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3. This supposed, he easily gives an account, why the Nile yearly overflows about the end of June: For, as at that time there falls much rain in Æthiopia, it must needs be, that the Nile, whose source is in that Country, should then overflow, when those rains begin, and subside, when they cease.
There are besides, in this Book, two other Tracts, In the first, M. Vossius endeavours to maintain the Doctrine, he had deliver'd in his Book De Lumine, and to shew, that the Soul of Animals is nothing but Fire, that there are no invisible Atoms, nor so much as any Pores, even in the Skin of man. Here he treats also of Refractions, and alledges the Examples of several persons, who have then seen the Sun by the means of Refraction, when really He was under the Horizon.
In the second, He discourses of some points of the Mechanicks; and relates among other things, that the Arrows and battering Rams (Aries) of the Antients did as much execution, as our Muskets and Canons, and then, that the Vehemence of the percussion depends as much upon the Length of the percutient Body, as upon the velocity of the Motion; He adds, that the Length of a Canon ought not to exceed 13 foot, and than a greater length is not onely useless, but hinders also the effect of the Gun, not because the Bullet is thrown out of the Gun, before all the powder is fired (as some believe;) but because the Bullet is then beaten back into the Gun by the Air, re-entring into it with impetuosity, when the flame is extinct.
III. LE DISCERNEMENT DU CORPS ET DE L'AME, par M. de Codermoy.
This French Treatise (but very lately come to the Publisher's hands) examines the different Operations of the Soul and Body, and the Secret of their Union, pretending to discover to every one, what he is, and what is transecting within him. It consists of six Discourses.
1 In the first, the Author examines the Notions, we have in general of Bodies and Matter; of Quantity, of Qualities; of Place; of Rest, of Motion; of Vacuity; of Forms: to shew what is to be understood by these Terms, which cause all the perplexity that is in the ordinary Physicks. He begins with taking notice, hitherto Philosophers have had no distinct notions of Bodies and Matter, from the want whereof he conceives, that almost all the Errors in Common Physiology have
