PREFACE

Volcanic heat original: "Æthniſch Hitz"; referring to Etnean heat, the intense subterranean fire associated with volcanoes like Mount Etna, which is driven upwards from the center of the earth original: centro terræ, can be found in varying degrees original: gradibus, being stronger or weaker. Likewise, the aforementioned places and wombs original: matrices; the subterranean cavities where minerals were thought to "gestate" like embryos in a mother's womb of the earth are qualified differently through the various influences of the heavens, whose rays original: Radiis may shoot even into the center point of the earth.

From this process—and according to how these forms are incorporated and imprinted—with the addition or contribution of the watery or earthy mercurial substance, minerals grow and are born in different shapes, kinds, and natures. That this is indeed the case, and that the element of water (which is the salty seawater, impregnated every day and night by the sun and moon, and which does not merely flow around and surround the globe of the earth from the outside, yet laterally original: lateraliter; meaning from the sides or around the circumference, but also and much more wanders internally through hidden, secret crevices and water-passages) makes the so-called empty and void earth original: terram vacuam & inanem; a Latin reference to the primordial state of the world described in Genesis 1:2 fruitful with its salty nature; and from the heavenly influence in this very act of conception original: in hoc ipſo conceptionis actu, a