will not doe.
* At the Revell there, An°. D. 1666.
The reader is to be advertised that the forest of Milsham did extende
itselfe to the foot of this hill. It was full of goodly oakes, and so
neer together that they say a squirrill might have leaped from tree to
tree. It was disafforested about 1635, and the oakes were sold for 1s.
or 2s. per boord at the most; and then nobody ever tooke notice of
this iron-oare, which, as I sayd before, every sun-shine day, after a
rousing shower, glistered in their eies. Now there is scarce an oake
left in the whole parish, and oakes are very rare all hereabout, so
that this rich mine cannot be melted and turned to profit. Finding
this plenty of rich iron-oare, I was confident that I should find in
the village some spring or springs impregnated with its vertue; so I
sent my servant to the Devizes for some galles to try it; and first
began at Mr. J. Sumner's, where I lay, with the water of the draught-
well in the court within his house, which by infusion of a little of
the powder of the galles became immediately as black as inke; that one
may write letters visible with it; sc. as with inke diluted with
water, which the water of Tunbridge will not doe, nor any other iron
water that ever I met with or heard of. I tryed it by evaporation and
it did yield an umberlike sediment: I have forgot the proportion. I
gave it to the Royall Society.
In June 1667,1 sent for three bottles of this well water to London,
and experimented it before the Royall Society at Gresham Colledge, at
which, time there was a frequent assembly, and many of the Physitians
of the Colledge of London.
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