to passe from one place to another. And it would be very hard to make thereof a Chart or description, principally in winter, where all is well-nigh covered with water, & yet more to enter in by a strong hand, for conservation of these salt pits every year, after the heats are over, the Sun not being able to make it, but in the Months of _May_, _June_, _July_, and _August_, the salt makers doe use to open certaine _Bonds_, to suffer the sea-water to enter till all the formes and _Parquets_ be covered, otherwise the frosts would destroy them: that if while the salt freezeth or creameth there come any rain, it is so great a retardment (and for fifteen dayes at the least) we must empty al the water out of the _Parquets_, that the rain had altered, and therefore in rainy and cold years, they can very hardly make it. In this regard, I come to remember an experiment that I have tried more then once, which gave me to think whether it were _Aristotle_, I tooke eight or ten pound of common grosse salt, which I made to dissolve in hot water, scumming the froth which may be there, and being left to settle, I put the clear by inclination in a caldron over the fire, where I made all the water evaporate, so that the salt remained in the bottome, white as snow: then I endeavoured to dry it in a pot, giving it at last a good estret of fire for four or five houres, when it was cold I parted it into four platters of _Beuvais_ to shorten and gain time, in fair weather at a window where the Sunne came not, and did choose a moist time to facilitate the dissolution, recollecting every morning that which was resolved in water, so long, that at the end of seven or eight dayes the salts dissolution was perfected, nothing remaining but I know not what thicknesse or slime, in a small quantity which I set apart, I put all my dissolutions into _Cornues_ & distilled all the water which could mount, being very fresh, for the saltnesse did not ascend, but remained fixt in the bottome of the vessell, and gave at last a good estret of fire, with staves of _Cotteret_, having broken the Cornues: I put the salt that therein remained congealed to dissolve in moisture as before, till there remained nothing but grossenesse and slime as in the former I distilled that which ascended from the water, and reiterated all those Regiments till all my salt was resolved and distilled into salt water, that which came the seven or eight time. The slime I washed well with water, to extract what might bee the Remainder of saltnesse; and so recalcined and washt them till there rested nothing but slime or pure earth without tast. Of this little salt that I had extracted, I did as I had done with others, so that all my salt, without losing any of its substance, went away in sweet water, and in this insensible slime, which came at last to one or two ounces. What then became of the saltnesse of this salt? Certes herein I have lost all my _Latine_,