The Pneumatics

higher place are carried, where fire also is; but those indeed slightly thicker than these into the air; and those which are still thicker, having been raised somewhat together with these on account of the continuous motion, descend again into the lower place and are joined with earthy things. Water also, being broken down by fire, is changed into air; for the vapors from boiling cauldrons are nothing else than the rarefactions of moisture, which pass into the air. Therefore it is manifest from what has been said that fire dissolves all things thicker than itself and transforms them. And from those exhalations which arise from the earth, thicker bodies are transformed into thinner substances: for dews are not carried upward in any other way than if the water which is on the earth has been rarefied by exhalation. Moreover, the exhalation itself is produced by a certain fiery substance of the sun existing beneath the earth and heating that place, especially if it be sulfurous or bituminous, which indeed, being heated, generally produces an exhalation. And the hot waters which are found in the earth are produced from the same cause. Of the dew, moreover, the thinner parts are transformed into air; the thicker parts, having been raised somewhat on account of the exhalation's