First Book
water, although it will not have a very good taste. Sand that is thick, gravelly or gritty, found loose, and not solid like rock also gives great hopes; there the water is good, healthy and durable too. But with chalk it is the opposite, as it is very dense and moist in itself, through being so compressed and dry that water is very seldom found in it. It is true that when water is found there, it keeps well, both the chalk and the water that is placed in it. With [' ? ] very soft water is found, but this type has too large a proportion of mud, it even tastes of mud, and when put in a vessel leaves a muddy sediment on the bottom. In white clay a very tasty soft water is to be found, more than in any other type of earth, because this earth is very dense compact and fatty, and so conserves water well. In coarse stone there is a cold clear well distilled water; it is normal to find water where there is coarse stone, for that stone is almost as light as wood, full of large holes, and thus it seldom grows without water. From black earth it commonly issues clear and limpid and with a reasonable taste, although most often very mild or soft. In gravel, which is very loose and fine, there is little hope of finding water. My advice is that no-one should start to dig in it, for it would be labour in vain [/fol. 25r]\ if by chance water were present, it would be lost because of the looseness of the gravel- and that is guaranteed. But if the place be moist, and the gravel compact, if these signs are present you can dig with great hopes of finding water, and if you do so, the first water that you find will be good, and taste well. It is a commonplace that with care, intelligence and ingenuity a place where there is water can be recognised. The ancients used great care, and those who speculated in this science made many tests to give us clear information as to how we can find water: beyond the many signs they have given us, not content with them they have instructed us in many tests that they made, which if carried out carefully will afford great certainty of their truth.
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