So that, it seems, Iron does
contain a very _combustible sulphureous_ Body, which is, in all likelihood,
one of the causes of this _Phaenomenon_, and which may be perhaps very much
concerned in the business of its hardening and tempering: of which somewhat
it said in the Description of _Muscovy-glass_.
So that, these things considered, we need not trouble our selves to find
out what kind of Pores they are, both in the Flint and Steel, that contain
the _Atoms of fire_, nor how those _Atoms_ come to be hindred from running
all out, when a dore or passage in their Pores is made by the concussion:
nor need we trouble our selves to examine by what _Prometheus_ the Element
of Fire comes to be fetcht down from above the Regions of the Air, in what
Cells or Boxes it is kept, and what _Epimetheus_ lets it go: Nor to
consider what it is that causes so great a conflux of the atomical
Particles of Fire, which are said to fly to a flaming Body, like Vultures
or Eagles to a putrifying Carcass, and there to make a very great pudder.
Since we have nothing more difficult in this _Hypothesis_ to conceive,
first, as to the kindling of Tinder, then how a large Iron-bullet, let fall
red or glowing hot upon a heap of Small-coal, should set fire to those that
are next to it first: Nor secondly, is this last more difficult to be
explicated, then that a Body, as Silver for Instance, put into a weak
_Menstruum_, as unrectified _Aqua fortis_ should, when it is put in a great
heat, be there dissolved by it, and not before; which _Hypothesis_ is more
largely explicated in the Description of Charcoal.
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