rooms and spaces, and hidden burrows, as it were, whereth describes Pliny, Aelian, Lucretius, and other writers of Naturall things. For the Fire and Water sweetly conspire together in mutual service, with an inviolable friendship and wedlock, for the good of the whole in their several and distinct private-lodgings, as we may so say, and hidden receptacles; spreading themselves far and wide to a vast largeness, and capacity; which two Assoicates, and Agents of Nature, with pains work and bring about such variety of things we see, of Minerals, Juyces, Marles, Glebes, and other soyls, with ebullitions, and bublings up of Fountains also. As Manilius bu now sant to us.
Sith this fire thus shut up in the Cavers of the Earth, agitating it self, when it finds passage, it never leaves penetrating unto some vent, for many hundred Miles, even under the Sea, and unpassable and far fetch’d winding and turnings of the Earth, and even the very Stones and Mountains, it finds in its way, into easie fuel and nutriment: That except it were restrain’d by the encompassing of the Ocean, and the command of the Omnipotent Diety, it would attract and suck in the universal bulk, of all elementary Nature, into an unquenchable combustion, and Conflagration.
And there is need of such vast quantities of fires, for the uses of the Universe; And ‘tis reasonable to think that the Divine Providence hath made a very great provision of fire in the belly of Nature, whence by long Chimnyes or Funnels, as it were, it might diffuse an infinite heat aud fervour for the use of things necessary; and the emolument of the Earth, Men, and Beasts. Just as it hath constituted the vast Sea in such a manner so as to discribute an indeficient plenty of Waters, through the veins and channels of the whole body of the Earth. And as it hath appointed the Waters their bounds, so it hath so attempered and distributed these fires, in the hidden courses and apartments of subterrestrail Nature, that they might neither be suffocated by the insinuating and inflowing Waters of the Ocean, nor transgress their prescribed Limits and Confines: For otherwise, if they should be unlimited Eruptions, they would soon turn all into Ruines.
Which shall at length come to pass, in that fullness of time, when all the Reins of unruly Nature shall be broke loose, and the Cataracts, or Flood gates as it were, of suterraneous fire flung open; by the command of the Divine Power, not only the Earth, but even the Elements shall melt with fervent heat, to the ruine and destruction of the whole World. That even as in the universal Flood, the windows of Heaven, and Gulphs of the Abysses being opened, he destroyed the World by an Inundation of Waters, even so also, in the last times, he might destroy the same by a Deluge of Fires: which who could deny to be, if he should behold the perpetual boyling fires of the Earth; the vast burning of Provinces; Lastly, the manifest provision and preparation of so much Combustible matter, and Sulphur together, which is vomited forth, even at one Gaping and Eructation; without confessing it a certain and infallible Specimen and Example, and evident token of preparation to the total and final Conflagration prescribed by the Divine Wisdom.
The Prodigious Vulcano’s therefore and Fire-vomitting Mountains visible in the external surface of the Earth, do sufficiently demonstrate it full of invisible and under ground fires. For where-ever there’s a Vulcan, there also is a Conservatory, or Store-house under, as certain, as where there is a Chimney of smoke, there is fire; And argue deeper treasuries and storehouses of fire, in the very heart and inward bowels of the Earth. In so much that from hence the Holy Father’s have not in congruously placed the greatest of all the Fire-conservative Abysses in the Centre of the Earth, for an eternal Jakes and Prison, destin’d for the punishment of the Damned; and some others for Purgatory (according to the received belief of Papists).
Now flame is but flowing, or fluid fire, and the streaming efflux of sulphurous principles, or particles, &c. which from these burst forth in excessive raging streams, from the mouth of the these Ignivomous (or fire-vomitting) Mountains, and Vulcano’s; which are wonders of Nature, not unworthy generally to be known, and taken notice of, of all men. And which we now come to enumerate, with their remarkable Phaenomena’s, and Eruptions.
