Corpus Hermeticum with Pneumatica and Ocellus Lucanus

water is drunk up by earthy substance, so that it is mixed and itself becomes earth. If someone were to say that it is not shaped into or drunk up by the earth, but rather its moisture is drawn out and evaporated by heat—either from the sun or from something else—this should be shown to be false. For if water itself is put into some vessel made of stone? or bronze or some other? dense material, and placed in the sun for a long time, it is impossible for anyone to find that it has decreased? by anything except the very smallest amount. Therefore, water changes into earthy substance. Indeed, silts and muds are all transformations of water into earth.

It also changes from a thinner substance into a thicker one, just as we see the flame of lamps being extinguished when it lacks? oil. For as long as it is carried upward, as if hastening to reach its own place—I mean, of course, the ether aithera original: "αἰθέρα" (aithera). In ancient physics, ether was the "fifth element," a divine, rarefied substance filling the upper universe above the terrestrial air. which is above the air—but being overcome by the vast amount of air in between, it is no longer carried in a continuous stream. Instead, as if it were original: "κερκαθεῖσα" (kerkatheisa). This likely means "shredded" or "broken into pieces," though the Greek term is rare or perhaps a scribal variation. broken apart and intertwined with the particles of the air, it itself becomes air. The same thing is conceived regarding the air: that its types indeed...