when, leaving the eternal nature, she turns for innocent recreation to
consider the truths of generation.

Water which is mingled with fire is called liquid because it rolls upon the
earth, and soft because its bases give way. This becomes more equable when
separated from fire and air, and then congeals into hail or ice, or the
looser forms of hoar frost or snow. There are other waters which are
called juices and are distilled through plants. Of these we may mention,
first, wine, which warms the soul as well as the body; secondly, oily
substances, as for example, oil or pitch; thirdly, honey, which relaxes the
contracted parts of the mouth and so produces sweetness; fourthly,
vegetable acid, which is frothy and has a burning quality and dissolves the
flesh. Of the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes
into stone; the water is broken up by the earth and escapes in the form of
air--this in turn presses upon the mass of earth, and the earth, compressed
into an indissoluble union with the remaining water, becomes rock. Rock,
when it is made up of equal particles, is fair and transparent, but the
reverse when of unequal. Earth is converted into pottery when the watery
part is suddenly drawn away; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused
by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour. When the earth is
finer and of a briny nature then two half-solid bodies are formed by
separating the water,--soda and salt. The strong compounds of earth and
water are not soluble by water, but only by fire. Earth itself, when not
consolidated, is dissolved by water; when consolidated, by fire only. The
cohesion of water, when strong, is dissolved by fire only; when weak,
either by air or fire, the former entering the interstices, the latter
penetrating even the triangles. Air when strongly condensed is
indissoluble by any power which does not reach the triangles, and even when
not strongly condensed is only resolved by fire. Compounds of earth and
water are unaffected by water while the water occupies the interstices in