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HISTORY.
cold.
Pliny,
after
he
has
spoken
of
solids
and
their
formation
out
of
warmth
and
cold,
says:
"
Contraria
huic
causa
crystallum
facit,
gelu
vehe-
mentiore
concrete*.
Non
aliubi
certe
repcritur
quam
ubi
maxime
hibernce
nives
rigent,
glaciemque
esse
certum
est,
unde
et
nomen
Greed
dedere"
Seneca
Minor
and
other
contemporaries
express
the
same
opinion,
as
does
also
Isodorus
of
the
seventh
century.
Agricola
of
the
sixteenth
century
is
the
first
philos-
opher
who
is
opposed
to
it;
in
his
book
De
Ortu
et
Cau-
sis
Subterraneorum
he
says:
"
If
the
crystal
was
formed
out
of
water,
it
naturally
would
have
to
be
lighter
than
water,
for ice
floats
on
water.
He
denies
emphatically
that
any
stony
material
might
be
formed
of
water
with-
out
any
additional
ingredients
:
"
Satis
intellegimiis^
ex
sola
aqua
non
gigni
lapidem
ullum"
In
the
seventeenth
century
alchemists
believed
that
an
occult
chemical
transformation
of
water
to
stone
was
possible,
and
similar
fables
and
humbug
were
still
believed
in
during
the
last
century.
An
exception
of
this
rule
was
Be-cher,
who
taught
that
crystals
could
not
be
formed
of
ice,
as
they
are
found
also
in localities
where
neither
severe
nor
long-
lasting
cold
reigns.
Le
Roy,
in
the
year
1767,
tried
to
demonstrate
be-
fore
the
Academy
of
Paris,
that
all
experiments
made
until
then
did
not
prove
the
possibility
of
changing
water
into
earth.
He
meant,
earth
was
mixed
to
the
water
in
a
suspended
form;
that
it
was
not
formed
anew