The Chemical Philosophy by Debus Allen G.;

Author:Debus, Allen G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1909815
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Since theory thus explains the essential sameness of land and sea, the salt in the sea must have a close relation to Palissy’s vegetative salt.1221 While some object and argue that an excess of common salt will make water unfit for drinking, these doubters should turn to the work of Valetius, who has pointed to the Biblical miracle of the purification of a well with salt.1222 In reality, salt must protect life, since it prevents putrefaction and fosters more forms of life in the seas than anywhere else. Only the degree of saltiness need be of concern, for in moderation the effect of this substance is not only beneficial but essential to life. For Plat it was quite understandable and proper for Palissy to have called salt the fifth element.1223

Agricultural experiments seemed to provide indisputable support for Plat’s contention. Seed corn soaked in sea water proved to be more fruitful than corn not submitted to this treatment, and experiments at Clapham had shown that one bushel of sea salt had a more beneficial effect on barren land than two loads of the best manure.1224 This evidence explained the west country practice of conveying saltish lands from the coast as far as five miles inland. Fields so treated remained enriched for years.1225 Even lands which had been inundated by the sea and subsequently drained were not found to be ruined, since the earth, left to her own handiwork, and “by her inward heat and transmuting nature will in some reasonable time, by way of putrefaction, convert that which was before a common salt, into a vegetative salt.”1226 From all of this Plat concluded that common salt was the source of a cheap and abundant supply of vegetative salt.

But given the supply, Plat continued, care must be employed in learning the proper application of the substances. Only long experience will reveal the most effective quantity of marl for a given field, the best season of the year to apply it, and the type of grain it benefits most.1227 With the more potent salt even more care must be employed. Plat added that farmers must read and reread his words,

... lest peradventure they take a sword by the point, and so hurt themselves by the weapon which was given them to defend their persons. And let this be a general caveat unto them, that they begin with small practises, and first upon arable grounds, before they proceed to pasture or meadow: and so being carefull in those former circumstances, which I have at large handled in the title of Marl, they shal no way indanger their estates nor hazard any great losse before they attain their desires.1228

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