Mr. Nich. Mercator told me that water may be found by a divining rod made of willowe; whiche he hath read somewhere; he thinks in Vitruvius. Quaere Sir John Hoskins de hoc. In Poulshott parish the spring was first taken notice of about thirty yeares since by S. Pierse, M.D. of Bathe, and some few made use of it Some of the Devises, who dranke thereof, told me that it does good for the spleen, &c., and that a hectick and emaciated person, by drinking this water, did in the space of three weekes encrease in flesh, and gott a quick appetite. Memorandum. In this village are severall springs, which tast brackish; which I had not the leisure to try, but onely by præcipitation, and they yield a great quantity of the white flower-like sediment. Bitteston.—At the George Inne, the beere that is brewed of the well there is diuretique. I knew some that were troubled with the stone and gravell goe often thither for that reason. The woman of the house was very much troubled with fitts of the mother; and having lived here but a quarter of a yeare, found herself much mended; as also her mother, troubled with the same disease. I observed in the bottome of the well deep blew marle. [The hysterical paroxysms to which females are peculiarly subject were in Aubrey’s time commonly termed “the mother”, or “fits of the mother”. Dr. Edward Jorden published a “Discourse on the Suffocation of the Mother”, (4to.) in 1603.—J. B.] Alderton.—Mr. Gore’s well is a hard water, which, when one washes one’s hands will make them dry, as if it were allume water. I tryed it by præcipitation, and the sediment was the colour of barme, white and yellow, and fell in a kind of flakes, as snow sometimes will fall, whereas all the other sediments were like fine flower or powder. In Minety Common in Bradon forest, neer the rode which leadeth to Ashton Caynes, is a boggy place called the Gogges, where is a spring, or springs, rising up out of fuller’s earth. This puddle in hot and dry weather is candid like a hoar frost; which to the tast seemes nitrous. I have seen this salt incrustation, even 14th September, four foot round the edges. With half a pound of this earth I made a lixivium. Near half a pint did yield upon evaporation a quarter of an ounce wanting two graines. Of the remainder of the lixivium, which was more than a pint, I evaporated almost all to crystallize in a cellar. The liquor turned very red, and the crystalls being putt on a red hott iron flew away immediately, like saltpetre, leaving behind a very little quantity of something that look’d like burnt allum. Now it is certain that salts doe many times mixe; and Mr. Robert Boyle tells me hee believes it is sea-salt mix’t with {nitre}, and there is a way to separate them. After a shower this spring will smoake. The mudd or earth cleanses and scowres incomparably. A pike of eighteen foot long will not reach to the bottome.