of the above mentioned Clouds are very manifest, though the cause seem’d to him very occult:  these Pictures he has promis’d to show me, and is very ready to put the Stone it self into my hands.  But the ring having been the other day casually broken upon his finger, unless it can be taken out, and set again without any considerable heat, he is loath to have it medled with, for fear its peculiarity should be thereby destroy’d.  And possibly his apprehension would have been strengthen’d, if I had had opportunity to tell him what is related by the Learned Wormius[33] of an acquaintance of his, that had a Nephritick stone, of whose eminent Virtues he had often Experience ev’n in himself, and for that cause wore it still about his Wrist; and yet going upon a time into a Bath of fair Water only, wherein certain Herbs had been boyl’d, the Stone by being wetted with this decoction, was depriv’d of all his Virtue, whence Wormius takes Occasion to advertise the sick, to lay by such stones whensoever they make use of a Bath.  And we might expect to find Turcos likewise, easily to be wrought upon in point of Colour, if that were true, which the curious Antonio Neri, in his ingenious Arte Vetraria[34] teaches of it, namely, That Turcois’s discolour’d and grown white, will regain and acquire an excellent Colour, if you but keep them two or three days at most cover’d with Oyl of sweet Almonds kept in a temperate heat by warm ashes, I say if it were true, because I doubt whether it be so, and have not as yet had opportunity to satisfie my self by Tryals, because I find by the confession of the most Skilfull Persons among whom I have laid out for Turcoises, that the true ones are great rarities, though others be not at all so.  And therefore I shall now only mind you of one thing that you know as well as I, namely, that the rare Stone which is called Oculus Mundi, if it be good in its Kind, will have so great a change made in its Texture by being barely left a while in the Languidest of Liquors, common Waters, that from Opacous it will become Transparent, and acquire a Lustre of which it will again be depriv’d, without using any other Art or Violence, by leaving it a while in the Air.  And before experience had satisfy’d us of the truth of this, it seem’d as unlikely that common Water or Air, should work such great changes in that Gemm, as it now seems that the Effluviums of a human Body should effect lesser changes in a Turcois, especially if more susceptible of them, than other Stones of the same kind.  But both my Watch and my Eyes tell me that ’tis now high time to think of going to sleep, matters of this Nature, will be better, as well as more easily, clear’d by Conference, than Writing.  And therefore since I think you know me too well to make it needfull for me to disclame Credulity, notwithstanding my having entertain’d you with all these Extravagancies; for you know well, how wide a difference I am wont