that virtue
becomes of no effect at all, but the _Mercury_ freely falls downwards till
it meet with a resistance from the pressure of the _ambient_ Air, able to
resist its gravity, and keep it forced up in the Pipe to the height of
about thirty inches.

Thus have I gently raised a Steel _pendulum_ by a Loadstone to a great
Angle, till by the shaking of my hand I have chanced to make a separation
between them, which is no sooner made, but as if the Loadstone had retained
no attractive virtue, the _Pendulum_ moves freely from it towards the other
side. So vast a difference is there between the attractive virtue of the
_Magnet_ when it acts upon a contiguous and upon a disjoyned body: and much
more must there be between the attractive virtues of congruity upon a
contiguous and disjoyned body; and in truth the attractive virtue is so
little upon a body disjoyned, that though I have with a _Microscope_
observed very diligently, whether there were any extraordinary
_protuberance_ on the side of a drop of water that was exceeding neer to
the end of a green stick, but did not touch it, I could not perceive the
least; though I found, that as soon as ever it toucht it the whole drop
would presently unite it self with it; so that it seems an absolute contact
is requisite to the exercising of the tenacious faculty of congruity.

* * * * *

Observ. VII. _Of some _Phaenomena_ of Glass drops._

These _Glass Drops_ are small parcels of coarse green Glass taken out of
the Pots that contain the _Metal_ (as they call it) in fusion, upon the end
of an Iron Pipe; and being exceeding hot, and thereby of a kind of sluggish
fluid Confidence, are suffered to drop from thence into a Bucket of cold
Water, and in it to lye till they be grown sensibly cold.

Some of these I broke in the open air, by snapping off a little of the
small stem with my fingers, others by crushing it with a small pair of
Plyers; which I had no sooner done, then the whole bulk of the drop flew
violently, with a very brisk noise, into multitudes of small pieces, some
of which were as small as dust, though in some there were remaining pieces
pretty large, without any flaw at all, and others very much flaw'd, which
by rubbing between ones fingers was easily reduced to dust; these dispersed
every way so violently, that some of them pierced my skin. I could not find
either with my naked Eye, or a _Microscope_, that any of the broken pieces