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12If there be no springs from which water can be obtained, it is necessary to dig wells, on which every care is to be bestowed, and the utmost ingenuity and discretion used in the examination of the natural indications of the circumstances thereabout, inasmuch as the different sorts of soil which are met with, are many and various. That, like every other body, is composed of four elements; first of earth itself; water, whence are the springs; heat, whence sulphur, alum, and bitumen are generated; and air, whence arise great vapours, which, piercing through the pores to the opening of wells, strike upon the excavators and suffocate them by their natural influence, so that those who do not immediately escape lose their lives.
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